What questions should I ask before hiring a website developer in India?

Ask to open their last site on your own phone, on mobile data, before you talk about colour or a logo. If that page takes a wait longer than they will sit, you already have the answer, and the rest of the pitch is decoration.

I will not give you a Delhi rate card for every freelancer. How to choose a website developer is the longer checklist. This page is the questions that fit on one note before you transfer anything.

Questions about the page they already shipped

A dental clinic owner and a gym owner should hear the same answers.

• May I open your last three URLs on this phone, first visit, no wifi?
• What does the page have to do after dark, in one sentence?
• Can someone book or write without waiting on a spinner?

If the first twenty minutes are moodboards and nobody asks who has to book, they are decorating. A clinic needs services and a door that matches the map. A gym needs timings, fees and a trial. The decoration is optional.

People leave after three seconds. Most of the clinic sites I have timed fail the wait. Nine clinic pages: 8.8s, 2.4 MB, 54. Sample: 1.7s, 89 KB, 100. Ask them what their last site weighed. Vague answers here are a tell.

A Saket gym owner who only asks “can you make it look premium” will get a slow theme with a gold stripe. Ask the three bullets first. The gold stripe can wait until the trial button works on 4G.

Questions about ownership and the bill

Who builds websites for small businesses in Delhi is the person page. Still ask these out loud.

• In whose name is the domain, the host, and the code after you hand over?
• What does a small hour change cost, and who do I write?
• If I stop paying you, do I still have the files?

On my builds those three sit in your name. I will say the hosting bill before I start. Rs 30,000 is the floor on pricing for a fast, mobile first website, not a typical India package.

How do I know if my website developer is doing a good job is the check after they start. Ask the ownership questions before they start.

A Rajouri Garden salon that skipped those three questions later paid a second person to guess the GoDaddy mail. Ask them in the first meeting. Write the answers on the same note as the wait.

Questions that catch a rented page

Ask who pays the host after you transfer the last instalment. Ask whether you can download a zip without writing them. Ask what happens to the mail that owns the domain if that person changes phones. A Pitampura gym that never asked those three later found the site inside a freelancer account in another city.

Ask who updates Sunday hours on Holi week, and what that message costs. A builder who says “raise a ticket” is telling you the after-handover week. I am one person. You write me. Small hour changes are part of the work I already named on the websites page. Their answer can differ. Write it down before you pay.

I will not tell you every cheap quote hides a rented page. I will tell you the rented page is the one you cannot open after they stop answering.

Questions I will not pretend have one right answer

I will not tell you Wix is always wrong. I will not tell you custom is always right. Ask what happens when the phone test fails on the tool they prefer. Wix, WordPress, or a custom site is that fork.

I will not tell you Rs 30,000 is what every decent shop in India charges. It is this studio’s floor. Theirs can sit lower and still pass the phone test. Run the test.

Usually under two weeks for a site here. Ask them their week count, then ask what “done” means. A login you cannot use is not done.

Downsides of a long question list

You will sound picky. That is the point. A builder who hates these questions is telling you how handover will feel.

You may still hire the wrong person if you never open the URL. The list does not replace the phone test.

What to do with the answers

Write their answers on the same note as the wait you timed. If the wait failed, stop. If the ownership answers were fog, stop.

Then get in touch if you want me to read that note next to their URLs. Bring the links, not their slide. I will say hire them, walk, or keep the page you already have.