Every portfolio looks good. Everyone promises responsive design, SEO-friendly code and on-time delivery. None of that distinguishes anybody, which is why choosing is hard and why so many businesses end up on their second or third agency.
The things that actually differ are rarely on the website. They come out when you ask.
Eight questions, and what the answers tell you
- "Can I speak to a client you built something for two years ago?" Anyone can produce a happy client from last month. Two years later you find out whether the site still works, whether support continued, and whether the relationship survived the invoice.
- "Who exactly will work on this?" Sales often is not delivery. Ask who writes the code, who designs, and whether they are employees or found per project. Neither answer is wrong, but you should know.
- "What happens if it breaks after launch?" Listen for a specific answer — a response window, a channel, a person. "We'll take care of it" is not a commitment.
- "How many revision rounds are included?" A precise number means they have thought about scope. "Unlimited" usually means the price has padding in it, or that the project will stall when patience runs out.
- "Do I own everything at the end?" Domain, hosting account, code, content, analytics. The right answer is yes, in your name, with your access. Some builds are deliberately hard to leave.
- "Can I edit pages myself?" If the answer is no, every price change is a support ticket forever. Make sure that is a choice you made rather than one made for you.
- "What do you need from me, and when?" An agency that has delivered before will answer this immediately — content, photographs, approvals, at these points. Vagueness here is the strongest predictor of a project that drifts.
- "What is not included?" The most revealing question of the eight. An honest answer builds far more confidence than a list of everything included.
Warning signs worth walking away from
- A guaranteed number-one ranking. Nobody controls Google's results. An agency promising a position is either inexperienced or counting on you not checking.
- A price quoted before anyone asked what the site has to do. It means a template, or a number that will change later.
- No written scope. Everything agreed in a call and nothing written down is how disputes start.
- Pressure to pay in full up front. A deposit is normal and reasonable. The whole amount before anything exists is not.
- Portfolio links that are dead or now show somebody else's site. Check three of them before the meeting.
Cheapest is a real option — just an informed one
There is nothing wrong with buying the cheapest build, as long as you know what you are buying: usually a template, your own content, and no support afterwards. For some businesses that is exactly right, and paying more would be waste.
The failure is paying template prices while expecting custom outcomes, or paying custom prices and receiving a template. Both happen constantly, and both are avoidable by asking the eight questions above.
Our own answer to "how much" is on the pricing page, and we wrote up what drives the number in how much does a website cost in Bangladesh.
What a good first conversation feels like
It is mostly them asking questions. What the business does, who buys, what has been tried, what the site has to achieve — before any discussion of pages or price. If the first meeting is a pitch rather than an interview, that is what the working relationship will be like too.
If you would like that kind of conversation, tell us what you are trying to do. If we are not the right fit we will say so, which is a faster answer than three weeks of proposals.