Before hiring a web designer, make sure you understand the complete project price, what is included, what you will pay after launch, who controls the domain, what you own, how content and revisions work, what technology is being used and what happens if you later change supplier.
You do not need to interrogate the designer for two hours.
You do need enough clarity that the agreement makes sense.
A lot of website frustration begins with assumptions.
The client assumed content was included.
The designer assumed it was not.
The client assumed hosting was €100 per year.
The contract quietly committed them to €150 per month.
The client assumed they owned the domain.
The agency registered it in its own account.
Most of these problems can be identified before the first invoice.
Gavin's take
The best questions are not designed to catch a designer out. They are designed to make the commercial arrangement understandable before money changes hands. If a normal question about ownership, hosting or recurring charges makes the conversation awkward, that tells you something useful.
What is the full project price?
This sounds obvious.
Ask anyway.
Is the price:
fixed;
estimated;
starting from;
hourly;
day-rate;
phased?
What might make it increase?
Does VAT apply?
When are payments due?
If the project changes, how are additional costs approved?
"Website: €1,500" is not enough information if the scope is unclear.
What exactly is included?
Ask for a concrete scope.
How many distinct pages or page types?
Custom design?
Content writing?
Photography?
Forms?
Booking integration?
Analytics?
Search setup?
Privacy/cookie work?
Training?
Launch support?
You do not need every minor implementation detail.
You need to know what the final deliverable actually is.
What is not included?
This question is often even better.
It exposes assumptions.
Perhaps:
logo design is separate;
professional photography is separate;
e-commerce is not included;
ongoing SEO is separate;
email setup is separate;
future edits are chargeable.
Fine.
Clarity is the point.
What will I pay every month or year?
Ask the designer to separate recurring costs.
Domain renewal.
Hosting.
Maintenance.
Software.
Plugins.
Booking tools.
Email.
Support.
SEO.
A legitimate recurring service should survive the question:
What am I paying for?
If the explanation is vague, investigate further.
My hidden website costs guide gives you the main categories to look for.
Who will own and control the domain?
Preferably the business.
At minimum, understand:
whose registrar account it is in;
who receives renewal notices;
who can recover the account;
how it would be transferred.
A domain should not become a hostage situation because the supplier relationship ends.
Read who should own the business domain before signing if this is unclear.
Who owns the website?
Ask what the agreement says.
Do you receive rights to the bespoke work?
What third-party software or assets remain licensed?
Can you move the site?
Will you receive source files where agreed?
What happens to premium licences if you leave?
The answer does not have to be:
you own absolutely everything in existence.
Modern sites use third-party libraries and services.
It does have to be understandable.
Where will the site be hosted?
You do not need a technical lecture.
Ask:
Which platform?
Who owns the account?
What does it cost?
Why is that platform suitable?
Can the site move?
Does hosting include support or maintenance?
If the site could run perfectly well on very low-cost infrastructure but the supplier charges a substantial monthly hosting fee, ask what service is included beyond the infrastructure itself.
There may be a good answer.
There may not.
Why are you using this technology?
This is a useful judgement test.
Why WordPress?
Why static?
Why Shopify?
Why Webflow?
Why Squarespace?
The designer should be able to relate the choice to your requirements.
"Because we use it for everything" is a workflow explanation.
It is not automatically a business justification.
Can I edit the website myself?
If that matters to you, ask before the build.
Can you change:
text;
images;
services;
prices;
blog posts?
How?
Do you need a CMS?
Will you receive training?
What happens if you accidentally break something?
Some businesses need frequent editing.
Others change one paragraph twice a year.
Do not pay for a complex editing system you will barely use.
Who writes the content?
This is one of the most common delays.
Will you provide finished copy?
Will the designer write it?
Will they interview you?
Will they edit your draft?
What information do they need?
Does content work cost extra?
I would establish this before design begins.
A website cannot be finished around content that nobody is responsible for producing.
What do you need from me?
Ask for the dependency list early.
Business information.
Photos.
Logo.
Services.
Prices.
Contact details.
Testimonials.
Account access.
Legal text.
The designer should help you distinguish essential material from things that can follow later.
How many revision rounds are included?
Do not obsess over the number.
Understand the process.
When do you review?
What kind of changes are normal?
What happens if you change direction?
What counts as additional scope?
A healthy project allows refinement without pretending unlimited redesign is included forever.
How long will the project take?
Ask for the realistic timeline and dependencies.
A designer can work quickly and still be delayed by:
missing copy;
slow feedback;
photography;
domain access;
third-party integrations.
A good answer explains both build time and client dependencies.
Can I see live examples of your work?
Open them.
Do not only look at portfolio screenshots.
Check the phone version.
Click forms.
Read the copy.
Look at different clients.
Does every site look identical?
Does the work feel appropriate to each business?
That is useful evidence.
Will my site work properly on mobile?
The answer should obviously be yes.
Still, check how the designer approaches it.
Mobile should not be a compressed desktop afterthought.
For many small businesses, the mobile customer is the main customer.
What SEO is included?
Ask for deliverables.
"SEO-friendly" means nothing by itself.
Useful foundations may include:
titles;
meta descriptions;
semantic headings;
clean URLs;
crawlability;
canonical tags;
sitemap;
performance;
structured data where appropriate;
Search Console setup;
local structure.
Ongoing ranking work is a different service.
Do not assume one includes the other.
Will you guarantee first place on Google?
This is a useful question even if you know the answer.
No web designer controls Google's rankings.
A serious supplier can explain what they can improve and what they cannot guarantee.
I cover that properly in the next guide in this cluster.
How will enquiries/forms work?
Where do messages go?
What service handles them?
Is there spam protection?
Will you test them?
Does the client own the form account if an external service is used?
A contact form that silently stops delivering leads is not a small detail.
What happens after launch?
Ask.
Is there a warranty/support period?
Are fixes included?
How are future edits priced?
Is maintenance optional?
What happens with software updates if relevant?
Who renews the domain?
Will you receive account details?
There should be a handover story.
What if I want to change web designer later?
This is one of the best questions you can ask.
The answer should not sound threatening.
A healthy supplier relationship should not depend on making departure impossible.
Ask:
Can I keep the domain?
Can I access the site/source where agreed?
Can hosting move?
What licences would need replacing?
What information would the next supplier receive?
My guide to changing web designer explains what a good handover looks like.
Do you use templates or build custom?
Neither answer is automatically wrong.
The important thing is whether it matches what is being sold.
If you are paying for a custom-designed website, ask what that means in practice.
If the project uses a template to keep costs low, that should be transparent too.
Do not pay custom pricing for an undisclosed generic solution.
Who will I actually work with?
At an agency, ask who your contact is and who is doing the work.
With a freelancer, ask about availability and continuity.
You are evaluating the working relationship, not just the company name.
A compact pre-hire checklist
Before signing, I would want clear answers to these:
- What is the total project price and payment schedule?
- What is included and excluded?
- What recurring costs will I have?
- Who controls the domain and hosting accounts?
- What do I own or have the right to use after payment?
- Who provides the content and images?
- What technology is being used and why?
- How do revisions, launch and post-launch support work?
- What SEO foundations are included?
- Can I move to another supplier without losing my domain or business identity?
That is enough to uncover most of the commercial structure.
How Built by Gavin answers these questions
I publish pricing and scope because I would rather prospects understand the model before contacting me.
The sites are custom-built.
I keep infrastructure lean where that suits the project.
I prefer important accounts and the domain to remain under sensible client control.
I do not automatically attach a vague monthly maintenance fee to every site.
And if a project needs software, hosting or support with a real recurring cost, I want that cost to be explainable.
That is the standard I think small businesses should expect from any supplier.
What I'd do
Ask the questions that affect your future control first: total cost, recurring cost, domain ownership, website ownership, technology, handover and what happens if you leave. Colours and animations are much easier to fix later than a commercial arrangement you did not understand.
The bottom line
You do not need to understand web development to hire a web designer intelligently.
Ask about:
scope;
price;
ongoing costs;
ownership;
technology;
content;
revisions;
SEO;
support;
portability.
A good supplier should be comfortable answering.
If ordinary questions create defensive or vague responses, that is useful information too.
Want to compare my answers against another quote?
You can see my current packages and pricing or send me the broad scope you are comparing.
I will not need the other designer's identity to tell you whether the commercial structure looks sensible.
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