5 Red Flags to Watch for Before You Sign With a Web Designer

Aug 28

5 Red Flags to Watch for Before You Sign With a Web Designer

A surprising number of website horror stories start the same way. A business owner calls a new developer, not because they want a new website, but because they want their old one back. The previous designer disappeared, won't hand over the login, or the domain turns out to be registered to someone else's email entirely. Almost all of it was visible in the contract before anyone signed it, just easy to miss when a proposal looks polished and the demo looked great.

Here are five specific things worth checking before you hire anyone to build your website.

1. You don't actually get ownership of your domain and hosting

This is the big one. Some web design companies register your domain and hosting account under their own business name or email address, not yours, a pattern documented by Unscrewed Marketing [1] in its advice to small businesses evaluating web vendors. On paper, it might feel like a minor technical detail. In practice, it means the agency, not you, controls whether your website stays online. If the relationship ends badly, or the company simply stops answering the phone, you may not have any real way to move your own site.

What to ask instead: request written confirmation that the domain and hosting are registered in your business's name, tied to your own email address, before you sign anything.

2. The contract auto-renews without an easy way out

Many service contracts include an automatic renewal clause, often buried in language nobody reads closely because it feels like standard paperwork, a pattern flagged directly in Omnyra's breakdown of website contract red flags [2]. The risk shows up later: the bill renews for another year just days before you try to cancel, and you're locked in again without meaning to be.

What to ask instead: ask directly how much notice you need to give to cancel, and get the cancellation window in writing, not just a verbal answer.

3. You're charged an exit fee to take your own content

This one sounds almost too direct to be real, but Omnyra's research [2] documents it happening. A contract will state, elsewhere, that you own your website and its content, then separately include a "site release" or buyout charge to actually receive it if you leave. If a contract charges you to take possession of something it says you already own, that's not a technicality, it's two clauses at war with each other, and it's worth asking why both exist.

What to ask instead: ask plainly whether there's any fee to receive your own files, domain, or content if you end the relationship, and get the answer in writing.

4. The scope of work is vague enough that anything becomes a paid add-on

LOW/CODE's guide to agency red flags [3] points to proposals with loosely defined deliverables, phrases like "additional features as needed" without specifics, as a common source of scope creep once a project is underway. The gap between the quote you agreed to and the final invoice usually lives in language like this.

What to ask instead: ask for the deliverables to be listed specifically (number of pages, features, revisions included) rather than described in general terms.

5. The contract protects the agency's liability but not yours

Liability caps aren't unusual in service contracts, and a reasonable cap isn't a problem by itself. My Legal Pal's rundown of common contract red flags [4] points to the real warning sign: a cap that only protects the agency, capped so low it provides no real protection if something goes wrong, while you're still on the hook for broad indemnity language covering claims related to your own use of the site.

What to ask instead: read the liability section specifically, and ask whether it applies equally to both parties or only one.

Why this matters more than it seems like it should

None of these red flags are secrets. They're sitting in plain language in a lot of contracts, just easy to skim past when you're focused on the design mockups and the price at the bottom of the page. A contract that gets these five things right doesn't guarantee a good working relationship, but a contract that gets them wrong is a real warning sign worth taking seriously before you sign, not after.

Abilene Code's approach on all five of these is simple: you own your domain and hosting from day one, there's no contract to auto-renew because there isn't a recurring contract at all, there's no fee to take your own content because it's already yours, and the scope of what you're getting is spelled out clearly before you commit to anything.

If you want to see exactly what that looks like, contact Abilene Code or call (325) 280-1390.