How to choose a web design agency: 9 questions to ask first

TL;DR

• Trustworthiness does not live in a recommendation. It lives in what somebody is willing to write down: scope, ownership, timeline, warranty terms, and what things cost after handover.
• The nine questions below can be asked over messages. Watch how they are answered as well: specific and checkable, or vague and deflected.
• The red flag to settle first is evasion about who owns the domain and the source code — the two things you cannot get back if the relationship fails. Settle it before you discuss price at all.

Signals worth trusting

Four things are verifiable, and they are the ones to look for before anything else.

Public company details. Legal name, tax code, address, a real phone number. A studio with only a social page and a mobile number is not automatically bad, but you will have nowhere to turn if a dispute arises.

A quote itemised by line. A single total does not tell you what you are buying. A good quote separates design, engineering, content, integrations and maintenance so you can see what you are actually buying.

Willingness to name limits. A studio that tells you plainly what it does not take on — or that a particular legacy site is too old to maintain safely — is showing you the boundary up front, rather than leaving you to find it mid-project.

A handover described as a list. "Full handover" is a promise; "source code, admin account, registrar account, documentation" is a list you can tick off at acceptance.

What deserves caution is any achievement figure you cannot check. If a studio cites a project count or names clients, you are entirely within your rights to ask for links to live sites and, for unpublished work, a live demo.

The nine questions

1. Once I have paid in full, who owns the source code? The answer needs to be explicit and it needs to be in the contract, not in a chat thread.
2. Whose name is the domain registered in? It must be yours or your company's. Ask for access to the registrar account at handover.
3. What exactly is handed over — as a list? Source code, admin account, hosting account, documentation, design files.
4. How long is the warranty and what does it cover? Fixing defects is not the same as adding features. Draw that line before it becomes an argument.
5. After handover, how is maintenance priced? Temei's care plan, for example, starts from 500,000₫ per month and can be cancelled at any time. What matters is knowing the number in advance, whether or not you take it.
6. Is on-page SEO included, and what does that consist of? A specific answer mentions headings, metadata, sitemaps and structured data rather than just the phrase "SEO-ready".
7. Which tool will you use to verify loading speed? A serious studio will happily send you a PageSpeed Insights result for the home page at acceptance.
8. How is payment staged, and which deliverable does each stage correspond to? Every instalment should map to something specific that is finished.
9. Which content can I edit myself? Ask precisely which parts are editable through the admin panel and which need a developer.

None of these require you to be technical. They only require the other side to be specific.

Red flags

Dodging the ownership question. If the conversation changes subject when you ask whose name the domain is in, stop there.

Guaranteed rankings. Nobody controls a ranking algorithm, so "guaranteed number one on Google" is a promise about something outside the promiser's control.

A low price attached to a long lock-in. Read the annual renewal terms carefully: the discount up front sometimes returns as a compulsory maintenance fee.

No contract, only messages. A chat thread cannot describe scope, milestones and acceptance criteria.

Evidence you cannot check. Screenshots without links, client logos without a matching project, reviews without a source — ask for the URL of a site that is live right now.

How to read a quote

Read it along four lines. Scope: how many pages, how many languages, how many integrations, who writes the content. Timeline: the milestone for each stage, and what happens if you are late sending material. Exclusions: what the price does not cover — ask for that as a written list rather than assuming it. After handover: warranty, maintenance, and the rate for additional requests.

When comparing two quotes, normalise them to the same scope first and only then compare totals. The way to do that: mark every line that appears in only one of them, then ask the other side whether they cover it and what they charge for it.

Frequently asked questions

Should I just take the cheapest quote?

Only if its scope genuinely matches the more expensive one. Put both side by side and mark the lines that appear in only one of them. If the cheaper quote is still cheaper once the missing lines are added back, it is a reasonable choice.

How do I confirm a studio really built the work it claims?

Ask for links to live sites and open them yourself. Where a project is unpublished under an NDA, ask for a live demo instead. If there is no way at all for you to see the work, that is worth weighing.

Which contract clauses matter most?

Three of them: ownership of the source code and domain once payment is complete, the acceptance criteria, and the terms if the project stops early. Those three decide what you are left holding if the relationship does not work out.

If your business has nobody technical in-house, question five — who handles the technical side after handover — is one to ask before signing rather than after something breaks. Read what a clear care arrangement covers on the website care plan page, from 500,000₫ per month, and use it as the benchmark against any studio you are considering.