Hiring a web designer is one of those purchases where you cannot really judge what you bought until well after you have paid for it. The same brief can get you a fast, well-built site you own outright, or a slow template dressed up as bespoke, with your domain quietly registered in someone else's name. This guide is about telling the two apart before the money is gone.
Most web designers are good at their job. Some are not, and a few are quietly building their business on lock-in rather than quality. The trouble is that a polished portfolio and a friendly call tell you almost nothing about which kind you are dealing with. The signal you actually want is what happens after launch: does the site stay up, stay fast, and get looked after, and does the designer still answer the phone in a year. That is the part you cannot see from the outside, which is exactly why people get caught.
This is the single most important thing, so it goes first. Your domain name and your hosting account must be registered in your name, with credentials you hold. A designer can manage them for you, that is fine, but ownership stays with you. The classic trap is a designer who registers your domain under their own account, so that leaving them means losing your web address and your email along with it. If anyone resists putting your domain and hosting in your name, that is not a misunderstanding. Walk away.
Before any money changes hands, you want a written scope: what you are getting, how many pages, who writes the content, who supplies images, how many rounds of revisions, and what happens after launch. Vague verbal agreements are how a fixed price becomes an open-ended one. A designer who works to a clear written scope is telling you they have done this properly before. A designer who hand-waves the details is telling you something too.
Web design prices vary enormously, and the headline number matters far less than the structure behind it. A custom site for the price of a meal out is a template with your logo dropped on top. A monthly fee should buy something specific, not a vague subscription to nothing. Watch in particular for recurring charges on things that should be yours outright, hosting, the domain, an SSL certificate, because that is often where the real lock-in lives. Ask for a fixed scope and a fixed price, and ask exactly what the ongoing cost covers.
Ask for recent sites you can actually click into, not a gallery of images. Open them on your phone. See how fast they load. A designer who is proud of their work will happily point you at live examples. If all you get is screenshots and excuses, assume the worst.
Will my domain and hosting be in my name? The answer must be yes.
What happens after launch? You want to know who maintains the site, what it costs, and how quickly they respond.
Can I see three recent live sites? Real, clickable, recent.
What is and is not included in the price? Get it in writing.
If we part ways, what do I keep? The answer should be everything.
The honest reason this is hard is that you only get to learn who is good the slow way, by hiring them. We host a lot of designers, so we get to see it the fast way: whose client sites stay up, who answers support, whose clients come back. If you would rather not run the gauntlet yourself, ask us for an honest recommendation. We are a hosting company, not a design studio, so we have nothing to sell you on the design side. And if your project is simple enough to do yourself, our website builder may be all you need.
Tell us what you are building. We will point you to a vetted web designer we host, matched to what you need, at no cost and no obligation.
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