What to ask a web designer before you pay: 4 questions

Before you pay a web designer, find out whether the site stays yours if you stop paying them tomorrow. A good answer is a plain yes, with the code, the hosting, the domain and Google Search Console all in your name.

On October 20, 2026, a pool and landscaping contractor near Toronto needed only four questions before deciding on the page we built for him. Below are the answers that should make you walk away, and the cases where WordPress or a builder beats a custom-built site like ours.

He had the finished one-page site in front of him, built from his own photos and reviews, and he asked us:

1. Is it WordPress or custom-built?
2. Do I get the files and the code?
3. Can it live on my own hosting account?
4. Do you set up Google Search Console and SEO?

He's staying anonymous here. With the work already done and only the decision left, four questions covered it.

Who keeps the site if you leave

Getting the code and having your own hosting are really one question, and it's the one I'd never skip.

Here is what we told him. Once it's paid, the complete source code and every file are his, and the site can live in his own hosting account, which we set up and hand over. That isn't a special deal for him: once one of our one-page sites is paid for, the website, its code and the domain belong to the business.

Your domain should be registered in your name, in an account you control. The designer gets added to that account as a member. Our drywall site launched in October is set up that way: the owner holds the account, and we're added to it.

Walk away if you hear any of these:

• "It stays on our platform."
• "We keep the domain in our account for you."
• "You can leave, but the site stays with us."

Each one means the designer keeps the site when you leave.

Search Console and SEO: what's included and what costs extra

Every site we build comes with basic SEO. Before you sign with anyone, ask what their quote includes on that front.

Search Console is an ownership question too. You should be an owner of it, not a guest in the designer's account.

Anything past the basics is ongoing work, so ask what it costs each month and what you get for it. Ours is the SEO care plan, billed monthly, with no ranking promised; the current price is on our pricing page.

WordPress or custom: who makes the changes, and how often

We told him his site is custom-built in plain code, with no WordPress or page builder, so there's no platform subscription. The honest test is who will make the changes, and how often. If the answer is "the owner, every week", give them something they can edit themselves.

WordPress, or a builder like Squarespace or Wix, is the better pick when you or your staff will change the site every week. The same goes if you'll post to a blog often, or need a shop, bookings or memberships, which those platforms have ready made as plugins or built-in features. A builder also makes sense when the budget is close to nothing and you're happy to do the work yourself.

For a contractor whose site changes a few times a year, it goes the other way. A custom-built site with no platform underneath loads faster and has no plugins or core updates to keep up with; that upkeep is what a WordPress site needs to stay safe. That's the owner I have in mind when we build websites for contractors and trades.

If you won't be the one making the edits, ask who will and how fast. On our care plan, everyday edits to prices, hours, text and photos are done within 2 business days of the request.

My verdict, then: never skip the ownership question, and pick the platform by who edits the site and how often. If you'll be in there every week, I'd send you to a builder before I'd sell you one of ours. Take these four questions into any designer conversation, ideally with the work already in front of you.

We build the one-page site first, so you can request a finished one-page site and ask these questions with it in front of you; there's no deposit, and you pay only after you approve the page and before it goes live.