How to choose a site contractor: questions before the contract

A site contractor is chosen for a screen people liked and for a promise of "we will do it fast". A year later the company cannot change teams, because the domain, the hosting and the repository are not in its name. The questions below are uncomfortable. That is why they are worth asking before payment, not after a quarrel.

What should be clear before the start

• Who holds the domain, hosting and mail. The right answer: the client, with contractor access for the term of the work.
• Where the code is and whether you can take it. If "the platform is ours, there are no sources", that is a different product, and it should be named as such.
• What is inside the schedule, and what is content the client supplies. Texts and photos break the date more often than layout.
• How the work is accepted: which pages, which form, which browser. "The director likes it" is not a criterion.
• What happens after launch: updates, hours, the boundary between a fix and a new task.

The red flags are simple. A search ranking is promised by a date. Nobody says who owns the access. The estimate does not change after a question about an account area, payment and integrations, although the volume changes by multiples. A portfolio with no right to show a live address says little either.

Lexora answers these questions in its own direction the same way: the domain and hosting stay with the client, the scope is fixed, and after launch there is maintenance, not a pause. If the brief shows a builder is enough, we will say so.