What to Ask Before Accepting a Website Quote: A 10-Question Checklist

When you already have two or three quotes on the table, the temptation is to rank them by price. But a quote is a commitment about what will be delivered, when, under what conditions, and what happens if something changes. And almost none of that shows up in the number.

We have already written about how to ask for a quote that is comparable and about why the number alone tells you nothing, with five questions about the product (design, stack, SEO, support, code). This post is the next step: the proposal has arrived, and you still need to know what you are agreeing to. There are ten questions, to ask any agency or freelancer, and to get the answers in writing.

First of all: what gets delivered

1. What deliverables are included, exactly?

"Landing page" is a label. Ask for the list: how many sections, how many screens or pages, whether it includes a form, a WhatsApp button, calendar or cart integration, a mobile version, copywriting, content loading. Whatever is not on the list is what gets quoted separately later.

2. What is explicitly left out?

This is the question that changes the conversation the most. An organized provider can answer it without hesitating: photos, logo, copywriting, translations, integrations with other systems, paid advertising. If the answer is "we'll figure that out later", you already know where the extra cost will show up.

3. Who produces the content?

Copy, photos, testimonials. If the quote assumes you provide them and you assumed the provider would (or the other way around), the project stalls in the first week. Ask what they expect to receive from you and in what format.

During the project: revisions, payments and timelines

4. How many revision rounds are included, and what counts as one?

Saying "revisions included" is not enough: it has to say how many. And you should know the definition. A reasonable round is one consolidated set of feedback with all changes together, not a message for every detail that occurs to you during the week. Also ask what happens with a change that was already approved and that you want to reverse.

5. How is it split into payments, and against which milestones?

A deposit and a balance on delivery is the usual setup, but what matters is that each payment is tied to something verifiable (approved design, site on a staging environment, launch) and not to a calendar date. Also ask what happens to what you already paid if the project is cancelled halfway.

6. What timeline do they propose, and what can stall it?

A timeline with no conditions is an empty promise. It almost always depends on something on your side: delivering content on time, answering revisions within a certain window, approving the design. Ask for what the timeline depends on to be written down, and what happens if that dependency slips on your side or theirs.

After delivery: who owns what

7. Whose name are the domain, hosting and code under?

Three different things, three questions. The domain should be in your name, with you as the owner. The hosting and the code repository should be yours or transferable without conditions. If any of that stays in the provider's name, your site depends on their goodwill. It is the thing people ask about least and the one that hurts most when you need to change providers.

8. What happens after delivery?

Some quotes end the day the site goes live. Ask whether there is a follow-up adjustment period (and how long it lasts), how a minor change is requested (colors, copy, photos), whether it has a cost and how it is calculated, and whether maintenance is mandatory or optional. A "monthly maintenance" fee that doesn't explain what it includes is a charge with no clear return.

9. What recurring costs are there, beyond the quote?

The number on the quote is almost never the total cost for the year. Add up domain, hosting, plugin or template licenses, third-party tools and any monthly fees. Ask for the list of things that renew and who pays for them: if they depend on a paid plan from a platform, the monthly cost is part of the real price.

10. Can I see previous work and talk to someone who has hired them?

Not to judge the design, but to confirm that they delivered on time, that they responded afterwards, and that the client kept their access. If the provider can't show anything, it is not an automatic disqualification (someone just starting out has no portfolio), but it tells you how much of the rest of the proposal you have to verify yourself.

How to use the list

Ask the ten questions in writing and ask for the answers in writing. You don't need a fifty-page contract: it is enough that the final proposal incorporates them. An email with the answers, accepted by both parties, is already a record of what was agreed.

Then, only then, you compare. And you will probably notice that two quotes with the same number had very different conditions, or that the more expensive one made clear something the cheaper one never mentioned. If, on the other hand, a provider gets uncomfortable with the questions, that is information too.

How we do it at Manivela

All the code lives in a private repository you can access from day 1, and each plan spells out how many revision rounds it includes. The domain is registered under your account and we help you set it up, and maintenance is optional: we don't charge a phantom monthly fee. To understand what each tier includes, see how much a landing page costs and our web development plans.

If you already have a quote from another provider, send it to us on WhatsApp and we will review it against these ten questions.