How to choose a web design agency: what to check before you sign

The short answer: choose the agency whose finished work you can open and use, whose proposal tells you exactly what you’re getting, and who puts the domain, hosting and accounts in your name. Taste in design matters, but scope, ownership and post-launch support are much harder to fix once you’ve signed, so check those first.

Below is a framework you can use to compare any agency or freelancer, including us.

Start with what the new site has to do

Before you contact anyone, write half a page on what the website is for. Agencies can only quote fairly against a clear brief, and you can only compare their answers if each one is responding to the same thing.

Cover these points:

• The main job of the site. Enquiries, bookings, online sales, recruiting, or giving existing customers information. Pick the one or two that matter most.
• What exists today. Your current site, its content, any pages that bring in enquiries, and anything that must carry over, such as your brand, product data or URLs.
• Who will edit it. Which pages your team needs to change without a developer, and how often.
• What it connects to. Booking systems, payments, a CRM, email marketing, analytics.
• Who writes the copy and supplies photography. This is one of the most common gaps between quotes.

If you can’t answer some of these yet, say so. A good agency will help you work them out in a discovery conversation rather than quoting around the gaps.

Judge the portfolio by live work, not screenshots

A portfolio of polished mockups tells you the agency can make attractive images. It doesn’t tell you whether they can ship a website that works. Ask for links to sites that are live, then spend ten minutes with each one.

Use it on your phone

Open two or three portfolio sites on your phone and try to do the thing a customer would do: book, call, find a price, fill in a form. Notice whether menus are easy to tap, text is readable without zooming, and the main action is obvious on the first screen.

Check how it loads

Run a few portfolio pages through PageSpeed Insights. Google’s Core Web Vitals measure loading (Largest Contentful Paint, good within 2.5 seconds), responsiveness (Interaction to Next Paint, good under 200 milliseconds) and visual stability (Cumulative Layout Shift, good under 0.1).

Read the results with care. PageSpeed Insights shows real-visitor data only when a page or site has enough traffic, so smaller sites may show only a simulated lab test. And Google says good scores don’t guarantee top rankings; relevance comes first. Treat speed as a sign of build quality, not a ranking promise.

Try it without a mouse

Press the Tab key on a portfolio homepage. You should be able to see where you are on the page as focus moves between links and buttons, and reach the main navigation and forms. It’s a rough check, not an audit. A visible focus indicator is part of WCAG’s Focus Visible criterion (Level AA), so a site where you can’t see it falls short of that level.

Read the case studies for what they don’t claim

A useful case study says what the agency actually did and is plain about what it didn’t measure. On our own work pages, for example, the CanCater case study describes the city landing pages we built and says plainly that we don’t publish numbers we haven’t measured, and the Psychport case study is marked as a pre-launch build. Be cautious with portfolios that credit the agency with client revenue or rankings without saying how those were measured.

Questions to ask every agency

Ask each shortlisted agency the same questions, in writing if possible, so you can compare like with like.

1. Who will design the site, and who will build it? Are they employees, contractors or a partner firm? Will the people in the sales meeting work on your project?
2. Which platform do you suggest, and why for us? The answer should refer to who edits the site and what it connects to, not only to the agency’s preference.
3. How do our integrations work? For example, on the Hotel Victor site the booking bar hands guests to the hotel’s own reservation engine, so availability and rates come from the hotel’s system. Ask the equivalent question about your bookings, payments or forms.
4. What accessibility standard will you design and test to, and how do you test it?
5. What happens to our current URLs? (More on this below.)
6. Which browsers and devices do you test on before launch?
7. How many rounds of review are included, and what counts as a change of scope?
8. What does support look like after launch, and what does it cost?
9. Can we speak to one or two past clients?

Google’s own advice on hiring an SEO applies well to web agencies too: ask to see previous work, ask how they measure success, and ask whether they’ll share every change they make to your site. It also says the best time to bring in search expertise is when you’re considering a redesign, and the earlier the better.

What a good proposal contains

A proposal is where vague promises either become commitments or quietly disappear. When you lay two or three side by side, check that each one covers:

• Deliverables. Design files only, or a finished, working website. The page templates included, and which pages share them.
• Content. Who writes, edits and loads the copy, and who supplies photography.
• Review rounds at each milestone, and how extra changes are handled and priced.
• Platform and integrations, named specifically.
• Content migration and redirects from the existing site.
• Accessibility target, stated as a standard and level (for example WCAG 2.2 AA), not “accessible design”.
• Testing: which devices and browsers, and who signs off.
• Launch: who moves the domain, sets up hosting, and checks forms and tracking.
• Training and handover for your team.
• Post-launch support: what’s included, for how long, and what’s billed separately.
• Ownership: who owns the design, code and content once you’ve paid.
• Exclusions: what’s not included. A proposal with no exclusions usually means they haven’t been thought through.

If one quote is much lower than the others, compare it line by line against this list before assuming it’s better value. The difference is often in content, migration or support.

Make sure you own your accounts

This is easy to skip and hard to fix later. If an agency holds the keys to your domain or analytics, leaving them later can be slow and stressful. Agree before work starts that your business is the owner of each item below, and that the agency has its own login or user access.

None of this signals distrust. A good agency will set it up this way without being asked, because it makes the relationship easier to manage on both sides.

Accessibility: what Ontario law requires and what to ask for

Under Ontario’s Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation, section 14 of O. Reg. 191/11 requires designated public sector organizations and “large organizations” (those with 50 or more employees in Ontario) to make their public websites and web content conform with WCAG 2.0 Level AA. Since January 1, 2021, that applies to all their internet websites, with two exceptions (live captions and pre-recorded audio descriptions) and limited room where meeting the requirement isn’t practicable. The rule covers sites an organization controls directly or through a contract that allows the site to be modified, so a site an agency builds for you is still your organization’s obligation. The province’s guide to accessible websites explains the requirement in plain language.

Section 14 doesn’t apply to private businesses or non-profits with fewer than 50 employees in Ontario. Even so, an accessible site works better for everyone who uses it, and asking for a clear standard costs you nothing at the proposal stage.

A sensible request is WCAG 2.2 Level AA. The W3C states that content that conforms to WCAG 2.2 also conforms to WCAG 2.0 and 2.1, so it also meets the version Ontario’s regulation names. As an example of putting a target in writing, our Psychport case study states it was designed to WCAG 2.1 AA. Whatever the agency proposes, ask how they’ll test it: automated tools, keyboard checks, screen reader spot checks, or a combination.

Redirects: protect what your old site has earned

If you’re replacing an existing website, its pages may already appear in Google and be linked from other sites. When URLs change and nobody redirects them, those visitors land on error pages.

Google’s guidance on site moves with URL changes sets out what should happen:

• Map every old URL to its new equivalent, using sitemaps, analytics and your CMS to build the list.
• Use permanent server-side redirects (301 or 308), sending each old URL straight to its final destination.
• Avoid redirecting lots of old pages to the homepage or other unrelated pages.
• Keep the redirects in place as long as possible, generally at least one year.
• Update internal links and submit a sitemap of the new URLs.

Ask each agency who builds the redirect map, who checks it after launch, and whether it’s in the proposal. If redirects aren’t mentioned in a redesign quote, that’s worth raising before you sign.

After launch: support, updates and handover

A website needs looking after once it’s live. Software and plugins need updates, forms need occasional testing, and your team will have questions in the first weeks.

Ask each agency:

• What’s included in the first weeks after launch, such as fixing bugs found in the live site.
• Whether ongoing maintenance is offered, what it covers (updates, backups, security monitoring, small content changes) and how it’s billed.
• How quickly they respond to an urgent problem, such as a broken contact form.
• What training your team gets, and whether it’s recorded or written down.
• What you receive if you decide to move to another provider.

Our web development page lists the same points we ask clients to settle before a build, including hosting, account ownership and support after launch.

Agency, studio or freelancer?

There’s no single right answer, and the right choice depends more on the project than on the label.

• A freelancer can be a good fit for a smaller site with a clear brief. Check who covers design, development and support, and what happens if they’re unavailable.
• A small studio usually covers design and development in one team, which helps when the two need to work closely. Ask who exactly will work on your project.
• A larger agency may suit projects that need many specialists at once. Ask whether your project will be a priority, and who your day-to-day contact will be.

Location isn’t a measure of quality, but if you’re comparing web design companies in Oakville or elsewhere in the GTA, being able to meet in person for workshops and reviews can make decisions faster. It’s a convenience, not a substitute for the checks above.

Red flags to watch for

• Guaranteed rankings. Google says plainly that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking.
• Unsolicited emails promising search results. Google’s hiring advice tells site owners to be wary of SEO firms that contact them out of the blue.
• The domain or hosting registered in the agency’s name with no plan to transfer it to you.
• No live sites to show, only mockups or screenshots.
• A proposal without deliverables or exclusions, or one that can’t say how many review rounds are included.
• No mention of redirects in a quote to replace an existing site.
• Vagueness about who does the work, or reluctance to explain what will change on your site.

If an agency handles all of this well, you can make the final choice on the things that should decide it: whether their work suits your business, and whether you trust them to tell you when something isn’t working. If you’d like to see how we approach it, our web design page sets out what’s included and what we agree with clients before work starts.