To choose a web development agency in London, check three things before you talk to anyone: that the company is real (Companies House and the ICO register), that its work is live and recent, and that real clients have reviewed it somewhere it cannot edit. Then send the same one-page brief to two or three studios, and pick the one whose questions show it understood your business, whose quote spells out what is included, and whose contract hands you the code, the domain and the copyright.
All of that fits into an afternoon, and it rules out most of the bad options before anyone has spent your money.
Before the first call: three checks anyone can run
Is the company real? Search the name on Companies House. You want an active company, accounts filed on time and directors whose names match the people you will deal with. A business that handles your customers' data should also appear on the ICO register of fee payers. Both searches are free and take a minute. Studios that take this seriously publish the numbers themselves, as we do on our trust page.
Is the work live? Screenshots on their own tell you little, so click through to the live sites and open them on your phone. Check whether they load quickly and whether the contact form works. If projects from two years ago are offline or broken, ask what happened, because the answer tells you how the studio handles clients after launch.
Do strangers vouch for it? Testimonials on the agency's own site are written or chosen by the agency. Look for reviews on Clutch, Google or a similar platform where the agency cannot delete what it dislikes, and read the three-star ones as closely as the fives.
The questions to ask, and what a good answer sounds like
Who will do the work? You want names and roles. Some agencies sell the project and pass the build to subcontractors, which can work well, but you should know about it up front and be able to talk to the person writing the code.
What exactly is in the price? A good quote lists pages, features, integrations, rounds of revisions, who writes the copy and what happens after launch. A single number with the words bespoke website next to it cannot be compared with anything.
Who owns the site when it is finished? This is the question most clients forget. Under UK law, a contractor who builds something for you usually keeps the copyright unless the contract says otherwise. Paying the invoice does not transfer it. Ask for a written assignment of copyright on payment, the domain registered in your name, and hosting you can move.
What happens after launch? Ask how long they fix bugs for free, what a care plan costs and what it covers, and how you would leave if you wanted to. The answer to the last one should be short and specific: you get the code, the domain and the logins.
How do you get paid? Staged payments tied to milestones protect both sides. We take 50% at the start and 50% before delivery, once scope is fixed. Full payment upfront for anything beyond a small job puts all the risk on you.
What a good process looks like
A good studio asks before it quotes. Expect questions about who your customers are, how they find you now, what the site must do that the current one does not, and what you will measure. If the first reply to your brief is a price with no questions, the price was not based on your business.
After that, the work should come in stages you can see: a structure and wireframes, then design, then a working build on a staging address, then launch. You should be able to click through the real thing well before it goes live, and the studio should tell you plainly when something you asked for would cost more than it returns.
Red flags
- No company number anywhere on the site, or one that leads to a dissolved company.
- A guaranteed first place on Google. Nobody outside Google controls rankings, so a promise like that says more about the sales pitch than about the work.
- The domain registered in the agency's name, or hosting you cannot leave without paying an exit fee.
- A quote that arrives within an hour of your enquiry, for a project they have not asked a single question about.
- No mention of copyright or ownership in the contract, or a clause that licenses the site to you rather than assigning it.
- A portfolio with no links, or links that no longer work.
- Pressure to sign this week because the price will go up.
Agency, studio or freelancer?
Choose by the project rather than the label. A good freelancer at £1,200 to £2,000 for a four to five page site is excellent value for a simple brochure site. Once the project involves integrations, a shop or a deadline that matters, a small team covers design, build, testing and support without a single point of failure. Our guide to website costs in the UK covers what each option typically charges, and whether a London address changes the price.
For most small businesses a small studio with a fixed price, a named developer and a contract that hands over everything at the end is the sensible fit. Big agencies earn their fees on large projects that need several teams at once, and on a five-page site you would be paying for layers of management the work does not need.
Comparing the quotes
Lay the quotes side by side against the same brief. Strike out any that cannot say who owns the result. Among the rest, price differences usually come down to scope, so check what each one includes before reading the totals, then pick the studio whose questions were sharpest, since that team is more likely to spot a problem in week three than after launch. If your project is a small business website, our page on that service shows what we usually include.