How to Choose a Software or Design Agency

Choosing who builds it matters more than choosing what it's built with. A good team rescues an average idea; a bad one sinks an excellent one and costs you a year. Here's how to tell them apart before you pay.

Start with the portfolio — but read it properly

Most people scan portfolios for things that look nice. That's the weakest signal available. Look instead for:

• Projects that match yours in complexity, not in industry. Someone who has built a booking platform understands your problem better than someone who has made ten brochure sites in your sector.
• Live links that still work. If the portfolio is screenshots with no links, ask why.
• Case studies that explain decisions, not just show pictures: what was the problem, what were the alternatives, why this solution?
• Longevity. Are these projects still running two years later, or are the links dead?

Inspect the work yourself in five minutes

Open something they've shipped and try this:

1. Load it on your phone on a normal connection. Fast, or are you waiting?
2. Increase the text size or navigate with the keyboard — a tell for whether anyone thought about accessibility.
3. Google the client's name. Does the site appear with a sensible title and description?
4. If it's bilingual, switch languages. Does the layout mirror correctly, or does it break?

These checks are free and reveal more about build quality than any pitch deck.

Questions that separate serious teams

• How do you handle requirements changing mid-project? A mature answer describes a process, not a promise that anything is possible.
• Who will actually work on this? Sometimes an expert sells and a junior delivers.
• How and how often do we communicate? Disappearing for two weeks and returning with a finished result is a bad pattern.
• What happens after launch? The warranty and maintenance terms should be in writing.
• Do I own the code and the accounts? Hosting, domain and repository should be in your name.

Clear red flags

• A price far below everyone else. Usually a template, or a scope that will be "completed" later at extra cost.
• "We'll have it done in a week" for anything with real business logic.
• Refusing to provide a reference you can actually speak to.
• A contract with no written scope or delivery schedule.
• Them owning your domain or hosting, which makes leaving later a hostage situation.
• Not asking you any questions. Anyone who jumps straight to a price without understanding the problem will not solve it.

What to check in the contract

• Scope and deliverables: a specific list, not a general description.
• Revisions: how many rounds, what extra ones cost.
• Intellectual property: transfers to you on full payment.
• Timeline and dependencies: what is contingent on you delivering content.
• Warranty: how long bugs are fixed free after launch.
• Termination: what happens if the project stops, and who keeps what.

The paid trial: the best way to de-risk

If the project is large and you're uncertain, start with a small paid phase: a discovery session, two designed screens, or a prototype of the hardest technical piece. Within two weeks you'll know how they communicate, whether they hit dates, and what their quality is — for a relatively small amount, and before you're locked into a long contract.

Where we stand on this

At MajaraSoft we build our own products alongside client work — Roshtah, a healthcare platform running in nine countries, and Wslak, a classifieds platform. Operating a product yourself teaches things delivery work doesn't: how a system behaves after a year, and where technical debt actually accumulates.

If you're evaluating partners now, talk to us and ask the questions above. Any agency that can't answer them clearly doesn't deserve the project — and we include ourselves in that test.