How to choose a web agency in Barcelona without buying hot air: 10 questions
Barcelona has hundreds of agencies, studios and freelancers building websites, and in the first meeting they all say exactly the same thing: custom design, results-driven, multidisciplinary team. You cannot choose on that. What does work is asking uncomfortable questions and listening to how they answer. Here are the ten we would ask if we had to hire someone else.
You do not choose an agency for what it promises. You choose it for what it can explain without dressing it up.
Before you ask: know what you want
If you walk in with “I need a new website”, every agency will quote you a different website and you will not be able to compare them. Spend ten minutes writing down what the site has to achieve (enquiries, sales, bookings, no longer answering the same questions by phone), who will use it and what is not working today. Our interactive brief is free and does not ask you to talk to anyone. With that in hand, the questions below make sense.
The ten questions
1. Can you show me three cases with a problem, a solution and a result?
Not a portfolio of pretty screenshots: three projects where they explain what was wrong, what they did and what changed afterwards. If the result is “the client was very happy”, that is not a result. If they say “we cannot share data”, ask for just one. Ours are here, with the numbers we have and without the ones we do not.
2. Who exactly is going to build my website?
The person selling you the project is almost never the one building it. Ask who designs, who codes, who writes, and whether any of it is subcontracted. Subcontracting is not a problem; not telling you is.
3. Who will own the domain, the hosting, the code and the designs?
The right answer is “you, all of it, from day one”. If the domain is registered in the agency’s name or the site lives on a platform you cannot leave, the day you want to switch providers you will find out what it really costs.
4. What is not included in the quote?
This is the question that makes people most uncomfortable and saves you the most money. Copy, photos, translations, migrating the old site, training, legal texts, first-year maintenance. We put a “not included” section in every proposal because a postponed surprise is still a surprise.
5. How will we know whether the website works?
A website that does not measure cannot be improved. Ask what they will measure, with which tool and who will look at the data after launch. If the answer is “we install Google Analytics”, keep asking: which goals? which events? how often do we review them?
6. What happens when the site goes down on a Saturday?
It will go down. Every site does at some point, usually at the worst moment. What matters is whether someone sees it before you do, how fast they respond and whether the hosting takes backups that someone has actually restored. This is how ours works.
7. How long will it take and what do you need from me?
The timeline of a website is almost never set by the agency: it is set by the copy and photos you have to deliver. An honest agency tells you from the start what it will need and when, and warns you that content is the bottleneck.
8. How do you handle languages?
In Barcelona a website is usually born in two or three languages. Ask whether translations are done by a person or a machine, whether each language has its own URL and whether search engines can find each version. A machine-translated site nobody reviewed shows in the first sentence, and your readers notice before you do.
9. What would you do with my current website before rebuilding it?
Sometimes the right answer is “do not rebuild it yet”. An agency that wants to help looks at what you have first: speed, rankings, which pages work. Our express audit tells you in a video and it is free for exactly that reason: so we do not sell you a website you do not need.
10. Can you explain it without jargon?
If the proposal has more acronyms than sentences, ask them to translate it. People who understand something can explain it. And if you are still in doubt, our no-smoke dictionary translates the thirty words most often used to say nothing.
Warning signs
Some phrases should set off every alarm. “We will get you to number one on Google”: nobody can guarantee that. “Unlimited design” or “unlimited revisions”: someone will pay for those revisions, and it will be you, in quality or in time. A fixed price before anyone has discussed the project. A one-line quote. A “free” website where it is not clear who pays what and for how long. And the most common one: a proposal that talks a lot about the agency and not at all about your business.
And if you ask us
We get these same questions, and we answer them in writing. We are a studio in Sant Just Desvern, just outside Barcelona, that builds websites, brands, content and software, with an in-house team and hosting we manage ourselves. We do not publish a rate card, but we give you a real figure within 24 hours if you answer seven questions. And before that, if you want to know the state of your current site, take the test: it takes three minutes and does not ask for your email to show the result.
Frequently asked questions
How many agencies should I compare?
Three is usually enough if all three received the same brief. Beyond five, choosing costs you more than the price difference.
Is a big agency better than a small studio?
It depends on what matters more to you: the processes and capacity of a big one, or direct access to the people doing the work in a small one. What matters is that all ten questions get an answer.
How do I know whether the price is reasonable?
Compare the breakdown, not the total. If there is no breakdown, ask for one. We have a guide to website price ranges in Barcelona in 2026.
Should I sign a lock-in period?
For the project, no. For maintenance or hosting an annual commitment can make sense, as long as you can take the whole website with you whenever you want.
What should the agency hand over at the end?
Every login, training to edit the site, the design files, documentation of what was built and a clear maintenance plan. If any of that is missing, they are not finished.