How to vet a web agency before hiring — a 12-point checklist

Vet a web agency in five steps: open three sites from their portfolio and measure them through PageSpeed Insights, verify company registration in the business register, ask for a written proposal with clear scope, contact two previous clients directly, and ask who specifically will work on your project. This check takes an hour and eliminates 80% of bad choices. The most expensive website is not the one with the highest price — it is the one you have to build twice.

You check a portfolio by opening live websites, not images. If an agency shows only screenshots or Behance mockups, ask for URLs — it often turns out the project was never launched or the agency only did part of it. On a live site, check: PageSpeed Insights score on mobile (below 50 is a bad sign), whether the site has HTTPS, whether it loads in under three seconds, whether it has structured data (check through Google Rich Results Test), and whether it is responsive on a phone. Look at the source code too — clean, semantic HTML says more about a team than any case study text.

The contract must contain: precise scope (number of pages, features, number of revision rounds), phased deadlines with consequences for delays on both sides, price and payment schedule, an intellectual property ownership clause, a definition of "done" (acceptance criteria), a warranty period for bug fixes, and termination terms. What is most often missing and causes trouble: the number of revision rounds and the definition of what counts as "minor changes". Without it, the project drags on for months or you get an extra invoice for something you assumed was included.

Ownership is the most common hidden problem. Insist that after payment you are the owner: domain registered in your name and your account (not the agency's), hosting account in your name or with full access, all code delivered into your Git repository, and access to all services (Google Analytics, Search Console, CMS admin) on your email. If the agency holds the domain or hosting in its own name, it technically holds you hostage — changing agencies then means either paying a ransom or rebuilding the site from scratch. Ask for this in writing, before the first payment.

Red flags: a price drastically below market with no explanation (usually a template and no support), refusal to provide a written contract or proposal, demanding full payment upfront, inability to give you contact details for any previous client, promising "first position on Google" within a specific timeframe (nobody can guarantee that), vagueness about who works on the project, avoiding questions about code ownership, a portfolio without links, and communication solely through social media with no registered company behind it. If you hit three or more of these, keep looking. Feather Studio answers every one of these questions in writing before anything is signed.