Short version: look at live sites in the portfolio (not screenshots), ask for a brief or scope in writing, sign a contract with staged payments, and don't go for the lowest price - that's the one that usually ends in extra charges or in fixes done by someone else. Also check who will actually write the code and what you get after launch.
That's the decision in a nutshell. Now let's go through it step by step - what to check, what to ask, and how to read a quote so you don't end up with half a site and an empty account.
What to check before you hire
Most mistakes can be caught before you sign, in an hour of talking and clicking. Here's the list I run through myself, if someone were hiring me to build a site.
A portfolio with working links. Not screenshots, not mockups in a pretty frame - addresses you open and click. Check whether the sites load, whether they work on a phone, whether the form sends. If every project looks like the same site in different colors, that's a sign someone is clicking together a template and swapping the photos.
Reviews and contact details for past clients. Reviews on a developer's own site are always positive, so on their own they mean little. A stronger proof is a phone number or email for the company they built a site for from the portfolio. A solid developer has no problem with that. If they dodge it, that's a red flag.
The stack and who writes the code. Ask straight out what they'll build the site in and who will sit down to the project. WordPress, Next.js, a website builder - each has its upsides. The worse case is when the offer flashes senior names but a junior or an outside subcontractor takes over the work. Ask who will actually write your site, and ask to see their work.
Contract, stages and payment. Every service should have a contract with the scope written down: how many subpages, which features, by when, how many rounds of revisions. Payment split into stages - deposit, then after the design, then after deployment. If someone disappears halfway through, you lose one stage, not the whole thing. A refusal to sign a contract is a signal to walk away.
Access on your own accounts. Domain and hosting under your details, with a reputable registrar, not on the developer's email. This is the most common trap - when you switch developers it turns out you're not formally the owner of your own domain. The code repository should be available to you too.
Support after launch. A website isn't a project that ends on the day it goes live. Ask what happens after launch: updates, small changes, an outage on a Saturday night. Is it hourly, a subscription, or "we'll sort it out when needed". I'd take an honest "hourly, on request" over vague promises any day.
Communication. Pay attention to how someone replies at the quoting stage. Fast, specific, with questions about your business - good. Generalities, disappearing for three days, pressure to "decide today" - the whole project will look the same way, just with your money in the middle.
A brief sorts out most of these points for you. I laid out what it should include in the piece on the website brief.
Questions to ask a developer before you start
Quotes sound alike until you start asking about the details. These questions quickly show who knows what they're doing and who's improvising.
- Will I get a contract with the scope and deadlines written down?
- Whose details do we register the domain and hosting under?
- Who exactly will write the site - you or someone else?
- What technology, and why that one specifically?
- How many rounds of revisions are included in the price, and when do I start paying extra?
- How does payment work - one-off or in stages?
- Will the site be optimized for phones and load speed?
- What do I get after deployment and how much does a later change cost?
- Can I see three live sites from the past year?
- Will I have full access to the code and the admin panel?
You don't need to understand all of it technically. What matters is whether the answers are specific or evasive. Evasive is an answer in itself.
How to read a quote and why "the cheapest" turns out pricier
The lowest offer is almost never the cheapest over the course of a year. The mechanism is simple: a price of 800 zł usually means a template clicked together in an hour, with no optimization, no sensible SEO at the start, no support. After three months it turns out the site is slow, can't be extended, and making a change costs as much as half a new project. You pay a second time, often to someone else who has to fix the previous person's work.
When reading a quote, don't look at the amount, look at what's inside it. Is there a design, or a ready-made theme. Is there copy, or do you supply it yourself. How many subpages. Does it include optimization for phones and speed. How many rounds of revisions. What happens after launch. Two quotes that differ by a factor of two can describe a completely different scope - and only the line-by-line breakdown shows which one you're really comparing.
Common sense: a decent company site from a senior runs roughly 6,000-20,000 zł, that is 1,500-5,000 €. Anything below a few hundred zł is a template, not a project built for your business. I have the full breakdown by project type in the piece on how much a website costs.
The second thing to watch out for with a quote is the red flags in the conversation itself - time pressure, no contract, anonymous contact. I collected them in a separate piece: red flags when ordering a website.
Freelancer, agency or software house
In short: for a regular company site, a shop or a local service, a senior freelancer gives the best quality-to-price ratio - you talk directly to the person writing the code, with no office and sales department added on top. An agency makes sense when you want the site tied straight into an ad campaign, SEO and social media all in one place. You pick a software house for a large system meant to last years, where team continuity matters more than price.
Each of these options has a catch the salesperson won't mention - the single-person risk with a freelancer, the account manager and subcontractors at an agency, the expensive and slow process at a software house. I broke down the prices and risk of each option in the comparison freelancer vs agency for a website.
And how long it actually takes from brief to launch, and what stages it's made of - I laid that out in the piece on how long it takes to build a website.
Where I fit in
I'm a senior freelancer in Poland. I build sites on Next.js, shops, AI agents, automations, mobile apps and Telegram bots - on my own, so you're talking to the person who actually writes the code. I work on a contract, with staged payments and your own access, because that closes off most of the risks I write about above.
I'm a good fit if you have a concrete project and want it delivered without the corporate markup. I'm not a fit if you need a large team for years or 24/7 support - in that case I'll tell you straight. See the scope of website services or just write a short note about what you want to build on the contact page.
FAQ
What should I look for when choosing a web developer? A live portfolio (you open and click, you don't just look at screenshots), reviews backed by contact details for past clients, a contract with the scope and staged payment written down, and whose details the domain is registered under. Also check who actually writes the code and what you get after deployment.
How do I vet a developer before hiring? Look at a few working sites from the past year, ask for a phone number or email for the company they were built for, and ask about the technology, scope and revisions. A solid developer answers specifically and agrees to a contract. Evasive answers and a refusal to sign a contract are red flags.
Is the cheapest offer a good choice? Rarely. A price in the few-hundred-zł range usually means a template with no optimization, SEO or support. After a few months you pay extra for fixes or rebuild the site from scratch with someone else. Compare not the amounts but the scope - exactly what's included in each quote.
Whose name should the domain and hosting be registered under? Yours, under your details, with a reputable registrar. This is one of the most common traps - if the domain is under the developer, you can have trouble recovering your own address when you change who you work with. The code repository and admin panel should be available to you too.
Freelancer or company - which to pick for a website? For a regular company site, a shop or a local service, a senior freelancer gives a better result for more reasonable money. A company or agency makes sense when you want the site tied straight into a campaign and SEO run in one place, or you're building a large system meant to last years.
How do I protect myself against a developer disappearing with the deposit? Sign a contract with the scope written down, pay in stages (deposit, after the design, after deployment) and keep the domain and hosting on your own account. Then in the worst case you lose one stage, not the whole project and your money.
Do I need to know the technology to choose well? No. It's enough to ask specific questions and judge whether the answers are clear or vague. What counts is the portfolio, the contract, the payment stages and access under your own details - you can check those without technical knowledge.
