The short answer
To choose an agency to build your website or app, look for shipped work similar to yours, meet the people who will actually do the work, and get a written scope with a fixed quote and milestones before you sign. Make sure the code, design files and accounts are set up in your name from day one. An agency is the right choice when you need design and engineering together and a team that stays through launch; a freelancer suits a small, well-defined site, and an in-house team makes sense once the product is your core business.
Do you need an agency, a freelancer or an in-house team?
Hire an agency when the project needs several skills at once, usually design, front-end, back-end and mobile, and you want one party accountable for the result. Hire a freelancer when the job is small and well defined, like a brochure site or a single feature. Build an in-house team once the product is the business and there will be years of continuous work on it.
Many companies use more than one: an agency to design and build the first version, then an in-house team that takes it over. If that is your plan, ask any agency you talk to how they hand over, because a clean handover is what makes that route work.
| Agency | Freelancer | In-house team | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | A website and app built together, or a product with several moving parts | A small, well-defined site or feature | A product that is the core of the business, long term |
| Skills covered | Design, engineering and mobile under one roof | Usually one discipline | Whatever you hire for |
| Time to start | Weeks | Days | Months, including hiring |
| If someone leaves | The agency covers it | The project stops | You re-hire |
| Your management load | Low: one point of contact | Medium: you coordinate the gaps | High: you run the team |
What should a website and app agency do for you?
A good agency takes you from an idea to software people use, and stays long enough to make sure it works. In practice that means it should cover the whole path, not just the part that produces screenshots.
- Help you decide what to build first, and what can wait.
- Design the website and the app on one design system, so they look like the same company.
- Build the front end, the backend and the mobile apps, and integrate the tools you already use.
- Handle hosting, App Store and Google Play submission, analytics and search basics.
- Hand over documentation, code and accounts your team can run without them.
How do you check an agency before you hire it?
Judge an agency on shipped work and on the people, not on the pitch. A portfolio of live products similar to yours tells you more than any proposal, and the team you meet before signing should be the team that does the work.
- Open their live work on your own phone. Is it fast, and does it feel considered?
- Ask who exactly will design and build your project, and meet them before you sign.
- Ask to speak to one or two past clients, and ask those clients what went wrong.
- Check that a case study separates real client results from concept work.
- Run their own website through PageSpeed Insights. An agency that sells speed should have it.
- Read the contract for who owns the code, the designs and the accounts. It should be you.
What affects the cost of a website or an app?
The cost of a website or app is driven by scope far more than by the agency's day rate. The same agency can quote very different amounts for a marketing site and for a logged-in product, so compare quotes against the same written scope, not against each other in the abstract. Our cost guide lists our own starting prices.
The biggest factors are the ones below. If an agency quotes before asking about most of them, the number is a guess.
- Number of distinct screens and page templates.
- Whether users sign in, pay, or have data stored about them.
- Integrations with existing systems: payments, CRM, ERP, booking, maps.
- Native iOS and Android versus one cross-platform app.
- Content: who writes it, and whether it needs a CMS your team can edit.
- Compliance requirements such as accessibility, GDPR or industry rules.
- Support and maintenance after launch.
How long does it take to build a website or an app?
Most projects take between a week and two months: a week or two for a focused website, and four to eight weeks for a first version of an app or web product. Larger platforms run in phases, with something live at the end of each one.
The schedule is decided by how quickly decisions get made as much as by the build. Ask for milestones in writing, and expect to see working software every week rather than a reveal at the end. Our guide on how long it takes to build a website or app breaks the timeline down.
What should you ask on the first call?
The first call is for you to find out how the agency thinks, not just what it charges. These questions separate a team that has done this before from one that will learn on your budget.
- What would you build first, and what would you leave out?
- Who will work on this, and how much of their time is ours?
- How often will we see working software?
- How do you handle a change of scope halfway through?
- What do you need from us each week?
- What happens after launch, and what does support cost?
- Whose accounts will the code, hosting and app store listings live in?
What are the red flags when hiring an agency?
The clearest red flag is a fixed price given before anyone has asked about your users, your integrations or your content. Others are easier to miss.
- The people on the sales call are not the people who will build it.
- No live work you can open, only images and mockups.
- Concept projects presented as if they were client results.
- Code, domains or app store accounts held in the agency's name.
- A long design phase with nothing working until the very end.
- No plan for what happens the week after launch.
What should you prepare before contacting an agency?
You do not need a specification, but a few sentences on each of these will make the first call useful and the quote accurate. Our guide to writing a project brief has a template you can copy.
- What the product does and who it is for.
- What exists today: a current site, an app, designs, a brand.
- The one outcome that would make the project a success.
- A date that matters, if there is one, and why.
- A budget range. It changes the advice you get, so share it early.
Where does X-Studio fit?
X-Studio is a website and app development agency for startups and growing companies that want one senior team to design and build their website, web app and mobile apps together. The people on the first call are the people who do the work, you see working software every week, and everything is set up in your accounts from the start.
We are probably not the right fit if you need a large team for a multi-year enterprise programme, or if the cheapest quote is the deciding factor. If you are somewhere in between, tell us what you are building and we will say honestly whether we are the right studio for it.