The portfolio tells the truth, if you know how to read it
Every agency has a portfolio. What matters is whether you can trace a line from the brief to the outcome. Ask for the business problem behind every project. If they can only talk about how it looks, they're decorators, not strategists.
Look for range within a niche. An agency that's built five near-identical sites for five different industries is recycling templates. One that's solved different problems has the experience to handle yours: lead generation for a tradie, e-commerce for a skincare brand, brand repositioning for a professional services firm.
Red flags you'll wish you'd spotted sooner
Vague timelines, no fixed-price options and a reluctance to show you live URLs all suggest things aren't running smoothly behind the scenes. Another classic: they talk about their awards more than your goals. Awards are nice. Revenue is nicer.
Watch for the bait-and-switch: the senior strategist presents in the pitch, then a junior you've never met does all the work. Ask upfront who will be on your account day-to-day, and insist on meeting them before you commit.
Communication is the actual deliverable
The agency you hire is only as good as its communication. Weekly check-ins, a project board you can see and honest updates about what's working and what isn't matter more than any single design decision. Silence between milestones is a red flag, not a sign of heads-down focus.
Agree how you'll communicate before the project starts: Slack, email, Loom videos, fortnightly video calls, whatever suits you. The right agency fits around how you work, not the other way around.
Pricing models: what you're actually paying for
Fixed-price, retainer and time-and-materials each have a place. Fixed-price is best for well-scoped builds where you know the outcome. Retainers suit ongoing growth work like SEO, content and paid media, where flexibility matters. Time-and-materials works for discovery phases but needs a cap, or you're writing a blank cheque.
The cheapest quote almost never delivers the best value. Compare what's included: hosting, support, analytics reporting, content updates. A $10k site with 12 months of support and monthly optimisation will outperform a $6k site that goes stale the day it launches.
