How to Spot a Bad Web Designer (Before You Pay Them)

Short answer: it’s almost never about the portfolio.

A nice-looking website tells you someone can make a nice-looking website. It tells you nothing about what happens after you’ve paid them.

Here’s what actually separates the good from the bad — and most of it isn’t visible until you know what to look for.

The advice you’ve probably already heard

If you’ve searched this before, you’ve hit one of these takes:

1. “Check their portfolio — if the work looks good, they’re good.”
2. “Read the reviews before you hire anyone.”
3. “Cheap always means bad, spend more to be safe.”

All three feel like common sense. None of them catch the problems that actually cause people to regret hiring someone.

What actually separates good from bad

Here’s what to check instead, roughly in order of how often they trip people up:

1. Do they explain pricing plainly, or dodge the question? “It depends” is fine as a starting answer. A flat refusal to give any range, or pricing that only appears after a sales call, is a red flag — it usually means the number flexes based on how much you seem willing to pay.
2. What happens after launch? Ask directly: who updates the site in six months? A huge number of small business websites are abandoned the day they go live, because the designer’s entire business model was the one-off fee, not ongoing care.
3. Do they even mention your Google Business Profile? A website built in isolation from your Google listing is half a job. If GBP doesn’t come up at all in the conversation, that’s worth noting.
4. Can they show you real, live client sites — not screenshots? Anyone can screenshot a mockup. A real link you can click, on a real domain, still working today, is a different thing entirely.
5. Are they upfront about what they don’t do? Someone who claims to handle everything — design, SEO, social media, ads, copywriting, hosting — at expert level is usually stretched thin across all of them.

None of these show up in a portfolio. All of them show up in a five-minute conversation, if you ask.

Here’s the part nobody explains properly

The website itself is rarely the actual product. The ongoing relationship is.

A freelancer or agency that disappears after the invoice clears has built a business around one-off transactions — get paid, move to the next client, repeat. That’s not necessarily dishonest, but it does mean nobody’s incentivized to keep your site working once it’s live.

The clearest tell isn’t in what they show you. It’s in what they don’t mention unprompted — pricing structure, what ongoing support actually looks like, whether your Google listing is part of the plan or a separate conversation entirely.

What to actually do before you hire anyone

Ask these three questions directly, before you agree to anything:

• “What does this cost, all in, and is there anything extra later?”
• “If I need something changed in six months, what happens?”
• “Can you show me a live site you’ve built, that I can visit right now?”

How someone answers matters more than what they answer. A straight answer to all three is a good sign. Vague answers to any of them are worth pausing on.

Quick answers to what people ask me next

Is a cheaper web designer automatically a worse one? No — price tells you very little on its own. A cheap build with genuine ongoing support beats an expensive one that vanishes after launch.

Should I always go with the option with the best reviews? Reviews help, but they’re easy to game and don’t tell you what happens six months in. Combine them with the direct questions above rather than relying on stars alone.

What if a designer doesn’t mention my Google Business Profile at all? Worth asking directly. A website and an unmanaged GBP working against each other is a common, avoidable problem — and it’s usually a sign the two were never planned together.

Is it a red flag if someone won’t give me any pricing until after a call? Not always — some pricing genuinely depends on scope. But if you can’t get even a rough range without a sales conversation first, that’s worth noting rather than ignoring.

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Want a second opinion before you commit to anyone? I’ll take a free look at your current website and Google Business Profile — or help you sanity-check a quote you’ve already been given — no pitch, no obligation.