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How to choose a web design company: what to ask, what a site should cost, red flags to avoid, and how to check a portfolio before you sign anything.
QUICK ANSWER
Choose a web design company by checking three things: proof they have built sites like yours, a clear answer on who owns the site and code when the project ends, and whether they measure results after launch, not just delivery. Ask for two client references, a written scope with dates, and a post launch plan. Price alone is a poor filter.
Write down the one thing the site must do before you call a single agency. Book more appointments, sell a product, collect quote requests, recruit staff. That single sentence changes everything downstream, including who is a good fit. A company that builds beautiful portfolio sites is not automatically the right choice for a business that needs the phone to ring.
None of this replaces knowing the platform. WordPress's own getting-started documentation is worth an hour of anyone’s time.
Then note three facts that shape any quote: how many pages you genuinely need, whether your photos and written content already exist, and who on your side will answer questions each week. Missing content is the most common reason projects stall for months. Agencies price around that risk whether or not they say so out loud.
Do this first
Write one sentence: this website succeeds if it does X. Bring that sentence to every sales call. It is the fastest way to tell who is listening and who is pitching.
Expect anywhere from a few thousand to several tens of thousands of dollars, depending on who builds it and how much of the work is custom. The ranges below are rough US market figures and vary widely by city, industry, and scope. Treat them as orientation, not quotes. Anyone quoting a firm price before understanding your page count and content situation is guessing.
The bigger question is not the number, it is what the number includes. A $4,000 site with no copywriting, no photography, and no post launch support can easily cost more in the end than a $9,000 site that includes all three. Ask every company to split the quote into design, build, content, and ongoing support so you can compare like for like.
| Option | Typical range | Best for | Main tradeoff |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY site builder | Roughly $200 to $600 per year | Testing an idea, very simple sites | Your time, and it usually looks like a template |
| Freelance designer | Commonly $1,500 to $6,000 | Small brochure sites with light content | One person, limited availability after launch |
| Small agency | Commonly $5,000 to $25,000 | Sites that need to generate leads or sales | Costs more and requires your involvement |
| Mid or large agency | Often $30,000 and up | Complex builds, ecommerce, many stakeholders | Longer timelines and layers of account management |
Open the live websites, not the case study screenshots. Screenshots are the easiest thing in the world to polish. A live site tells you whether it loads quickly, whether it behaves on a phone, whether the forms still work, and whether the business it was built for is still trading two years later.
Then ask a blunt question: which parts of this did your team actually do? Plenty of portfolios include projects where the agency did the logo and someone else built the site. Ask for one example in a market like yours, and one example where they can tell you what the site was supposed to achieve and whether it did.
Ask about ownership, scope, and what happens after launch. Most bad web projects go wrong on those three, not on the design. Send the same list to every company you are considering and lay the answers side by side. The ones who reply plainly and in writing are usually the ones who will behave the same way when something goes wrong at 4pm on a Friday.
Walk away from anyone who guarantees a specific ranking position, will not put the scope in writing, or wants to register your domain in their own name. Those are not preferences, they are structural risks. A guaranteed number one ranking is not something any company controls, and a domain you do not own is permanent leverage against you.
Two softer warnings are worth heeding as well. Heavy discount pressure to sign this week usually signals a pipeline problem on their side, not a favor to you. And a company that never asks about your customers, your margins, or where your leads come from today is going to build you a brochure, not a business tool.
Hard stop
If a company will not confirm in writing that you own the domain, the hosting account, and the finished site files, do not sign. Almost everything else is negotiable. That is not.
Ask how the site will be found, then listen for specifics. A good answer covers page structure, page speed, how each page targets a real search phrase people type, how local visibility is handled, and how you will track calls and form fills once the site is live. A weak answer is the word SEO used as a feature bullet with nothing behind it.
On timing, be suspicious of precise promises. In practice you can see early movement within weeks once structure is fixed and useful content is published, with meaningful traction usually landing in the 60 to 90 day range. Anyone naming an exact ranking on an exact date is selling a certainty that does not exist in search.
Choose the company that asked you the sharpest questions. After the calls are over, the strongest signal is rarely who showed the prettiest work. It is who understood your business fastest and told you something you did not already know. Add one more filter: could you happily spend an hour on the phone with this person when a deadline slips, because at some point one will.
For reference, Kihan Marketing is a Seattle web development and SEO company. Website design starts at $5,000. SEO starts at $1,500 per month, and growth packages that combine build work with ongoing search work start at $3,000 per month. Everything runs month to month with no long term contract. If you want a straight answer on scope, call (425) 954-3452.
Before you sign
Get the scope, the timeline, the ownership terms, and the post launch costs into one document. If a company cannot produce that, you do not have a proposal, you have a conversation.
Most small business websites in the US land somewhere between a few thousand and around twenty five thousand dollars, and the spread comes down to how much is custom. A simple brochure site built on an existing template sits at the low end. Custom design, professional copywriting, photography, and ecommerce push it up. Ask for every quote broken into design, build, content, and support so you can compare companies fairly rather than comparing one big number to another. Kihan Marketing website design starts at $5,000.
A straightforward small business site commonly takes about four to eight weeks, and larger or ecommerce builds often run three to six months. The variable that moves the date most is not the agency, it is content. Projects stall waiting on photos, service descriptions, staff bios, and approvals. Ask for a written timeline that puts deadlines on your side as well as theirs, and agree up front what happens to the schedule if your content arrives late. That one conversation prevents most launch disputes.
Hire a freelancer if the site is simple, the budget is tight, and you can manage the project yourself. Hire an agency if the site needs to generate leads, involves several people on your side, or needs ongoing work after launch. The real difference is coverage. A freelancer is one person with holidays, illness, and other clients. An agency costs more, but it should still be reachable in six months when a form breaks or you need a new page built quickly.
You should, and it needs to be in writing before work starts. That means the domain registered in your business name, the hosting account in your name or transferable to you, and the finished site files and content handed over on request. Some companies build on proprietary platforms you cannot take elsewhere, which is legitimate as long as they tell you up front. What is not acceptable is discovering at the end of the project that leaving them means starting the whole site over.
Usually only the basics. Most design quotes include technical fundamentals such as clean page structure, sensible titles, a mobile layout, and reasonable page speed. Ongoing SEO, meaning keyword research, new content, local listings, and link work, is almost always a separate monthly service. Ask which of the two you are actually buying so you are not surprised three months after launch when nothing is ranking. Kihan Marketing SEO starts at $1,500 per month, and combined growth packages start at $3,000 per month.
Ask five things: who owns the domain, hosting, and files; what is in scope and what counts as a change order; who writes the content; how many revision rounds are included; and what support costs after launch. Then ask to speak with two clients from the last year. The answers matter, but the manner matters more. Companies that answer plainly and put things in writing during the sales process tend to keep behaving that way once the deposit has cleared.
For most small businesses, yes, because an unmaintained site quietly rots. Plugins go out of date, contact forms stop delivering email, security patches get missed, and nobody notices until the leads dry up. A reasonable plan covers updates, backups, uptime monitoring, security, and a small allowance of content changes each month. Ask what is included in actual hours and what counts as extra. If a plan only covers software updates with no human time attached, it is worth less than it looks.
Kihan Marketing gives you a written scope and price within one business day. No pressure, and nothing to sign to see it.
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