What to Ask Before Hiring a Web Agency

en 2026-09-15 6 min read

A business website costs EUR 1.500 to EUR 3.500, and the step below it, a mini-site of two or three pages, costs EUR 900 to EUR 1.500. An agency that will not put a number like that in front of you before the scoping call is asking you to buy on trust alone, and the questions below are the ones that replace trust with evidence.

Every question here has a short answer a serious studio gives without pausing. Ours sit underneath each one, with the prices attached.

Who owns the code, the repository and the database

Ask it plainly: when the project is finished, whose account holds the repository, and whose name is on the database? You want that answer in writing before anything is built. Ours is simple. The client owns the code, the repository and the database.

A thin agency has a reason to be vague here. If your site lives inside a licensed page builder or a template the agency resells, leaving means starting again from nothing. Ownership is what keeps the rest of the relationship voluntary, which is why it belongs in the first conversation rather than in the handover email.

Where the site is hosted, and whose name is on the accounts

Ask which accounts the site depends on and who is named on each of them: domain, DNS, hosting, analytics, and any payment provider. We can host, but it is agreed per customer rather than folded into the price.

The failure you are testing for is the agency that registers your domain to itself, which turns an ordinary supplier into a gatekeeper on the day you want to move. Ask for the registrar, the account holder and the renewal date.

What happens the week after launch

Launch is not the end of the work, it is the point where the work becomes visible. Every build includes 14 days of support on launch defects. Care with us is EUR 100 to EUR 300 per month and covers updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes. It is not a redesign and it is not new features, and we say that in advance rather than after you have asked for one.

Then ask the harder version. What does a new feature cost, and who decides which side of that line a request sits on?

Who writes the words

Ask who writes the copy, and when you will see it. Design work stalls on missing text, because text is the only part of a project that cannot be produced without the person who knows the business. Either the studio writes it, or you write it to a brief, or you split it page by page. Any of those work. If a quote has no line for content, ask whether the writing is yours before you find out in the week the build is waiting on you.

What a fixed quote actually covers

A fixed quote is only fixed against a written scope. Ask to see the scope the number is attached to, and ask in the same breath what happens when something is added to it. Our ladder is below, so you have something concrete to hold a rival quote against. All prices exclude VAT.

In a new build, payments and checkout belong to step 04. If a quote puts a shop or a paid booking flow inside a business-website price, the number is wrong, and the gap will reach you later as a change request. A checkout brings a provider account, stored data and failure states that all have to be built and then tested.

Care is EUR 100 to EUR 300 per month and SEO growth is EUR 500 to EUR 800 per month, and both recur. SEO foundation does not continue. It is a one-off of EUR 450 to EUR 750 covering Search Console, analytics, indexation, technical hygiene, titles, internal links and a plan for the next 3 to 6 months. Ask any agency which of its line items are one-off and which recur.

What moves the number

A quote moves on how much already exists, whether the site needs accounts and payments, how many languages it ships in, and what you want to happen after launch.

• What already exists. A brand, usable photography, a live domain and copy you are happy with all shorten the build. Starting from nothing is fine, it simply takes longer.
• Accounts and payments. A login, a dashboard or a checkout moves a project to step 04 at EUR 3.500 to EUR 7.500, because each one adds data you become responsible for.
• Languages. A second language is a second version of every page, plus the structure that keeps them matched.
• After launch. Care, SEO, or neither. You can decide later, but the quote reads differently once you have.

How the weeks are spent

1. Scoping, where we write down what the site has to do and attach a fixed price to it.
2. Design of the pages that carry the work, with the rest following the pattern they set.
3. Build. Design and engineering sit in the same studio, so nothing is thrown over a wall in between.
4. Content and review on the real site rather than in a document.
5. Launch, and the watching that follows it.

A single-page landing runs 1 to 2 weeks, a mini-site 2 to 3 weeks, a business website 3 to 6 weeks, and an advanced site or web app 6 to 12 weeks. Step 05 gets its timeline after discovery, because a platform with auth, billing, an admin area and a deployment path cannot be estimated honestly before its scope exists. What we build on is on the Next.js development page.

When to spend less

If what you need is one page that explains the offer and takes an enquiry, buy step 01 at EUR 600 to EUR 900 and stop there. A business website will not outperform a good landing page when there is one thing to say.

If your current site works and only looks dated, Care at EUR 100 to EUR 300 per month plus SEO foundation as a one-off at EUR 450 to EUR 750 may do more for revenue than a rebuild, because a rebuild resets what Google already knows about your pages.

Questions buyers ask us

Do we really own the code if we stop working with you?

Yes. The client owns the code, the repository and the database. If you leave, you take the project with you, and another developer can pick it up because it is standard code in your own repository.

Can you host it for us?

We can, and it is agreed per customer rather than set as a standing arrangement. Ask us during scoping and we will tell you what the hosting costs and whose name is on it.

Is a fixed quote genuinely fixed?

It is fixed against the scope it was written for. If the scope does not change, the number does not change. If you add a shop, a login or a second language halfway through, that is new work, and we price it before we build it.

We need to take payments. Which step is that?

In a new build, step 04, EUR 3.500 to EUR 7.500, however few pages the site has, because a checkout needs a provider account, stored data and tested failure states. On an existing site, payments are an add-on at EUR 600 to EUR 1.500. The full ladder is on packages.

What is not included in Care?

Redesign and new features. Care covers updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes. A new booking flow or a new section of the site is a project, and it gets a quote of its own.

Take these questions to whoever you are talking to, including us. If you want a fixed quote against a written scope, tell us what you are building.