What to ask a web agency before you sign anything

We get inbound from prospects who are mid-evaluation with two or three other agencies. They ask us what to look for. Here's the list we send.

These aren't trick questions. A serious agency answers them quickly. A non-serious one fumbles through them, gets defensive, or sends you to a "discovery call" before they'll commit to a number.

1. Can I see the actual code/templates you'd use, before I sign?

If they say "every project is custom" but won't show their stack, that's a red flag. Real agencies have an opinionated, well-tested foundation they reuse. They should be proud to show it.

2. What does the site cost to host and maintain after you build it?

The build fee is the easy part. Ongoing cost is where most agencies hide the bill. Demand specifics: hosting per month, SSL, security updates, backup strategy, what happens when WordPress core updates and breaks something. If they shrug and say "we'll take care of it for $X/mo" without a line-item, the line-item is the problem.

3. Who actually does the work? In-house, freelance, or offshore?

Doesn't have to be in-house — but you should know. Offshore-built sites aren't bad by default, but you should know who's accountable when something breaks at 2am.

4. What does the contract say about ownership?

Your domain, your content, your photos, your code. You should own all of it. Some agencies retain rights to "their" templates and require ongoing fees just to keep your site live. Read the contract and ask: *"If I leave you tomorrow, what do I keep?"*

5. What's the actual delivery timeline, in business days?

Most agencies promise "4–6 weeks" and ship in 12. Demand a deliverable schedule with checkpoints. If they can't commit to a date, they don't have a process.

6. What happens after launch?

Specifically: free changes window (most should offer 30 days), what counts as a "change" vs. "new feature," monthly maintenance scope, support response time. Get this in writing.

7. Can you give me three references from the past 12 months?

Real agencies have happy recent clients. If they only show case studies from 3+ years ago, ask why. (Common answer: clients churned and they don't want to admit it.)

8. What does your site cost?

If their own marketing site is built on a Webflow template they didn't customize, they're not the agency that's going to build you something custom. Watch how they handle the question — defensiveness here is diagnostic.

9. Do you charge by the hour, by the project, or by the milestone?

Hourly billing rewards inefficiency. Milestone billing aligns incentives. Project pricing is fine if the scope is well-defined. Avoid agencies that won't commit to either a fixed scope or a fixed budget.

10. What's the worst project you've had in the past year, and what went wrong?

This is the one that separates real agencies from sales-driven ones. A real agency answers it without flinching: *"We over-promised on a launch date and ate the cost." "We had a scope misunderstanding and had to re-do a section." "A client fired us at 80% completion."* That's normal. An agency that says "no, all our projects go great" is hiding something — or hasn't shipped enough work to have learned anything.

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We answer all ten of these without hedging. If the agency you're talking to can't, you've already learned something valuable.

If you want to use this as a checklist on your next call, save the questions and bring them. We'd rather you find a great agency that isn't us than overpay for one that's flashier.