Questions to Ask a Website Designer Before You Hire Them

Twenty minutes of good questions before you hire a website designer saves months of frustration afterwards, especially for a startup spending a tight budget on its first website. The questions below are the ones we would want a client to ask us, grouped by topic, with a note on why each one matters and what a good answer sounds like. You will not need all twenty for every designer, but the ones on price, ownership and aftercare should never be skipped.

If you are still at the stage of comparing candidates, our guide to how to find and choose a website designer gives you a checklist to score them against and explains what happens once you have decided.

Experience and Work

1. Can I see websites you both designed and built that are still live?

A portfolio of screenshots tells you what a site looked like on launch day. Live sites tell you whether the work holds up. Ask for two or three recent examples the designer was wholly responsible for, then open them on your phone and judge the speed and usability for yourself.

2. Have you built websites for businesses like mine?

A designer who has worked with solicitors, trades, startups or whichever sector you are in will already understand what your customers expect and what the site needs to do. It is not essential, but it shortens the learning curve and shows in the first designs.

3. Who will actually do the work?

At agencies the person you speak to is often not the person who designs or builds your site, and the work may be subcontracted or sent offshore. There is nothing wrong with a team, but you should know who is doing what and who your point of contact is throughout. At DigitalPod the same people who design your website build it.

4. Do you design and build the site, or hand the design to a developer?

The handover from designer to developer is where detail gets lost and blame gets passed. A designer who builds their own designs, or a studio where both happen together, avoids the problem and usually costs less overall.

Process and Timescales

5. What is your process from start to finish?

A good answer has clear stages: understanding your requirements, planning the structure, visual designs for your approval, development, testing on a private server, then launch. A vague answer predicts a vague project. Our own website design process follows exactly this pattern.

6. How often will we speak, and how will I know what is happening?

Not knowing where a project is up to is the most common frustration clients report. Ask how progress will be communicated and how quickly questions are answered. Regular updates at each stage are the minimum you should expect.

7. How long will it take, and what do you need from me to hit that date?

Most small business websites take four to ten weeks once content is available. A realistic designer will give you a range and will tell you plainly that the timescale depends on how quickly you provide content and feedback.

8. How many design revisions are included?

Two or three rounds of revisions on the visual designs is typical. Find out what counts as a revision and what happens, and what it costs, if you need more. This is also the moment to ask whether changes requested after the design is approved are charged for.

Cost and Payment

9. What exactly is included in the price, and what is extra?

Ask for an itemised list: pages, design, mobile layouts, forms, search engine basics, testing, launch, training. Then ask what is excluded, which typically means copywriting, photography, logo design, hosting and ongoing support. Two quotes can only be compared once you know what each one covers.

10. Is the price fixed?

For a defined project the answer should be yes. Estimates that can grow, or hourly billing with no cap, leave you carrying the risk of the job overrunning. We quote fixed prices based on our published website design prices.

11. What are the payment terms?

A deposit of 30% to 50% up front with the balance on completion is standard and fair. Be cautious of full payment in advance, and of monthly schemes where you never finish paying. Our terms are 50% to begin and 50% on completion, before the site goes live.

12. What will it cost to add things later?

Businesses change. Ask what a new page, a new feature or a redesign of one section would roughly cost, and whether the site is built in a way that makes adding things straightforward. A site that has to be rebuilt to add a booking form is an expensive site.

Ownership and Technical

13. Who owns the website, the code and the domain name when it is finished?

The answer should be: you, outright, once the final payment is made, with the domain registered in your name. Anything else means you are renting. This is the most important question on the list.

14. Can I move the website to another host or developer?

If the site is built on the designer's own platform or a proprietary system, the honest answer is often no. A website built with standard, widely used technology can be hosted anywhere and maintained by anyone competent, which protects you if the relationship ends.

15. Will it be built with a template, a page builder, or coded?

None of these is automatically wrong, but you should know what you are paying for and the price should match. A template with your logo should not cost the same as a site designed from scratch. Our sites are hand-coded with modern technology rather than assembled from templates and plugins, which is why they load quickly and need little maintenance.

16. Will it be fast and work well on mobile?

Most of your visitors will arrive on a phone, and search engines rank sites on their mobile performance. The answer should be an unhesitating yes, and the designer's own portfolio sites should prove it when you check them.

17. What do you do to help the site perform in search engines?

Listen for the fundamentals: proper page titles and descriptions, clean and fast code, a sitemap, sensible headings and structure, and redirects from old pages if you are replacing an existing site. Ongoing search engine optimisation is a separate service, so ask whether it is offered and what it costs. Anyone guaranteeing a first-page ranking should be shown the door.

18. Do you use AI tools, and how?

Most designers now use AI somewhere in their workflow, and used well it makes the work faster and better. What you want to hear is that a human designs, reviews and tests everything, that AI is not used to generate a generic template-style site, and that your confidential business information is handled carefully. Our guide to website designers who use AI explains what to look for in more detail.

After Launch

19. Can I update the site myself, and what does hosting cost?

If you expect to add news, case studies or listings regularly, ask whether an admin dashboard is included or available, and what it adds to the price. Then ask what hosting costs per month and what is included. We offer managed cloud hosting from £20 per month, which keeps the site secure and lets us make quick changes when you need them.

20. What support do you offer after launch, what does it cost, and what happens if something breaks?

Find out whether there is a support period after launch, what ad-hoc changes cost, whether a maintenance plan is offered and what it includes, and how quickly problems are dealt with. A designer who is clear about aftercare is one who expects to still be around next year. Equally, you should not be forced into a retainer you do not need.

What to Do With the Answers

Write the answers down for each designer you speak to. Patterns become obvious very quickly: one designer is clear and specific on every point, another is confident on design but vague on ownership and costs. Pair this list with the scoring checklist in our guide to choosing a website designer and the decision usually makes itself.

If you would like to put these questions to us, we would welcome it. Get in touch with a few details about your business and we will answer every one of them, along with a fixed quote.