Quick answer: comparing quotes by price is meaningless, because they contain different scopes of work. Before signing, establish five things: who will own the domain, hosting and code; what exactly is included and what will turn out to be an extra; what the site is built on and whether another developer could take it over; what happens after launch; and whether there's a contract with the scope written down. A good sign is a contractor who asks about your business rather than only about page counts.
Quotes for the same phrase — "build me a website" — range from a few hundred to tens of thousands. That's disorienting, and it pushes people towards a simple decision: take the cheapest, or take whoever has the prettiest portfolio. Both are poor criteria, because neither answers the real question: what exactly will you get, and what happens to it a year from now.
Below is what to establish before signing, and the signs that suggest walking away.
Who owns the domain, hosting and code after the site is delivered
I start here because it's the one item that can cost you the entire site.
"We'll handle everything" looks convenient, and often it is. The problem arises when the domain is registered to the contractor, the hosting is paid from their account, and the source code lives in their repository. Formally, the site isn't yours. While the relationship is good, nobody notices. When you decide to change contractor, or receive a renewal invoice at three times the market rate, your negotiating position turns out to be weak.
How it should be: the domain registered to you or your company, hosting paid from your account or with full administrative access on your side, and the code and content yours from the moment of payment. Access handed over as a complete set, not "as needed".
The question worth asking word for word: can I take the site elsewhere at any point, and what would that require? The answer tells you more about a contractor than their portfolio does.
What's included in the price and what turns out to be an extra
The second reason price comparison fails: the same figure can cover very different scopes.
What to check in every quote, point by point: custom design or a template, copy — yours or theirs, images and their licensing, hosting and SSL setup, basic technical optimisation, language versions, training on the admin panel, how many rounds of revisions are included, and migration from an old site with URLs preserved.
Each of those is usually missing from a cheap quote and reappears later as an extra. What was cheaper wasn't the quote — it was its first line.
Practical advice: ask not for a price but for the scope in writing. Two quotes reduced to the same scope can be compared honestly — and it often turns out the price difference was a difference in contents.
What the site is built on and whether another developer can take it over
The technology itself isn't a quality criterion: a well-built WordPress site beats a badly built one on a modern framework. What matters is how standard the solution is.
The problematic variants: a proprietary system only that contractor knows; a builder with closed export that the site can't be taken out of; a stack of paid plugins you pay for annually. What they have in common is that you can't leave the contractor or the platform without a rebuild.
The question: if we ended the relationship tomorrow, could another developer pick this up, and what would they need? A clear answer here matters more than how fashionable the stack sounds.
How to verify a web developer's portfolio
Attractive previews tell you nothing. What needs checking is live sites, and it takes twenty minutes.
Open several projects from links rather than images. Do the sites still exist — part of most portfolios has long been taken down. Check mobile speed with any public tool. See whether those sites are found in search for their services, not just for the company name. And note whether any project resembles yours in complexity, rather than in industry.
Separately: ask what exactly the contractor did on each project. In agencies and teams the same case study circulates through everyone's portfolio, and each person's role in it was different.
What questions to ask a web developer before signing
- Who owns the domain, hosting, code — You do, access handed over in full — "We keep it all with us, it's easier"
- What's included in the price — A written list of work — A price with no scope, "all inclusive"
- What do you build on — A standard solution, choice explained — A proprietary, closed system
- What happens after launch — Support terms and response times — "We'll sort that out later"
- Timeline — Realistic, broken into stages — Half the time everyone else quoted
- Revisions — An agreed number of rounds — Not discussed until there's a conflict
- Search rankings — Explains they can't be guaranteed — Promises first place
- My business — Asks about clients and goals — Asks only about page counts
That last row is the most underrated signal. A contractor who opens with questions about your clients and where enquiries currently come from will build a tool. One who asks only about page counts and preferred styling will build a picture.
Red flags when choosing a website contractor
Guaranteed first place in search. Positions depend on competition and algorithms; they can be influenced, not guaranteed. A promise like that means either a misunderstanding of the field or an expectation that you won't notice.
No contract and no written scope. Verbal agreements can't be enforced, and an argument about whether a feature was included is never settled in your favour.
A price quoted without questions about the task. An exact figure given before establishing what's needed means a template — a template may fit, but it's worth knowing in advance.
A timeline noticeably shorter than everyone else's. Either the scope is missing something the others include, or the deadline won't hold.
Answers you can't follow. A professional explains simply because they understand the subject. Jargon with no visible meaning behind it more often covers emptiness than depth.
Not a single live site in the portfolio, only mockups and previews.
What web development costs: reference points
To have something to compare quotes against, it helps to know the order of magnitude. A simple landing page — €700-1,400. A conversion landing page with full search and AI optimisation — from €2,000. A multi-page business site — from €2,000. A redesign of an existing site — from €1,000.
A quote noticeably below the lower bound usually means a template with standard content. That isn't always bad: if the task is minimal, a template can be the right answer. It's bad when a template is priced like bespoke work, or sold for a task it can't solve.
How to tell you don't need a developer at all
A separate point, and one rarely found in articles written by contractors.
Sometimes the task is solved by a website builder over a weekend and hiring anyone makes no sense: you're testing an idea, you need a business card, and search isn't part of the plan. A good contractor will say exactly that.
It's easy to test. Describe the task honestly, including a modest budget and your uncertainty, and watch the response. Someone who proposes reducing the scope, or says plainly that a simpler solution will do, is more reliable than someone who proposes the maximum package in every situation.
The related question — freelancer or agency — I cover in a separate article, because it deserves a proper comparison.
How I work
I'll say it plainly: I'm an interested party in this text, which is why the checklist above is written so it can be used to assess any contractor, including me.
My answers to the same questions: the domain, hosting, code and content belong to the client, and access is handed over in full. I work on standard solutions — Next.js and WordPress without page builders — so another developer can take the site over. Scope is written down before work starts. I don't guarantee search positions and I explain what they depend on. And if a task can be solved more simply and cheaply than full development, I say so.
I combine development and SEO, so technical optimisation is built in during the work rather than bolted on afterwards by a separate contractor.
Where to start choosing a web developer
Reduced to one principle: compare scopes rather than prices, and settle the ownership question before anything is paid.
The sequence is simple. Write the task down: why you need the site, who your clients are, where enquiries come from now, what budget and timeline you have. Send the same text to several contractors. Compare not the figures but what's inside them, and what questions came back. Check the live sites in their portfolios. Only then discuss price.
If you'd like to talk through your own project, write to me and we'll work out what you actually need.
