Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Web Agency
A pretty proposal isn’t enough. Use these questions to test technical competence, contract clarity, and cultural fit before you pay a deposit.
Ali Mortazavi
Founder, Paradise Code
Discovery questions: do they understand the problem?
Ask: how do you define 90-day success for this project? Which part of our brief is ambiguous? What would you cut from scope to protect budget? Good agencies hunt ambiguity; weak ones say “yes” fast.
Ask them to name one primary project risk. If they say “there is no risk,” they lack experience or candor.
Technical questions without buzzword theater
What’s the proposed stack and why for our problem? How do you test on real mobile devices? What’s the backup and rollback strategy? Do we get staging? How do you prevent regressions? Answers should be concrete—not “we use the best technologies.”
If they propose WordPress, ask why not alternatives; if Next.js, ask about maintenance cost and internal skill needs. Fit beats fashion.
Ownership, access, and security
Whose name is on the repo? When do we get hosting admin access? Where are secrets stored? Who can access customer data in staging? Vague answers are governance risk.
Ask how they handled a security or downtime incident—even for another client. Process beats “we’re secure” claims.
Process, communication, and decisions
How often are demos? Who is the day-to-day contact? What happens if our decision is 48 hours late? How is scope change priced? A disciplined agency makes change possible and its cost visible.
Ask for a real weekly report sample (redacted). Communication culture before contract is what you’ll get mid-project.
SEO, content, and measurement
Are URL maps and redirects in scope? Which analytics events will be implemented? Who enters content and who trains whom? A site without content ownership and measurement is a half asset.
Ask which metrics you’ll review together after launch. If success is only “pages delivered,” they’re optimizing activity—not outcomes.
Post-launch support and exit
What’s the critical-bug SLA? What does monthly care include—and exclude? How clear is the cost to exit or hand off to another team? A proposal without a support phase is incomplete.
Ask for a same-industry reference you can call—not only logos on a page. Ten minutes with a past client beats twenty proposal pages.
How to score the answers
Use a simple grid: problem understanding, technical clarity, ownership/security, process, post-launch—each 1 to 5. Compare price only among bids above your threshold. Drop cheap-and-vague from the race.
If you want a long-term partner in Tehran for custom websites and software products, ask Paradise Code the same questions in the first meeting—a serious team welcomes specific answers, not vague praise.
Frequently asked questions
How many agencies should we interview?
Usually three is enough with one shared brief. More than five without a scoring rubric mostly burns time.
Is a beautiful portfolio enough?
No. Score business outcomes, process, and ownership separately. Pretty UI can sit on technical debt.
What deposit is reasonable?
Depending on contract norms, often 30–50% of the first phase tied to a clear deliverable; avoid full prepay without milestones.
What if answers are good but cultural fit feels wrong?
Take the feeling seriously. Software projects are multi-month relationships; disrespect in sales usually worsens in delivery.
Insights
Need these ideas implemented in your product?
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