Eight questions, not twenty five. Whose name goes on the domain, who holds the hosting, what happens to the site if you stop paying, who owns the code when the invoice clears, what one revision means, what is excluded, who you will actually be speaking to, and what happens if they disappear.
The lists of twenty five questions are not wrong, they are just unusable. Nobody runs a twenty five item interrogation on a first call, and most of the items are answered by looking at the portfolio anyway.
What follows is shorter, and for each one it says what a good answer sounds like and what a bad answer sounds like. That second part is the bit the published lists tend to leave out.
The eight, with the answers to listen for
| Ask | A good answer | A bad answer |
|---|---|---|
| Whose name will be on the domain registration? | “Yours, in your own registrar account. I will need access, not ownership.” | “We handle all that for you, do not worry about it.” |
| Who holds the hosting account? | Either your own account, or a clear explanation of their reseller setup and how you leave it. | Vagueness, or not knowing what a reseller plan is. |
| If I stop paying, what happens to the site and when? | A number of days, and what you get in the meantime. | “That has never come up.” |
| When the invoice is paid, who owns the design and code? | “You do, and it says so in the agreement.” Or an honest licence explanation. | “You own your content.” That answers a different question. |
| What counts as one revision? | A definition. One consolidated round of feedback, or a number of hours. | “We are flexible.” This becomes an argument in month two. |
| What is explicitly not included? | A list, offered readily, with prices for the common extras. | “Whatever you need.” Nobody means this. |
| Who will I actually be talking to? | A name, and what happens when that person is away. | “The team.” Ask who on the team. |
| If you stopped trading tomorrow, what would I need? | They walk you through it: registrar access, a backup, where the files live. | Discomfort. This is the most revealing question on the list. |
The last one is the one we would keep if we could only ask one. It is not a trick and it is not adversarial. It just forces the conversation onto the things that actually go wrong, which are almost never design and almost always access.
Notice that six of the eight are about ownership and process, and not one is about design. That is deliberate.
You can judge design yourself by looking at their last five sites, and you do not need a question for it. What you cannot see from a portfolio is whether you will be able to leave, who is holding your domain, and what “unlimited revisions” turns into when you are on round four. Those are the things that cost people a fortnight and a lot of goodwill, and they are all knowable in one phone call.
Which common questions tell you nothing?
Not harmful, just not informative. Each of these has a rehearsed answer.
- “Do you follow SEO best practices?” Everybody says yes. Ask instead what they will do about the rankings you already have, and listen for the word redirects.
- “Is it mobile responsive?” It has been table stakes for a decade. Open their last three sites on your own phone instead.
- “Can you show me your portfolio?” They will show you the best five of fifty. Ask for the last three they shipped, in order, whatever they look like.
- “How much does it cost?” Worth asking, but the total matters more than the number. Ask what the first year costs including hosting, maintenance and the extras that are not in scope.
- “Can I edit it myself afterwards?” Almost always yes in theory. Ask them to show you the editor on a screen share for two minutes.
A useful question is one where the answer could plausibly be bad. If every competent supplier gives the same answer, the question is not doing any work for you.
How to read the price, not just hear it
Price is the question everyone asks and the one most likely to mislead, because the number quoted and the number paid are different numbers. Ask for the first year total instead, broken out.
| Line | Supplier A | Supplier B |
|---|---|---|
| Quoted build | $3,500 | $6,000 |
| Copywriting | $1,200 extra | included |
| Migration and redirects | $600 extra | included |
| Hosting, year one | $360 | $240 |
| Maintenance, year one | $1,800 | $1,140 |
| First year total | $7,460 | $7,380 |
Illustrative, using the market rates in what a website should cost and what maintenance costs. The point is the shape, not the exact figures.
Supplier A looks $2,500 cheaper and is $80 cheaper. That is not a trick on A’s part. It is what happens when you compare a build price to a build price instead of a year to a year.
Three answers that should end the conversation
Most bad answers are just vague and can be pressed on. These three are different, because each one tells you the arrangement itself is wrong.
- “We register the domain under our account, it is simpler.” It is simpler for them. This is the single hardest thing to unwind later and there is no good reason for it.
- “You cannot take the site with you, it only runs on our platform.” Sometimes technically true and always worth knowing before, not after. If you accept it, accept it deliberately.
- “We do not really do contracts, we work on trust.” Trust is what makes the contract unnecessary right up until the week it becomes necessary.
I would hire a supplier who answered two of these badly but answered them directly, over one who was smooth on all eight. Fluency is not the signal. Specificity is.
The tell I actually listen for is whether somebody volunteers a limitation before being asked. Anyone who says “we would not be right for you if you need a booking system” in the first ten minutes has told you they would rather lose the job than take the wrong one, and that is worth more than any answer on the list.
The same eight questions weigh differently by supplier
All eight are worth asking whoever you are talking to. Which answer should worry you depends on what kind of supplier you are hiring, and no published list we found makes that distinction.
| Hiring | The real risk | Press hardest on |
|---|---|---|
| A solo freelancer | They stop trading, get ill, or take a full time job. Not malice, just life. | What you would need if they disappeared, and where the backup lives. |
| A small studio | The person who sold you the work is not the person who does it, and the handover is where detail is lost. | Who you will actually be speaking to, and what one revision means. |
| A larger agency | You are a small account. Process is fine, attention is scarce, and the extras are itemised. | What is explicitly excluded, and what one revision means. |
| A platform or reseller | The site is rented. It often cannot leave the platform at all. | Domain registration, and who owns the code when the invoice clears. |
| A monthly arrangement, ours included | You are paying for access as much as a site. Stopping has consequences. | What happens to the site if you stop paying, and on what day. |
The last row is us, and we put it in because the honest weakness of a subscription is exactly that: the answer to “what happens if I stop paying” matters more than it does with an agency who hands over a finished site and leaves. If a supplier on a monthly fee cannot answer that in a specific number of days, walk.
What to get in writing, whoever you pick
Four lines in an agreement prevent almost every dispute we have seen.
- The domain is registered in the client’s name, in an account the client controls.
- On final payment, rights in the design, code and content produced transfer to the client.
- The client holds owner level access to hosting, Analytics and Search Console.
- On request, a full backup of files and database is provided within a stated number of working days.
Plain English to raise with your supplier, not legal drafting. The longer version, including what to do when it has already gone wrong, is in who owns your website.
How do we answer our own eight?
It would be a bit rich to publish this list without answering it, so: the domain is in your name from day one, there is no minimum term, the buyout to own the site outright is published and falls from $4,000 to $1,500 with tenure, hosting winds down 30 days after a last payment with a full content export inside five days, one consolidated round of feedback is one revision, shops and booking engines are declined outright, and the person you speak to is the person who builds it, because there is only one of us.
The point is not that those are the right answers for you. Several of them are reasons to hire somebody else. The point is that a supplier should be able to answer all eight without going away to check.
Common questions
What is the most important question to ask a web designer?
“If you stopped trading tomorrow, what would I need from you?” It moves the conversation onto access and ownership, which is where real problems live, and the hesitation tells you as much as the answer.
Should I ask for references?
Yes, and ask for the most recent three rather than their pick. A supplier who cannot name a recent client is worth a second look, though a new business with few clients is a different situation from an established one that avoids the question.
How do I know if a quote is fair?
Compare the first year total, not the build price. Build plus hosting plus maintenance plus the items that turn out to be extra. We wrote up the market rates in what a website should cost.
Is it rude to ask about what happens if they go out of business?
No, and a good supplier will have thought about it. It is the same question a sensible client asks any small supplier, and the answer is usually short: here is your registrar login and here is where the backup lives.
What if they will not put the answers in writing?
Treat that as the answer. None of the four lines above is onerous for anyone intending to behave well, and a refusal to write them down is information.
Bring one more thing to the call
Run your current site through our checker first, so you can ask a supplier what they would do about the specific things it flags rather than talking in generalities.