01Ownership and exit
Ask these first, and get the answers in writing, because if they are vague nothing else matters. Ownership is the question that determines whether you are buying an asset or renting access to one, and the difference only becomes visible on the day you want to leave. A builder who has thought about this will answer immediately and without discomfort, because they have written it into their own terms. Hesitation here is not proof of bad intent, but it does tell you the arrangement has never been tested, and you would rather find that out now than in a year.
- Who owns the code when this is finished, in writing?
- Is the domain registered in my name or yours?
- If I hire someone else next year, what do they receive from you?
- Is there a monthly fee, and does the site stop working if I stop paying it?
02Scope and money
Most disputes about web projects are not about quality. They are about two people who meant different things by the same word and only discovered it at delivery. Pages is the classic: to you it may mean the sections of your site, to the builder it may mean templates. Content is the other one, and it is the single most common reason a project stalls, because both sides assumed the other was writing it. Naming the page count individually and saying out loud who writes and who photographs turns a disagreement that would have surfaced in month two into a two-minute conversation in week zero.
- How many pages, named individually, not just a total?
- Who writes the text, and who supplies the photos?
- What does a change cost after launch, per hour or per change?
- Is hosting, the domain and the SSL certificate in this price or extra?
- What is explicitly NOT included?
03Answers that should worry you
None of these mean the person is dishonest, and it is worth saying so plainly. A cheap quote usually means a template configured rather than a site built, which is a legitimate product at that price and the right answer for plenty of businesses. What they all mean is that you should get a second quote before deciding. The exception is a guaranteed Google position: that one is not a difference in approach, it is a claim about something nobody controls, and it tells you how carefully the rest of their promises were made.
- A guaranteed Google position. Nobody controls that, and offering it says something about everything else they claim.
- A price with no page count attached.
- Refusing to name what happens to your existing URLs when the old site is replaced.
- A large deposit before you have seen anything at all.
- No live sites to show, or only sites that are no longer online.
The ownership question, from the other side
Santorini Hotel needed a public website and a guest app. The tempting answer is to build and bill three times, once per platform. We built one codebase that ships to web, iOS and Android instead, which means one change lands everywhere and the hotel is not paying to maintain three versions of the same booking flow. Ask any developer what happens when you want the same feature on the app and the site. The answer tells you how they charge.
See the build: Santorini HotelQuestions, answered
Is a cheap quote always a bad sign?
No. It usually means a template configured rather than a site built, which is a legitimate product at that price. It is only a problem if you were told it was custom.
Should I pay a deposit?
It is the industry norm and not unreasonable, since the builder carries the risk otherwise. Just know what it buys and what happens to it if you walk away. We took the other side of that trade and ask for nothing up front.
How do I judge quality if I am not technical?
Open three of their live sites on your phone. If they load fast, read well and you can find a phone number in two seconds, that tells you more than any portfolio image.
Where PROOF48 fits
Our answers, in order: you own everything, we redirect every old URL, we write the text if you do not have it, the price is agreed before we build, and if you do not like the result you pay nothing. Every site on our work page is live and you can open it right now.
Cosmin Tiu · Founder, PROOF48
Building software since 2018. PROOF48 ships business websites in 48 hours and invoices afterwards, which means every opinion here was paid for in builds rather than in theory.