How to choose a web agency: 8 questions to ask before signing

Every web agency website looks premium. The photography is great, the case studies are impressive, the process section is reassuring. The problem is that most agencies are selling the same product: a deliverable. The question is whether they understand your business well enough to make that deliverable work. These eight questions separate the ones that do from the ones that don't.

1. Can I speak to a recent client in my industry?

Portfolio case studies are curated. Reference calls are not. A good agency will have clients willing to take a 15-minute call. If they hedge on this — "our clients are very busy", "we'd need to check" — that's information.

2. Who specifically will work on my project?

Many agencies sell on their senior team and deliver with juniors or offshore contractors. Ask for the name of the designer, the developer, and the account manager assigned to your project before signing. If they can't tell you, that's the answer.

3. What does the handover look like?

A web project ends on launch day for the agency. It doesn't end for you. Ask what you receive: source code ownership, CMS training, documentation, deployment access. Agencies that maintain control of your assets after delivery are building dependency, not value.

4. How do you handle scope creep?

Every project evolves. The question is whether changes are handled transparently with change orders, or opaquely with deadline slippage and invoice surprises. Ask for a sample change order from a past project. Agencies with clean processes have them ready.

5. Show me a website you built that performs, not just looks good

Beautiful websites that don't convert are expensive decoration. Ask for Lighthouse scores, conversion rates, or organic traffic growth from a specific case study. If the agency can only show you visuals and not metrics, they're optimising for the portfolio, not your business.

6. What's your approach to security?

Most web agencies don't think about security until something breaks. A good agency has a baseline: HTTPS everywhere, input validation, no exposed admin panels, dependency audits. If the answer is "we use [platform] which handles that" — push further. The platform handles infrastructure. Application-level security is still on the developer.

7. What happens if we're not happy with the design?

Revision policies vary wildly. Some agencies include unlimited revisions in a phase; others charge per round after two iterations. Understand the process before you're in it. The best agencies don't need unlimited revisions because their discovery process aligns expectations before design starts.

8. What should I NOT hire you for?

This is the most revealing question. An agency that claims to do everything perfectly is either lying or hasn't thought critically about their own strengths. Every good agency has a clear area of excellence and is honest about where they bring in specialists or refer out. If the answer is "we do it all", keep interviewing.