guide
Questions worth asking before you commission a website
Most of the risk in commissioning custom work is decided before anything is built, in a conversation where the client does not yet know which questions matter. These are the ones that do.
They are deliberately phrased so they work on anybody you are considering. If a studio cannot answer them cleanly, that tells you something regardless of who they are.
Who owns the code when this is finished?
The answer should be immediate and it should be you. Watch for arrangements where the studio retains the repository, licenses the result back, or keeps the deployment accounts in their own name. All three mean the thing you paid for stops being yours the moment the relationship ends.
What happens if you disappear?
Small studios close and individuals move on. The question is whether the project survives it. Ask specifically whether another engineer could pick the work up from the repository alone, and what documentation exists to make that possible.
Who is actually going to build this?
In larger agencies the people in the pitch are frequently not the people who write the code. That is not automatically bad, but you should know before signing rather than after. Ask who is on the team and what they will personally be doing.
What happens when the scope changes?
It will change. A studio that claims otherwise has not built anything complicated. What matters is whether there is an agreed way to handle it, or whether every change becomes an argument about what the original document meant.
Where does the site actually run, and who pays for it?
Hosting, domains, and third party services all have owners and all have bills. Find out whose name they are in. Accounts registered to the studio are one of the most common ways clients discover they do not control their own product.
Can I see something working before it is finished?
Work that is only visible at the end is work you cannot correct. Ask how often you will see it running, not in a design file but in a browser you can click.
What are you not good at?
The most useful question on the list. Anybody who claims to do everything well is either inexperienced or selling. A studio that can name its limits is a studio that knows where they are.
In short
None of these questions require technical knowledge to ask or to judge. They are about ownership, continuity and honesty, which are the parts that determine whether a commission leaves you with an asset or a dependency.
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use it. commission it. back it.