Freelance web developer or agency: how to choose, and the six questions to ask before you sign

You need a website, a store or an app, and two options keep coming up: a freelance web developer or an agency. I am a freelancer, so I am not neutral. But I have also taken over projects delivered by agencies and by other freelancers, and the right choice depends less on the status than on a few precise questions.

What a freelancer does well

• One contact: the person who listens to you is the one who designs and builds. Nothing gets lost between sales, project manager and developer.
• Short timelines on human-sized projects: showcase site, store, redesign.
• Lower overheads, so usually a lower price for the same scope.

The risk: everything rests on one person. If they fall ill or vanish, the project stops. And a lone freelancer doesn’t always have every skill (design, development, SEO, copy).

What an agency does well

• A full team for big projects: several developers, a designer, someone for content and follow-up.
• Continuity: if someone leaves, someone else takes over.
• Process for long projects with many stakeholders on the client side.

The risk: you pay for the structure, you rarely talk to the people doing the work, and on a small project you are not a priority. Some agencies also subcontract most of it to freelancers.

Six questions to ask either one

1. Who actually does the work? Ask for the name of the person who will design and the one who will build.
2. Can I see live sites, not just mock-ups? A link to a working site beats an image.
3. Who will own the site, the domain and the accounts? They should be in your name. I wrote a whole article on this.
4. Will I be able to edit my own text and prices?
5. What is planned for Google? An invisible site is useless: at least a clean technical base, pages for real searches and Search Console.
6. What happens after launch? Fixes, updates, who to call and at what price.

Signs that should make you walk away

• A guarantee of “first place on Google”.
• A quote with no written scope, or a price given before they understand your business.
• A site hosted on an account you don’t control, with no way to get it back.
• No live project to show.

In short

For a showcase site, a store or a redesign, an experienced freelancer is often the best balance of quality, time and price. For a large product with heavy development, you need a team. That is why I work alone on the design and the site, with the team’s developers when a project needs them: one contact, and the hands it takes.

Hamza BenjaabaA product designer and freelance developer, I design and build websites, Shopify stores and apps, in Morocco and across French-speaking countries.