What to check before you pay for a website

Most bad web projects were not sabotaged. They were agreed in one message, with no written scope, by two people imagining different things.

Ask for the scope in writing

What pages, what features, what is not included, how many revision rounds, and what counts as one round. If a revision round is undefined, every request becomes a negotiation.

Ask who owns what

Who registers the domain, whose hosting account it runs in, who holds the source files and the database. Get this in writing on day one, before money changes hands, because it is far harder to raise later.

Ask what happens after handover

Three questions: how do I edit text myself, what breaks if I do nothing for a year, and who do I call when it does. A site that cannot be edited without paying the vendor is a subscription, not a purchase.

Ask about the deadline honestly

Ask what happens if the date slips, and what they need from you that could hold it up. Photos and copy are the usual causes. A vendor who names those two up front has done this before.

Ask for one small thing first

If the budget is large or the project is long, pay for one page first. A page tells you how they work: how they ask questions, how they handle feedback, whether the work arrives when promised. It is a cheap way to avoid an expensive mistake.

Red flags we would watch for

• No fixed scope, only a monthly fee
• The domain registered under the vendor’s account
• No mention of where the data will live
• A portfolio with no live links you can open and use
• Pressure to decide today