Put accountability first in your questions to ask a web developer
The best questions to ask a web developer establish four things: who is accountable, exactly what will be delivered, what your business will own and how the work will be tested and supported. Ask for specific evidence and ensure every material promise appears in the proposal or contract.
Technology matters when it affects cost, maintainability or hiring. It should rarely lead the conversation. A polished portfolio and confident sales presentation cannot establish ownership, scope or delivery responsibility.
Ask every supplier the same questions. Record the answer, the evidence offered, the relevant contract clause and anything left unresolved. The same method works for questions to ask a web designer or an agency.
Our central rule is simple: if an important promise is vague, unmeasurable or absent from the contract, do not rely on it.
Who am I hiring and who will build the website?
Start with the full legal name of the contracting party. Then ask who will design, develop and manage the project, including any subcontractors or overseas processors.
Why it matters: the supplier selling the project may differ from the business delivering it. You need to know who carries contractual responsibility and who will access your systems or data.
A strong answer: the agency identifies its legal entity, named project contact, delivery team and any subcontractors before work begins. At ZeroPixel, the people clients speak with are the same senior team that designs and builds the work.
Red flags: the trading name differs from the contract without explanation, the delivery team remains unnamed or claims about an in-house team cannot be verified. Treat agency-supplied references as sales material until checked independently.
Check independently: compare the proposal and website footer with Companies House. A UK limited company’s website must show its full company name, registered number, registered office and place of registration. Companies House also provides free access to the company’s incorporation date, officers, previous names, registered address, documents and insolvency information.
Review the filing history and available document images. A mismatch may have an administrative explanation, but it still needs one. Verify portfolio work by contacting a past client through details you found yourself.
What exactly is included in the quote?
A price for ‘a new website’ says very little. Request written deliverables for discovery, design, page templates, content entry, integrations, migration, testing, training and launch.
Why it matters: a fixed quote only works when the scope, assumptions, exclusions, dependencies, revision limits and acceptance process are also defined. UK central-government commercial guidance makes the same distinction: fixed-price work depends on a fixed scope, although that guidance is not a universal legal rule.
A strong answer: requested changes are assessed against the agreed scope, priced before work starts and approved through written change control. For our custom web development work, we provide a fixed written quote tied to stated deliverables and assumptions.
Red flags: unlimited revisions, an unexplained estimate presented as a fixed price, undefined allowances or essential work deferred until after the deposit. Ask what happens if the supplier underestimated its effort.
Check independently: compare total cost across three years. Include hosting, support, premium licences, domains, payment services, usage charges and renewal increases. A lower launch price can create a higher long-term commitment.
Will we own and control the website when it is finished?
Separate account control, copyright ownership, third-party licensing and practical portability. Sales answers often blur these into a single promise that ‘the website is yours’.
Why it matters: paying for commissioned website work does not automatically settle copyright. In the UK, the creator normally owns commissioned work unless agreed otherwise in writing. A copyright transfer also requires a written and signed assignment.
A strong answer: the contract states when ownership of bespoke code, design and content transfers. It lists third-party components that cannot be assigned and defines the final handover. Business-critical accounts for the domain, hosting, source repository, analytics and Search Console sit under the client’s control.
Our agreements state that the client owns the code, design, domain and content. Any relevant third-party restrictions are identified rather than hidden behind a broad ownership claim.
Red flags: ‘you own it because you paid’, a domain held only in the supplier’s account, no source-code access or undisclosed page-builder and plugin licences.
Check independently: ask to see the ownership, licensing and handover clauses before paying a deposit. Confirm that your business can grant and remove supplier access to each critical account.
How will you prove the website meets an acceptable standard?
Words such as ‘fast’, ‘accessible’, ‘responsive’ and ‘SEO-ready’ need measurable acceptance criteria.
Why it matters: quality cannot be enforced when nobody has defined it. Accessibility also has substantial business relevance: the 2023–24 Family Resources Survey classified 16.8 million people, 25% of the UK population, as disabled.
A strong answer: the supplier names the intended WCAG 2.2 conformance level and explains its automated checks, manual keyboard testing and appropriate assistive-technology testing. W3C says automated tools cannot check every accessibility requirement, so a tool score alone is inadequate.
For performance, agree which pages and devices will be tested. Google’s global ‘good’ Core Web Vitals thresholds are LCP at or below 2.5 seconds, INP at or below 200 milliseconds and CLS at or below 0.1, assessed at the 75th percentile.
Request a browser and device matrix. It should cover responsive layouts, forms, integrations, validation and error states. During web design, also ask how layouts, content and interactions will be approved before development proceeds.
Red flags: one automated score, testing only on the developer’s computer or acceptance based on subjective approval.
Check independently: request sample test evidence and run agreed checks on the staging site before launch. Record failed criteria and responsibility for fixing them.
How will you protect our rankings, data and customers?
Existing websites carry URLs, search history, analytics data and user expectations. A redesign can damage them when migration work is treated as an afterthought.
A strong answer: the supplier prepares a URL inventory, redirect map, pre-launch benchmarks, metadata migration plan and analytics validation checklist. Google recommends mapping old URLs to replacements, using permanent redirects and generally retaining them for at least one year.
Cookie consent needs a technical answer too. Current ICO guidance says non-essential cookies must not be set before consent and continued browsing is insufficient consent. A banner that appears after tracking has started solves nothing.
Ask about software updates, access control, multifactor authentication, backups, restore testing, dependency monitoring and incident handling. The NCSC reports that one in two small businesses suffers a cyber incident each year. That figure covers cyber incidents broadly, but it makes vague security promises difficult to accept.
Where the developer processes personal data, the contract should address documented instructions, confidentiality, security, subprocessors, rights requests, assistance, termination and audits. These are among the matters covered by current ICO processor-contract guidance, which is marked as under review following the Data (Use and Access) Act.
Red flags: ‘we install an SEO plugin’, backups with no restore process, a consent banner with no cookie audit or shared administrator accounts.
Check independently: inspect the redirect plan, test consent behaviour in the browser and request evidence of a completed backup restore. Confirm every subprocessor before granting data access.
What happens after launch or if we part company?
Ask what the launch period covers, how defects differ from new requests, how long any warranty lasts and whether support is optional or compulsory.
A strong answer: support hours, response targets, escalation routes and prices appear in writing. Response time and resolution time are defined separately. Responsibility for updates, security patches, backups, monitoring and third-party failures is clear, including what happens without a maintenance agreement.
The contract should identify the legal parties, services, quality expectations or limitations, duration, payment terms and termination arrangements. This reflects the Small Business Commissioner’s guidance for basic B2B contracts.
The exit plan should cover source code, design files, database exports, credentials, documentation and transfer of the domain and hosting. Your business should be able to change supplier without depending on goodwill from the outgoing developer.
Red flags: support based on informal availability, no distinction between defects and changes, compulsory hosting with no transfer process or an exit fee that remains undefined.
Check independently: ask for a sample handover checklist and locate the termination and data-return clauses. Confirm the file formats and access you would receive.
Score the answers, verify the evidence and know when to walk away
Use the table during each supplier call. Record the answer verbatim rather than translating vague language into the commitment you hoped to hear.
| Question | Supplier’s answer | Supporting evidence | Contract clause | Independent check | Unresolved risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who is the legal supplier and delivery team? | Record names | Company record and team details | Parties and subcontracting | Companies House | Note gaps |
| What is included and excluded? | Record deliverables | Scope and assumptions | Services and change control | Compare proposals | Note gaps |
| Who owns accounts and intellectual property? | Record ownership | Account structure and licence list | Assignment and handover | Check account access | Note gaps |
| How is quality accepted? | Record criteria | Test plan and reports | Acceptance process | Test staging site | Note gaps |
| How are migration and security handled? | Record process | Redirect, backup and security plans | Data and security terms | Inspect evidence | Note gaps |
| What happens after launch or termination? | Record support and exit terms | Service and handover details | Support and termination | Review transfer steps | Note gaps |
Prioritise legal identity, ownership, scope, acceptance criteria, migration and exit arrangements. That is a more reliable way to choose a web developer or web design agency than ranking portfolios by visual preference.
Walk away if a supplier:
- refuses to put material commitments in writing
- demands sole control of your domain
- claims payment automatically transfers copyright
- hides recurring fees or licence restrictions
- relies entirely on automated accessibility testing
- cannot explain how you receive the code and data when the relationship ends
Contact one past client using details found independently. Test several live portfolio sites on a phone, with a keyboard and through PageSpeed Insights. You can also run our free website audit against an existing site to identify performance, SEO, UX and trust issues worth raising.
Send the completed table with the final contract and require every unresolved commitment to be added or removed before signing.
Bring the table to a project discussion. You will speak with the people who design and build the work, and we will provide a fixed written quote for an agreed scope.