How to choose a development studio: 7 questions before you sign

Choosing a contractor almost always comes down to comparing price and portfolio. Both matter, but neither shows what working together for three months will be like. The questions below do.

1. Who owns the code, and where does it live?

The right answer: the code is yours, it lives in your repository or is handed over together with access. If the contractor keeps the project “on their side” and gives you only a finished website, you are tied to them permanently — and every change will cost whatever they say.

Agree in advance on the repository, server access, domain, analytics and email. All of it should be registered to you.

2. What is inside the timeline, and what is not?

“A website in a month” usually means a month of the contractor’s work — not counting the time for your approvals, texts and photographs. Ask directly: how much time in the schedule is allocated to your side, and what happens if content is late.

3. Who writes the copy?

The most common reason a project stalls is missing text. Decide up front: you write it, the contractor writes it, or you hire a copywriter. It affects both the timeline and the price.

4. How are integrations counted?

CRM, payments, delivery, accounting systems, messengers. Ask whether they are in the estimate and what happens if your service turns out to have a non-standard API. This is where “additional work” appears most often.

5. What happens after launch?

A good contractor answers specifically: a warranty period for bugs, a monthly support price, a response time. If the answer is “message us and we’ll sort it out”, you will be alone with the site at the first outage.

6. Can we see live projects?

Not screenshots — live links. Open them on a phone, check the speed, try submitting a form. A portfolio made only of pretty pictures often hides projects that never launched.

7. Who exactly will do the work?

In a small studio it is the same people you are negotiating with. In a large one, often not. Ask who leads the project, who you will talk to every day, and what happens when that person goes on holiday.

Red flags

• A five-minute estimate over the phone with no questions about the task.
• Readiness to start tomorrow with no planning stage.
• Reluctance to put the scope in writing.
• A price noticeably below everyone else: usually something you did not ask about has simply been removed from the estimate.
• No questions for you. A contractor who clarifies nothing will build the wrong thing.

What is normal on both sides

It is normal for a contractor to refuse an exact price before discussing the task. It is normal for them to suggest cutting the scope of the first version. It is normal to hear “you don’t need this” — a good sign they are thinking about your result rather than the size of the invoice.

That is how we work: we go through the task, fix the scope and the estimate before starting, and hand over code and access in full. The process step by step is on the services page. To discuss your task, describe it here.