How to Choose a Web Development Company in India

Why this decision goes wrong so often

Website projects rarely fail on technical grounds. They fail because expectations were never made explicit: who writes the content, what counts as a revision, what happens after launch, who owns what. All of that is knowable in the first conversation if you ask.

I have taken over dozens of half-finished or abandoned projects. In almost every case, the warning signs were present before the advance was paid.

The fourteen questions

1. Who will actually write my code?

The single most useful question. In many Indian agencies you are sold by a senior person and delivered by whoever is free. Ask for the name and experience level of the person doing the work, and whether you will be able to speak to them directly. A good answer is specific. A bad answer is "our team".

2. Can I see three live sites you built in the last year?

Not screenshots — live URLs. Then open them on your own phone, on mobile data, and see how long they take. Check the footer for a "designed by" credit that matches. It is not unusual to find portfolio pieces that are dead, redesigned by someone else, or never launched at all.

3. Is the design original or based on a theme?

Both answers are acceptable. Only one of them justifies a ₹80,000 invoice. If it is a theme, ask which one and what the licence costs — that information is public, and reluctance to share it tells you something.

4. What exactly is in the scope, in writing?

You want a page list, a feature list, an integration list and, crucially, a list of what is not included. A one-line quote — "Website development: ₹65,000" — has no defensible meaning when there is a disagreement in week six.

5. Who writes the content?

Content kills more timelines than code does. If you are supplying it, the quote assumes a delivery date. Ask what happens to the timeline and the price if your content is three weeks late, because it usually is.

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

"Unlimited revisions" is a sales phrase and nobody honours it. Two or three structured rounds with a defined feedback process serves you better. Also ask what counts as a revision versus a scope change, and get an example of each.

7. Who owns the code, the domain and the hosting account?

The answer must be you, in writing, in the contract. Ask specifically: will the domain be registered in my company's name, in an account I control? Will I be given the source code and database at handover? If any answer wobbles, that is the whole interview.

8. What happens on launch day?

A competent answer includes: 301 redirects from old URLs, Search Console and analytics set up, XML sitemap submitted, forms tested end to end, SSL verified, backups configured. If the answer is "we upload the files", expect to lose your existing Google rankings on the first day.

9. What is included for the first 90 days, and what does support cost afterwards?

Bugs in the delivered work should be free — that is warranty, not favour. New requests are billable. Get the boundary defined, and get the post-warranty support rate before you sign, not when you first need it.

10. How will you keep it fast?

Listen for specifics: modern image formats, lazy loading, a limited script budget, caching, and named Core Web Vitals targets. Vague answers about "optimisation" mean nobody has thought about it. Google's thresholds are public: LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, CLS under 0.1.

11. What SEO is included as standard?

Technical SEO should be included by default in any modern build: semantic headings, unique titles and descriptions, schema markup, a clean URL structure, an XML sitemap, mobile usability. Content marketing and link building are separate, ongoing, and should be priced separately. Anyone promising a number-one ranking is either naive or lying.

12. How do you communicate, and how often?

Weekly written updates and one named point of contact. Ask what their response time commitment is on a working day. The most common complaint I hear about a previous developer is not poor quality — it is silence.

13. What is the payment schedule?

Milestone-based, tied to deliverables. A reasonable structure is 30–40% to start, a middle payment on design or module approval, and the balance on launch. Full payment upfront removes every incentive to finish; zero payment upfront is a sign of someone who does not value their own time.

14. What happens if I want to leave?

Ask it directly. A confident developer will tell you exactly how handover works — code, database, credentials, documentation — because they expect to keep you on merit rather than on lock-in.

Warning signs worth walking away from

• A price before a conversation. If a quote arrives before anyone asked what your business does, you are being sold a template at a custom price.
• Guaranteed number-one rankings. Nobody controls Google's index. This promise is a reliable marker for the rest of the pitch.
• The domain registered in their name. The most common form of leverage in Indian web work, and the hardest to unwind.
• No written scope. Verbal agreements are not malice, but they are how disputes start.
• A portfolio you cannot verify. Stock screenshots and no live links usually mean the work belongs to someone else.
• Pressure to decide today. Discounts that expire in 24 hours are a sales technique, not a business reality.
• Anonymity. No address, no phone number, no named person. When something goes wrong you will have no recourse at all.

Freelancer, agency or studio?

There is no universally right answer. There is a wrong pairing: a large agency for a ₹40,000 website, where you will be the least important client in the building, and a lone freelancer for a ₹15 lakh system that a business depends on.

The reference call nobody makes

Ask for one past client's contact and actually call them. Two questions do most of the work:

1. What went wrong during the project, and how was it handled? (Something always goes wrong. You are testing the response, not the record.)
2. Would you hire them again for something larger?

Five minutes on the phone tells you more than any portfolio.

What good looks like from my side of the table

For transparency, here is how I answer my own questions. I write the code myself — there is no team to hide behind. Scope is written down before any money moves, and the fixed price against it does not change unless you change the scope in writing. You own the code, the schema, the domain and the hosting accounts. Technical SEO is standard, not an upsell. Warranty on delivered work is included after launch, and support is quoted separately and honestly.

If you are evaluating quotes right now, send them over. I will give you an honest read on whether they are fair, including the cases where the right answer is to stay with the other developer.