Choosing a development agency is a bigger decision than it looks. You are trusting someone with your budget, your timeline and often the core of your business. A slick portfolio and a friendly sales call do not tell you much about how the project will actually run.
These are the questions we would ask if we were hiring an agency ourselves — including the uncomfortable ones.
About the team
1. Who exactly will work on my project? Ask for the roles and seniority of the people who will design, build and test it. Watch out for the classic switch: senior people on the sales call, juniors on the code.
2. Is any of the work outsourced? Subcontracting is not always bad, but you should know about it — especially for anything touching your data.
3. Who is my day-to-day contact, and how fast do they reply? You want one named person, clear working hours, and a response time in writing.
About ownership and access
4. Who owns the code, design files and accounts when the project ends? The right answer is: you do. The source code, repository, domain, hosting and every third-party account should be in your name or transferred to you.
5. Will I have access to the code while it is being built? A shared repository and a staging site mean you can see real progress, not just status emails.
6. What happens if we stop working together? Ask how the handover works. A good agency makes leaving easy, because that is what makes staying a choice.
About process and quality
7. How do you scope and price the project? Look for a written scope with clear deliverables. Be careful with quotes that are just one number with no breakdown.
8. How do you handle changes to the scope? Changes will happen. The answer should be: we tell you the cost and time impact before doing the extra work, not after.
9. How do you test before launch? Ask about testing on real devices, performance checks, security basics and who signs off each release.
10. What does a typical week look like? Regular demos, sprint plans and a visible task board beat a big reveal at the end.
About after launch
11. What support is included after go-live? Find out how long bugs are fixed free of charge and what a maintenance plan costs.
12. Can I speak to two recent clients? Portfolios show the result. References tell you how the project felt — deadlines, communication and what happened when something went wrong.
Red flags to watch for
- A price that is dramatically lower than every other quote.
- Reluctance to put ownership and handover terms in the contract.
- No written scope, or a scope full of vague phrases like "as discussed".
- Pressure to sign quickly or pay the full amount up front.
- No access to the work until the very end.
How we answer these
We would rather you ask these questions than not. At Ottomern, senior engineers scope and build your project, you own everything from day one, and you get staging access throughout. Start with a free scoping call and ask us all twelve.
