25 Questions to Ask a Web Design Agency Before You Sign

Hiring a web design agency is one of the larger discretionary purchases a small business makes, and it is one of the few where you cannot inspect the product before you buy it. You are buying a promise. The only reliable way to test that promise is to ask better questions than the agency expects, and to listen closely to how a potential web designer answers them.

This guide gives you 25 questions to ask a web design agency, organized by what each one protects: your business goals, your scope, your timeline, your search visibility, your budget, and your ownership of the finished website. It draws on Selworthy’s work managing more than 200 HubSpot portals and rebuilding sites for clients across the United States, and the pattern we see repeatedly is that the questions which protect buyers most are rarely the ones they think to ask. Every question below includes what a strong answer sounds like and what should make you pause. Use it as a scorecard across every web design firm on your shortlist, and the right partner tends to separate itself quickly.

The short list: 25 questions to ask before you hire

If you only have a 30-minute discovery call, work through these in order. The full explanation for each follows below.

1. What business goals should this website hit in the first 12 months?
2. Who is our target audience, and what should they do on the site?
3. What will you review on our current website before you design anything?
4. What is failing on our existing website today?
5. How many pages will the new site include, and how is that number decided?
6. Which content management system do you build on, and why that one?
7. Do you build custom sites, or start from pre made templates?
8. Is responsive web design and mobile responsiveness included by default?
9. When do you recommend fully custom websites over a template build?
10. Walk me through your web design process from kickoff to launch.
11. Who is our project manager and single point of contact?
12. What is the project timeline, and what is the target launch date?
13. How many rounds of revisions are included before change orders begin?
14. What communication tools and project management software will we use?
15. Do you work in house, or outsource to other designers and contractors?
16. What is your approach to user experience design?
17. Will the site meet WCAG accessibility guidelines, and at what level?
18. How do you test the site before and after it goes live?
19. How will this new website generate leads after launch?
20. How do you handle search engine optimization and keyword research during the build?
21. What marketing services and additional services do you offer beyond web design?
22. Do you provide logo design, brand standards, and content strategy?
23. Can I see custom sites you built for businesses like ours, and speak to past clients?
24. Who owns the site, the logo files, the code, and the customer data?
25. What post launch support, additional support, and training do you provide?

How we built this list of questions

These are not interview trivia. Each question maps to a specific way a website project goes wrong for small businesses. We weighted the list toward the failure modes that cost the most to fix after the fact.

• Misalignment on business goals. A beautiful site that does not move a number is the most expensive kind of failure, because it looks like success.
• Scope drift. Undefined page counts and vague deliverables are where budgets quietly double.
• Ownership traps. Some design companies keep the hosting, the domain, or the logo files, which makes leaving expensive.
• SEO as an afterthought. A redesign that ignores search engines can erase years of ranking history in a single weekend.
• Accessibility exposure. Sites that ignore WCAG guidelines shut out real users and create real legal risk.
• Support gaps. Technical issues arrive after launch, not before, and that is exactly when many web companies go quiet.
• Team opacity. You should know whether the design team that pitched you is the design team that builds your website.

Business goals, target audience, and your current website

The first four questions have nothing to do with design. They establish whether the agency is building toward an outcome or just toward a deadline. A potential web designer who leads with color palettes before understanding your core business is telling you something.

1. What business goals should this website hit in the first 12 months? Push for numbers. More demo requests, shorter sales cycles, fewer support calls, better recruiting. A good website is measured, not admired. If the agency cannot connect design decisions to a business outcome, they are selling you decoration. Strong answers sound like: “We would define two primary conversion actions, instrument them, and report on them monthly.”

2. Who is our target audience, and what should they do on the site? The agency should ask you this before you ask them. Effective web design depends on understanding your target audience and the specifics of your industry, so listen for whether they want to talk to your sales team and your customers, or whether they are content to guess. Web projects that skip audience research produce sites that speak to the business owner’s taste rather than the buyer’s needs.

3. What will you review on our current website before you design anything? The answer should include analytics, your top web pages by traffic and conversion, your sitemap, your live URLs, and your existing rankings. Ask specifically whether they will map every URL on the existing site to a new one with redirects. Redesigning without that review is how a new site launches with broken links and a traffic cliff.

4. What is failing on our existing website today? A serious web design firm will have opinions before the contract is signed. Ask them to walk you through one of your service pages and critique it live. You will learn more from five minutes of that than from an hour of portfolio review. It also tells you whether they can articulate why something is not working, or only that it looks dated.

Scope: how many pages, custom sites, and the content management system

Scope questions protect your budget. Most disputes between a business and a web developer trace back to something that was assumed rather than written down.

5. How many pages will the new site include, and how is that number decided? Get a page count in writing, and get clarity on what a “page” means. Does a service page with six sections count the same as a thin contact page? Does the blog listing count? Does each blog post template count? Ask what happens when you need page 26 on a 25 page quote.

6. Which content management system do you build on, and why that one? Common answers include HubSpot CMS, WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace, and Shopify. The right follow-up is not “which is best” but “why is this one right for us.” A content management system decision determines who can edit the site, how it connects to your CRM, and how painful the next redesign will be. Ask about ongoing platform costs too, since most hosted systems carry a subscription fee for access to their features, and that cost belongs in your budget from day one. Be skeptical of an agency that only ever recommends one platform regardless of the client.

7. Do you build custom sites, or start from pre made templates? Neither answer is wrong. Templates are faster and cheaper; custom sites give you exactly what you need. What matters is that the agency is honest about which one you are buying. Some design firms quote custom pricing and deliver a lightly reskinned theme, so ask directly whether the design is built from your brand or adapted from a purchased template.

8. Is responsive web design and mobile responsiveness included by default? Responsive web design adjusts the layout for every device type, and it should be table stakes, yet it still needs asking, because “mobile friendly” and “designed mobile first” are not the same commitment. Ask to see the mobile view of three recent site launches on your own phone, not in a curated mockup.

Fully custom websites versus pre made templates

9. When do you recommend fully custom websites over a template build? This question separates consultants from order takers. An agency that recommends fully custom websites for every client regardless of budget is optimizing for its own invoice. The honest answer acknowledges a threshold: below a certain complexity, a well-chosen template with custom branding delivers most of the value at a fraction of the cost.

Ask for the cost and timeline difference between the two paths on your specific project. Fully custom websites typically add weeks to the project timeline and require more of your team’s input on content and direction. If you do not have that bandwidth right now, a phased approach, template first and custom later, is often the smarter call. A partner willing to tell you that is worth keeping on the list.

The design process, project timeline, and revisions

These questions are about how the work actually gets done, and who does it. This is where most designers offer the least specificity, so press for detail.

10. Walk me through your web design process from kickoff to launch. You want named phases with named deliverables: discovery, information architecture, wireframes, visual design, build, content load, quality assurance, launch. Ask what you owe them at each stage. Designers should have a documented project management process with review checkpoints built in, and a vague design process is the single strongest predictor of a project that runs long, because there is no shared definition of “done.”

11. Who is our project manager and single point of contact? A project manager should oversee the work from start to finish. Ask to meet that person before you sign, not after, and ask what happens when they are on vacation or leave the company. Ask how many multiple projects they run at once, since a manager carrying a dozen accounts will not be as responsive as one carrying three. On small teams, the answer may be the founder, which is fine as long as it is said out loud.

12. What is the project timeline, and what is the target launch date? Most small business websites take somewhere between four weeks and three months depending on page count and content readiness, with two to three months being typical for a full build. Be suspicious of a launch date that does not depend on when you deliver content, because content is almost always the bottleneck. Ask what happens to the schedule and the cost if your content is two weeks late.

13. How many rounds of revisions are included before change orders begin? Designers typically include two to three rounds of revisions per phase. What matters more is the definition: is a round one consolidated set of feedback from your whole team, or does every individual email count against your allotment? Clarify what counts as a revision versus a scope change, and confirm that scope changes must be approved in writing, because that boundary is where billing disputes live. When earlier phases are approved properly, final edits are usually minimal.

14. What communication tools and project management software will we use? Ask which platform holds the schedule and the feedback, how often you will get status updates, and whether you get a login to see progress on the website project yourself. Regular, structured communication is what separates a project you can plan around from one you have to chase. Too many channels fragments the conversation, so agree on one place for decisions and one for day-to-day questions.

15. Do you work in house, or outsource to other designers and contractors? Outsourcing is not disqualifying. Undisclosed outsourcing is, and any agency should tell you plainly which parts of the web development are handled by an in house team and which go to contractors. Ask who manages them, who is accountable for quality, and whether your customer data ever leaves the agency’s systems. An in house team gives you tighter coordination; a hybrid model can give you deeper specialist skill.

User experience design, accessibility, and pre-launch testing

These three questions get skipped most often, and they are the ones that determine whether real people can actually use the site you paid for.

16. What is your approach to user experience design? User experience design is the practice of creating a positive online experience, and it spans branding, function, and usability rather than visual polish alone. Ask how they decide what goes above the fold, how navigation is structured, and what evidence informs those calls. Ask whether they test designs with real users or rely on internal opinion. An agency that can explain why a layout works, in terms of what the visitor is trying to accomplish, is thinking about your buyer rather than their portfolio.

17. Will the site meet WCAG accessibility guidelines, and at what level? Accessibility best practices follow the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, and Level AA is the common target for business websites. Ask whether accessibility is built into the design phase or checked at the end, how they handle color contrast, keyboard navigation, focus states, form labels, and alt tag text on images, and whether they provide a validation report before launch. Accessible sites serve more users and reduce legal exposure, and retrofitting accessibility after launch costs considerably more than designing for it.

18. How do you test the site before and after it goes live? Testing should confirm that all links work before the site goes live, along with forms, integrations, and page speed across browsers and devices. Ask for the quality assurance checklist. Ask who tests, whether you get a staging environment to review, and how long you have to sign off. Ask specifically how they check for broken links and redirect errors after migration, because that is the most common post-launch failure and the easiest to prevent.

Then ask what testing continues after launch, which is the half most agencies skip. The first two weeks on a new site are when problems actually surface: forms that submit but never reach the CRM, redirects that fire in a loop, pages that fall out of the index, tracking that double-counts. A good agency schedules a post-launch check at 48 hours, one week, and 30 days, watching Google Search Console coverage, form submissions, uptime, and 404 logs, and tells you who fixes what they find and at whose cost.

SEO, marketing strategy, and how the new site will generate leads

A website that no one finds is a brochure with a hosting bill. These questions test whether the agency thinks past launch day.

19. How will this new website generate leads after launch? The answer should involve specific lead generation mechanisms: conversion paths, forms mapped to your CRM, lead magnets, calls to action matched to buying stage, and a plan for what happens to a lead after it comes in. If the answer is “the site will look more professional, so more people will call,” that is a hope, not a marketing strategy.

20. How do you handle search engine optimization and keyword research during the build? Search engine optimization has to be integrated from the start of the web design process, not bolted on, and it is meaningfully less expensive when it is included in the initial design phase rather than bought as a fix later. Ask whether keyword research happens before the sitemap is finalized, because your page structure should reflect what people actually search for. Ask how they handle title tags, meta descriptions, heading hierarchy, alt tag text, internal linking, mobile-friendliness, and page speed, since fast, mobile-ready pages are a direct ranking input under Google’s Core Web Vitals. Then ask the question most agencies dread: what is the redirect plan so we do not lose our position in search engines on launch day?

Also ask how the site will support content over time. Proper SEO improves visibility gradually rather than immediately, so the compounding only happens if you keep publishing. Agencies that build inbound growth into the project tend to deliver sites that perform long after launch. If you plan to ship a blog post every month, the template needs to handle it well, and someone needs to own the content strategy. Web pages that are never updated do not compound.

21. What marketing services and additional services do you offer beyond web design? You are not obligated to buy them, but the answer tells you how the agency thinks. Some design companies only build. Others provide ongoing marketing services after launch, including content creation, social media management, paid media, email, revenue operations, and analytics. A partner with those related services in house can connect the site to the rest of your funnel; a pure design shop will hand off to whoever you hire next. Both work, as long as you plan for the handoff.

Logo design, brand standards, and other related services

22. Do you provide logo design, brand standards, and content strategy? Many web design agencies offer logo design as part of a package, and content creation is frequently bundled as well. If your brand identity is dated or inconsistent, redesigning the website first is building on sand, so ask whether logo design and a brand standards document are inside the scope or a separate engagement. If you already have a brand, ask what logo files and brand assets they need from you and in what formats, so you are not scrambling mid-project.

Content is the other frequent gap. Ask explicitly who writes the copy. Many quotes assume the client provides all written content, and that assumption is buried in the scope. If you want the agency to write it, get that priced upfront. The same applies to photography, iconography, and any careers page work such as a job posting template or a connection to your recruiting tools.

Portfolio, past clients, and the design team behind the work

23. Can I see custom sites you built for businesses like ours, and speak to past clients? A web design agency is best evaluated on relevant project experience and the outcomes it produced. Portfolios show capability; references show what it is like to work with the team when something goes wrong. Ask for two references: one recent client and one from two or more years ago. The older reference tells you whether the relationship survived past the invoice.

When reviewing the portfolio, look past aesthetics. Ask what the goal of each project was and whether it was met. Ask which team member led it and whether that person is still with the agency. Ask how many similar web projects the design team has completed together, because a team that has shipped twenty sites together is a very different risk profile than five talented individuals on their first project as a group. A beautiful site in a case study means little if the design team that built it has since dispersed. Shortlist two or three design firms and run all of them through the same questions, so you are comparing answers rather than impressions.

How to read testimonials and case studies

Testimonials and case studies are the most-gamed part of any agency website, so read them for structure rather than sentiment. A testimonial that says the team was “a pleasure to work with” tells you nothing. One that names a specific problem, what the agency did, and what changed afterwards tells you a great deal.

Apply four tests to every case study you are shown:

• Is it attributed? A full name, title, and company beat “J.S., CEO” every time. Anonymous praise is unverifiable by design.
• Does it carry before-and-after numbers? Conversion rate, organic sessions, lead volume, bounce rate, time to launch. Screenshots alone are decoration.
• Is the business comparable to yours? A great result for an ecommerce brand with 40 SKUs does not predict much about a B2B services site with a long sales cycle.
• Is the site still live and still theirs? Open the URL. If the client has since rebuilt with someone else, that is worth knowing, and it is a fair thing to ask about.

Then ask the question that separates real proof from marketing: “Can you show me a project that did not go to plan, and what you changed as a result?” Every agency with a real track record has one. The ones that claim otherwise are either new or not being straight with you.

Ownership, hosting, security, and post launch support

24. Who owns the site, the logo files, the code, and the customer data? The answer should be: you do, unambiguously, in writing. You own the content you upload to your website, your domain name must be registered in your own firm’s name rather than the agency’s, and final design files should belong to you once payment is complete. Confirm you get administrator credentials to hosting and the content management system, and check the contract terms directly rather than relying on a verbal assurance. Ask whether any part of the build relies on a proprietary system or license that stops working if you leave.

While you are here, confirm the security basics: SSL certificate, automated backups, uptime commitment, and who patches the platform. Ask who to call at 11pm when the site is down, and what the response time commitment is.

25. What post launch support, additional support, and training do you provide? Ask whether support is included for a period, sold as a retainer, or billed hourly, and get the hourly rate in writing now rather than discovering it later. Ask what is covered: security patches and technical issues, or also new features and new tools as your needs evolve.

Then ask about training. If your team can handle routine edits, you will spend far less over the life of the site. A good agency will show you the editing tools during the sales process and let you try them, and some include structured onboarding and training programs. If they are reluctant to let you edit your own website, ask yourself why.

Red flags when hiring a web design firm

Some answers should end the conversation. Watch for these patterns across every web design firm you evaluate. Most of them show up during the sales process, which is the one window where an agency is trying its hardest to impress you. How a firm behaves while it is courting you is the best available preview of how it behaves once it has your deposit.

• A quote with no page count or deliverable list. If the scope is one paragraph, the change orders will not be.
• A single price with no breakdown. A lump sum hides which parts you could cut, defer, or take in house. Ask for cost by phase. If the number moves each time you ask, the estimate was never grounded in scope.
• Slow or scattered communication before you have signed. Unanswered emails, missed calls, and answers spread across four channels during the sales process do not improve after the contract. Time their response to your last three messages and treat that as the service level you are buying.
• No written project timeline. “Six to eight weeks” with no milestones, no dependencies, and no statement of what they need from you is a guess. Ask for dated phases and what happens to the schedule when either side is late.
• Reluctance to name the team. If you cannot meet the people doing the work, you do not know who is doing the work.
• No redirect or migration plan. This is the fastest way to lose organic traffic that took years to build.
• Ownership hedging. Any hesitation about who owns the domain, the code, or the customer data is disqualifying.
• Accessibility treated as optional. An agency that has never heard of WCAG is not building for all of your users.
• Anonymous testimonials only. If no client will attach their name and title to the praise, treat it as copywriting.
• Pressure to sign today. Discounts that expire in 24 hours are a sales tactic, not a business practice.
• No questions for you. A potential web designer who does not interrogate your business goals will not build toward them.
• Portfolio links that 404. Broken links in a web design company’s own portfolio tell you what their maintenance standards are.

Does your existing website need a redesign or a rebuild?

Before you brief any agency, it helps to know which project you are actually buying. A redesign changes the look and structure on the same platform. A rebuild changes the tech stack underneath. The cost difference is significant, and agencies will quote whichever one you ask for.

Lean toward a redesign if your current site performs well technically, ranks reasonably in search engines, and your team can already update it. Lean toward a rebuild if you cannot edit web pages without a developer, if the platform is unsupported, if mobile responsiveness is poor, or if the existing site cannot connect to your CRM. Bring this assessment to the discovery call and ask the agency whether they agree. Their answer, especially if it disagrees with yours and explains why, is a useful signal about whether they are advising you or selling you.

What strong answers look like

What to read carefully in the contract

Contracts protect both you and the agency, which means they also encode assumptions you may not have discussed. Read the payment schedule, the revision limits, the intellectual property clause, and the termination terms before you sign anything.

Pay particular attention to automatic renewal on any maintenance retainer, to what happens to your site if you stop paying, and to whether the agency can display your project in its portfolio. Ask what the exit process looks like: who transfers what, how long it takes, and whether there is a fee. A good agency will answer plainly and put it in the agreement. If they rush you through the paperwork, slow down. For larger engagements, having a lawyer review the terms is a small cost against the risk.

Where Selworthy fits if you want a HubSpot-native build

Selworthy is a HubSpot Gold Certified agency that builds websites on HubSpot CMS and connects them to the rest of the revenue engine, so the site, the CRM, the email, and the reporting are one system rather than four tools stitched together. Founded in 2008 and a HubSpot partner since 2016, the team has managed more than 200 HubSpot portals and holds a 95% client retention rate. Our listing in the HubSpot Solutions Partner directory is public if you want to verify the tier independently, which is exactly the kind of check this article recommends you run on any agency.

Practically, that means the answers to the 25 questions above are documented before a project starts: a written page count, a named project manager, keyword research before the sitemap is locked, a redirect plan, accessibility validated before launch, full ownership of your domain and assets, and training so your team can update web pages without filing a ticket. Selworthy is headquartered in Shallotte, North Carolina, an hour from both Wilmington and Myrtle Beach, and works with clients across the United States.

Every engagement starts with four hours of complimentary consulting, which is enough time to audit your current website, review your existing rankings, and produce a scoped recommendation before either side commits. Whether or not Selworthy ends up being the right fit, you leave with a plan you can take to any agency on your shortlist. Start with a free consultation.

FAQs about hiring a web design agency

How much do web design agencies charge?

Published industry figures, including Business.com’s guidance for hiring a web developer, commonly put a good website in the $10,000 to $40,000 range, with custom programming and complex integrations pushing budgets into six figures. Template builds for very small businesses land well below that band. Many designers offer a range of related services that affect the total, so compare quotes on deliverables rather than headline price, and discuss your budget before the project starts rather than after the proposal arrives.

What should a web design proposal include?

A comprehensive proposal should let you say yes or no without a follow-up call. Expect a defined scope with a page count and a deliverable list, a phased timeline with milestone dates and what the agency needs from you at each one, a cost breakdown by phase rather than a single lump sum, and a payment schedule tied to those milestones. It should also state what is explicitly excluded, how many revision rounds are included, who owns the finished assets, and what post-launch support costs. If any of those five are missing, ask for them in writing before you sign, because every one of them is a place where cost quietly appears later.

How long does it take to build a small business website?

Expect four weeks to three months, with two to three months typical for a full build. The timeline is driven mostly by page count and how quickly you supply content and approvals. Fully custom websites take longer than template builds. Ask any agency what their timeline assumes about your side of the work, because that assumption is usually where schedules slip.

What questions should I ask a designer about SEO?

Ask when keyword research happens relative to the sitemap, how they handle title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, and alt tag text, what their page speed and mobile targets are, and what the redirect plan is for existing URLs. The redirect question is the most important one, because a redesign without it can wipe out established rankings overnight.

How do I verify an agency's case studies and testimonials?

Look for named attribution with title and company, before-and-after metrics rather than screenshots, and a client whose business model resembles yours. Open the live URL to confirm the site is still running and still built by that agency, and ask to speak with the client directly. Any agency confident in its work will make the introduction.

Should I hire a freelance web designer or an agency?

A freelance website designer usually costs less and can be excellent for a focused project. An agency offers redundancy, broader skills, and continuity if one person becomes unavailable. Ask a freelancer what happens if they get sick mid-project, and ask an agency whether the person who pitched you is the person who builds. Both models work; the risk profiles differ.

Should I choose a local agency or work with a remote team?

Both work. Video calls, shared project boards, and messaging tools have made location largely irrelevant to web design projects. Local matters most if your project needs on-site photography or frequent in-person workshops. Otherwise, weight relevant experience and process over proximity.

Who should own the website after launch?

You should, without qualification. That means the domain name registered in your firm’s name, administrator access to the hosting and content management system, ownership of the content you upload, and delivery of final design files and logo files on request. Confirm this in the contract rather than assuming it.

What is the difference between a web designer and a web developer?

A web designer handles layout, visual hierarchy, and user experience design. A web developer builds the functioning site, including templates, integrations, and anything custom. Many small web companies combine both roles in one person. On larger web projects they are separate, and it is worth asking which specialists will touch your build.

What happens if I am unhappy with the design?

This is why revision rounds and milestone approvals exist. Confirm before signing how many rounds are included, what counts as a revision versus a scope change, and what the exit terms are if the relationship is not working. Concerns raised at the wireframe stage cost far less to resolve than concerns raised the week before launch.