15 questions to ask a web design company (including us), with the good answer and the bad one

Ask these of any company that wants to build your website or run your marketing, including us. The right answers are specific and written down; the wrong ones are vague, flattering or urgent. Every bad answer below is a type we found on real agency pages in October 2026 (linked in the sources), and every good answer is one you can hold a company to. Take the list into the sales call and notice which ones make the salesperson change the subject. Our own answers are on the pricing page and the process page; hold us to them too.

1. How long is the term, and what ends it?

Ask for three separate answers: the initial length, how it renews, and the notice period in days. Good answer: "There's no term; hosting and any ongoing work are separate monthly lines, and you can stop each one," or "Twelve months, then month to month, and either side can end it with 30 days' notice." Bad answer: a metaphor instead of a number. Hook's FAQ explains its yearly commitment by calling marketing "a marathon, not a sprint"; Hibu's page says its contracts run "6 to 12 months". Those are at least on the page. Worse is "we'll go over that in the proposal", which means after you have fallen for the mockups.

2. If I stop paying next month, what exactly do I walk away with?

Good answer: a list, not a sentence: a registrar login for the domain, the hosting login, the source files, forms that still deliver, your Business Profile with you as the owner and them as a manager, your analytics and advertising accounts, and your customer data in a file you can open. Bad answer: "You own your content," which usually means the words and photos; or Scorpion's candid version, "static files, design assets, and content", which means pages that display but can't take a quote request; or silence. Contractor Growth Network says nothing about this on its pricing page, and Contractor Gorilla's site terms leave it to the proposal (§7), which is not an answer either. Townsquare Interactive does answer in its terms of service, and it is the bad answer in writing: after cancelling, the client "will no longer have access to or ownership rights in the Website" (§4.4(i)). Get the good list written into the agreement.

3. Does the site run on your platform, or on files any developer can host?

Good answer: "Standard files on hosting in your name; any developer could take it over tomorrow," or "WordPress on your own hosting account." Bad answer: "our own proprietary CMS," which is Scorpion's wording, followed by the exit terms that come with it: a rebuild with another vendor. Hibu's Smart Site is the same shape, and Footbridge's FAQ says its CMS, forms and hosting stop when the subscription does, even though it hands over the site's HTML files. A platform is not wrong for a company that plans to stay, but you should know that leaving means rebuilding, and price that in. Ask the follow-up: "Has a client ever left and taken the site? What did they get?"

4. What is the first-year total, including setup, software and ad budgets?

Good answer: one number and the lines behind it, with every setup or onboarding fee as its own line with a dollar amount. Hook's pricing page is a decent model: a website at "$1,000 /mo" marked "$12K Total", so you know what the year costs. Bad answer: "depends on your business goals" (Scorpion), "Request custom pricing" (Hibu), an implementation fee named without an amount (Hibu's pricing page again; the $299 figure appears only in its legal terms), or an ad budget you learn about after the program fee, like the Google Ads budgets Footbridge says "start at $775 per month", on top of its $249 program. A number that only exists in a proposal is a number you'll negotiate under pressure.

5. Which monthly charges can I stop one at a time?

Good answer: "Each one is its own line: hosting, the phone number, email sending, the SEO work. Stop any of them and the rest keep running." That is how we quote, and it is why each item has its own line on our pricing page. Bad answer: a bundle where canceling the marketing cancels the website, or a "platform fee" that covers everything and nothing. Footbridge's program is one fee for eighteen items, which is simple, and its FAQ explains that the site's forms and hosting are part of what stops. Townsquare's packages (Get Found, Personal Support, Run Your Business) don't say on the pricing page what happens if you drop one, though its terms say the website and "all related systems will cease" when the services are cancelled (§4.4(i)). Ask.

6. Whose name goes on the domain, the hosting, the Business Profile and the analytics?

Good answer: "Yours, from day one. We're added as a manager and you can remove us." Bad answer: "We handle all of that for you," with the registrar, hosting and Google accounts under the agency's login. It feels like service and it works like a lien. The domain hurts most: if the agency is the registrant, the agency decides whether your web address moves with you. Check the registrant yourself (our domain guide shows how) and check who is primary owner on your Business Profile. Both take five minutes and settle the question before the sales call.

7. What happens to my forms, booking and phone numbers if I cancel?

Good answer: "Forms deliver to your inbox or your CRM, not to our dashboard. Any phone number we set up is in your carrier account and ports with you. Here is the list of what stops." Bad answer: the one most agencies give, which is nothing, because the sales page never raises it. Footbridge's FAQ is the exception: web forms, the CMS, the dashboard and hosting "will no longer function" once the subscription ends. That is a worse deal than the good answer and a better answer than silence, because you can plan around it. A tracking number owned by the agency is the hidden version of this: when you leave, the number on your trucks stops ringing.

8. Do you guarantee rankings, lead counts or a return?

Good answer: "No. Nobody can. Here is what we measure each month, and here is what we do if it lags." JobNimbus Marketing's FAQ gives that answer and names the reasons: market conditions, competition and seasonality. A refund window with terms, like Footbridge's 90 days, is also a real answer. Bad answer: a count in the headline (Contractor Marketing Pros' headline is a monthly count of 50 to 100 booked jobs), "guaranteed" with no remedy attached (Blue Corona's "lead-driving website"), or Townsquare's "We make sure you're in it" about AI recommendations. We don't make those promises; the pricing page says so in writing. If an agency does, ask what you get when the promise is missed.

9. Can you show me numbers for a company my size, with dates?

Good answer: a named client, leads or booked jobs per month, the months covered, and how a lead was counted. Contractor Growth Network reports "24.3 remodeling leads per month" for one named remodeler, which is the right shape; CodeWCG's dated Search Console screenshots are a smaller but honest version. Bad answer: lifetime totals (Scorpion's "$100B+" in revenue, WebFX's "$10,085,355,239+"), ratios with no period ("77:1"), or counters nobody can check (Contractor Gorilla's "972109 +" leads). Then make the call. A client who will talk to you for ten minutes tells you more than any case study page.

10. Who writes the pages, and where do the facts come from?

Good answer: "A writer interviews you, the pages are written from that, and any statistic comes with a source or doesn't go in." Bad answer: "AI-enhanced content" with no interview behind it, pages that could belong to any contractor with the town name swapped, or statistics with no source, like the "82.7%" on LawnHosting's home page or Servgrow's "Over 8000 top 3 rankings" marked "Verified" with no method shown. The pages are what Google and your customers read. If the company can't say who writes them, the answer is a template. Our guide to what a contractor website needs lists the pages worth paying a writer for.

11. Who will I talk to each month, and what will I see?

Good answer: a named person, a monthly list of what was delivered (pages written, posts, review requests, listings checked), and the numbers in your own Search Console and Analytics accounts, where they stay if you leave. Contractor Growth Network states its cadence on its pricing page: quarterly calls on the small-market plan and monthly calls on the mid-market plan, with content counts per year. Bad answer: "a dedicated account manager" with no cadence, or reporting that lives only in the agency's dashboard. Scorpion, Footbridge and Hibu each describe a dashboard; ask whether the data behind it is also in accounts you control. Set up Search Console in your own name before any agency starts, and the reporting question half answers itself.

12. What do you need from me, and by when?

Good answer: a short list with dates: an interview, photos of real jobs, approvals on the pages, logins to the accounts, and a timeline that depends on them. Footbridge says a site goes live "within 3-5 weeks" after layout approval; Scorpion says "four to 10 weeks"; Contractor Gorilla says "4 to 6 weeks" for a small site. All of those assume you answer when the designer calls. Bad answer: "We handle everything, you won't have to lift a finger." A site built without your input is a site about an average contractor. The companies that ask the most of you up front are usually the ones whose pages end up sounding like you.

13. Is the free audit actually free?

Good answer: a result before any form (CodeWCG's audit says "no email required"; our instant website checkup shows a score and your first three fixes without a sign-up), or a human review with a stated turnaround and no deadline attached. Bad answer: a form that asks for your phone number and marketing consent before you see anything (Hibu's free tools do), or a free audit with a countdown, like the "Limited Website Audits Available This Month" line on Footbridge's audit page. A free audit is a sales call with homework attached. That is fine, as long as you know it, and as long as nobody is telling you the free thing is about to run out.

14. Who are you not a fit for?

Good answer: a plain statement. Contractor Growth Network's fit page is the best one we found: it wants remodelers at $2M to $7M in revenue with "5+ years in business" and lists companies "still in startup mode" as not a fit. Hook's FAQ says it doesn't take early-stage companies. You may be outside those lines, and it is better to know before the demo than after. Our own version is on the pricing page: good fits and not-fits, including owners who want promised rankings. Bad answer: "Every business is a fit," or plans "customized based on your goals, market and budget" with no floor named. A company with no not-fit list will take your money at any stage, including the stage where you should be buying a Business Profile and a phone, not a retainer.

15. Can I have the agreement and the exit terms in writing before I pay anything?

Good answer: "Yes. Here is the agreement, here is the quote with every line, and take as long as you need." A written quote with the ownership terms inside it is what our free system quote ends with, and any company should be able to do the same. Bad answer: a card number first and the agreement after, a discount that expires at the end of the call, or a self-serve checkout that links to terms you haven't read. Footbridge lets you enroll online from its program page; that is convenient, and it also means you can subscribe to a $249 program before reading the FAQ that explains what stops when you cancel. Read first. The agency that is happy to wait while you read is the agency to hire.

Where to start

If you only ask three, ask 1, 2 and 15: the term, what you walk away with, and whether you can read it all first. All fifteen fit on the printable checklist with room for their answers. Those three settle whether the company sells a service or a dependency. Then run the instant website checkup on your current site so you know what you're replacing, read the contract red flags for the wording behind the bad answers, and see how the agencies answer in our contracts and ownership table. Ask us the same fifteen. The answers are on the pricing page, and we'll put them in your quote.

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