Most web designers can't answer these five questions. That's the problem.
If you’re about to hire someone to build your website, you’re in an awkward spot. You’re buying something you can’t really judge, from someone whose work you can’t really assess, at a price you’ve got nothing to compare it to.
The usual advice is to look at their portfolio. That’s almost useless. Anyone can show you a nice-looking site. It tells you nothing about what happens in eighteen months when you need something changed and they’ve stopped answering emails.
So here’s a better approach. Five questions. Ask them of anyone you’re considering, including me.
You’re not really testing their answers. You’re testing whether they can answer at all, and how quickly they change the subject.
1. Who owns the domain?
Start here, because it’s the one that traps people.
Your domain name is the foundation everything else sits on. Your website points at it. Your email runs through it. Years of Google trust are attached to it. It is, quietly, the single most valuable digital thing your business owns.
And an alarming number of small businesses don’t actually own theirs. It’s registered in the developer’s name, or the developer’s account, or under the personal email of a bloke who did it as a favour in 2016.
What a good answer sounds like
“You do. It’s registered in your name, in your account, and you can log into it right now.”
What to worry about
Anything vague. “We manage all that for you” is not the same as “you own it,” and the difference only becomes apparent at the worst possible moment.
Ask specifically: can I log in to the domain registrar today, with my own password? If the answer isn’t a simple yes, you don’t own your domain, whatever anybody tells you.
Mine’s simple. If you haven’t got a domain, I’ll insist you register it yourself, in your own account. You own it from day one, and you can walk away with it whenever you like.
2. Who owns the website if I leave?
Different question from the last one, and people conflate them constantly.
You can own your domain and still lose your website. The files, the content, the design, the thing you paid for. If you and your designer part company, what exactly do you walk away with?
There are honest answers here that aren’t “you own everything.” Some models genuinely do involve the agency owning and hosting the site while you subscribe, and that’s fine, as long as they tell you, and as long as there’s a way out that doesn’t leave you with nothing.
What a good answer sounds like
Specific. “You own it outright from day one” is a good answer. So is “we own and host it while you subscribe, and here’s exactly what you keep if you leave.”
What to worry about
A pause. Followed by a change of subject.
For what it’s worth, mine is on the pricing page in public, because I think you should be able to read it before you ever speak to me. Pay as you go and you own it from day one. Subscribe, and I own and host it while you do, but stay past the minimum term and the standard version of your site is yours to keep at no cost. Your domain and your content are always yours regardless.
You don’t have to like that model. But you can read it, in advance, without asking me.
3. What happens when it breaks?
Not if. When.
Something will go wrong. A plugin will fall over, a certificate will expire, a form will quietly stop sending. The question isn’t whether it happens, it’s what happens next.
What a good answer sounds like
A process. “Email me and I’ll sort it, it’s included.” Or “there’s a support plan, it costs this much, here’s the response time.”
What to worry about
“Well, we’d have to look at it and quote you.” That means every problem becomes a negotiation, and it means you’ll leave things broken because you can’t face the invoice.
I’ve seen sites sat there for a year with a broken contact form because the owner didn’t want to ring the developer. That business lost a year of enquiries to save a phone call.
Small changes and fixes are included in every plan I do. Not because I’m generous, but because the alternative is a website that slowly rots while the owner avoids the phone.
4. What does it cost me in year two?
This is the one almost nobody asks, and it’s where the real money hides.
Plenty of quotes look sharp in year one. Then you discover the hosting was only free for twelve months, the licences renew, the support was a trial, and the “small changes” are billed at ninety quid an hour.
What a good answer sounds like
A number. An actual number, for year two, said out loud without flinching.
What to worry about
Any answer that requires arithmetic on the spot, or ends with “it depends what you need.”
Ask it plainly: what is the total I will pay you in year two, if nothing changes? If they can’t tell you, they either haven’t thought about it or they’d rather you didn’t.
Here’s mine, and I’ll be precise, because a claim like “no hidden costs” is worthless unless someone spells out the edges.
Every price is published on the pricing page. The monthly fee in year two is the same as the monthly fee in month two, and it stays that way until you cancel. Hosting is included and never billed. Small changes and fixes are included and never billed. There’s no setup fee waiting to appear and no renewal that quietly costs more than the first one.
The exclusions, stated openly:
- Your domain. Roughly ten to fifteen pounds a year, paid by you, direct to the registrar. I don’t mark it up and I don’t want to hold it. That’s the one thing I insist you own outright.
- Extra work you actually ask for. New pages, a logo, a press release. All priced on the add-ons list, agreed before anything starts. You’ll never get an invoice for something you didn’t ask for.
- The AI features stay with me. If you’re on a subscription and you leave, you keep the standard version of your site. The Violet AI lead response is INKON’s, and it stays with INKON. That’s stated up front, on the pricing page, rather than buried where you’d find it too late.
That’s the complete list. If you’re reading that thinking “he’s just told me the bits that aren’t free,” yes. That’s rather the point. The exclusions are where the nasty surprises live in this trade, so I’d rather hand you mine now than have you discover them in year two.
And you should check it’s still worth it
One more thing, and it’s an odd thing for someone selling a subscription to say.
The fee is ongoing, and it runs until you cancel. Which means the honest burden is on me: every month, that money has to be buying you something you’d miss if it stopped. Enquiries, rankings, content going out, someone actually watching your site rather than letting it rot.
So check. Genuinely. Look at what’s arriving and ask whether it’s worth what you’re paying. If it isn’t, tell me, and either I fix it or you leave. A subscription that isn’t earning its keep is just a direct debit, and I don’t want to be a direct debit.
What you’re really buying, month after month, isn’t hosting or maintenance. It’s the judgement about what to do next. Which is also, incidentally, the one thing I can’t publish a price list for.
5. Is there a contract, and how do I leave?
The last one, and the most revealing, because it tells you what they think of their own work.
A designer confident their site earns its keep doesn’t need to trap you. A designer who isn’t, does.
What a good answer sounds like
Clear terms, plainly stated. A minimum term is not automatically a red flag, especially if there’s a build cost being recovered. What matters is that it’s honest, it’s finite, and you know how to get out.
What to worry about
Long lock-ins. Auto-renewing multi-year terms. Notice periods that seem designed to catch you out. Anything you have to hunt for.
Mine: six months minimum on the subscription plans, because that’s what funds the build, then rolling monthly with a month’s notice. Pay as you go is month to month, cancel whenever. Nobody’s locked in beyond the bit that pays for the work.
What this is really testing
Here’s the thing about these five questions.
None of them are technical. None require you to understand hosting or code or anything else you shouldn’t have to understand. They’re all about who holds the power in the relationship you’re about to enter.
Who owns the asset. Who owns the work. Who fixes it. What it really costs. How you get out.
A good web designer will answer all five without hesitating, because they’ve already thought about it and they’ve got nothing to hide. Someone who deflects, waffles, or tells you not to worry about that isn’t necessarily a crook. But they’re building a relationship where you don’t know where you stand, and that always ends the same way.
Ask me too
I’d feel like a fraud writing this and then not offering. So: ask me these questions. All five. I’ll answer them straight, and if you don’t like an answer, at least you’ll know before you’ve paid me anything.
Better still, most of it’s already written down on the pricing page, because I think you should be able to check before you ever get in touch.
That’s the whole point, really. You shouldn’t need a phone call to find out where you stand.
Want an honest look at where your website actually stands? Get your free audit, or email hello@inkon.co.uk. I read every message myself.