Proposals and portfolios only tell you part of the story. How an agency answers direct questions tells you much more: how they think, how honest they are and how they will behave when something goes wrong. Use the questions below in your first calls. You do not need to ask all of them, but the ones about process, quality and ownership are worth asking every time.
For the wider process of choosing, read how to choose a development partner.
Understanding your business
1. What do you understand our goal to be?
A good agency can restate your goal in their own words and connect it to the features. If they only repeat your feature list, they have not understood the problem.
2. What would you need to know to give an accurate estimate?
Good answers mention workflows, business rules, integrations, data and users. This question also shows whether they estimate carefully or guess.
3. What is the riskiest part of our project?
Experienced teams can point to the uncertain parts, often integrations, data migration or complex rules, and explain how they would reduce the risk early.
Process and delivery
4. How does a typical project run from start to finish?
Look for discovery, design, short build cycles, testing and support after launch. Vague answers suggest a vague process.
5. How often will we see working software?
Every one or two weeks is a good answer. "At the end" is not.
6. How do you handle changes to scope?
They should describe a clear, fair process. Read fixed scope vs time and materials for why this matters.
7. What do you need from us, and when?
Good partners are specific about decisions, access and content they need, because delays on the client side are a common cause of late projects.
People
8. Who will actually work on our project?
Ask for names or roles and experience. Check that the people you meet in sales are involved in delivery.
9. Will the same people stay for the whole project?
Frequent changes in the team slow projects down and lose knowledge.
10. Who makes technical and architecture decisions?
There should be a named senior person responsible for the technical direction.
Quality and AI
11. How do you review code?
Every change should be reviewed by someone other than its author, with clear standards for what they check.
12. How do you test?
Look for automated tests on important logic, testing before each release and testing with real users before launch.
13. Do you use AI tools, and how?
Using AI is normal today and can lower cost. The important part is how its output is checked. See how we review AI-generated code.
14. How do you keep technical debt under control?
Good answers mention refactoring as part of regular work, keeping dependencies updated and recording known shortcuts. See technical debt.
Security and data
15. How do you handle our data and credentials?
They should use secure storage for secrets, give team members only the access they need and avoid copying production data unnecessarily.
16. Which AI and cloud services will see our data?
You should know which services are used, under which terms, and be able to approve them. See how to keep customer data safe when using AI.
Ownership and exit
17. Who owns the code, designs and data?
The answer should be you, clearly stated in the contract.
18. Where will the code and accounts live?
In repositories and accounts owned by your company, from day one.
19. What happens if we want to move the work elsewhere?
A confident partner explains how they would hand over: documentation, access and a transition period. Reluctance here is a red flag.
Support after launch
20. What support do you offer after launch, and at what cost?
Ask about response times for urgent problems, security updates and how new features are handled once the product is live.
What good answers have in common
Good answers are specific, honest about uncertainty and tied to your business. They include examples. They admit what is hard. They explain trade-offs rather than promising everything. Watch also for how the agency asks you questions in return: curiosity about your business is one of the best signs you will get.
Answers that should worry you
- "We can build anything, fast and cheap."
- "You will see it when it is finished."
- "The code stays on our servers, but you can use it."
- "We do not really need tests for a project this size."
- "We will figure out the details as we go," with no process behind it.
After the calls
Write down each agency's answers while they are fresh, and compare them side by side. Invite your top choice to a paid discovery or a small first phase, so you can see how they work before committing the full budget. For budgeting, read how much it costs to build a web app.
Involve the right people
Bring the person who will own the project day to day into these conversations, not only the person who signs the contract. They will work with the agency every week, and their sense of whether communication feels easy is valuable. If the software will be used by a particular team, such as operations or sales, invite someone from that team to at least one call. They often ask the practical questions that reveal whether the agency understands how the work really happens.
Three questions to ask yourself
The interview goes both ways. Before you decide, ask yourself three questions about each agency. First, did they make your problem clearer? The best conversations leave you understanding your own project better than before. Second, would you be comfortable raising bad news with them? Every project has setbacks, and you need a team you can talk to honestly. Third, did they respect your budget and time, suggesting cheaper paths where they exist rather than steering you toward the biggest project possible?
If the answer to all three is yes, you have probably found a good partner, even if their proposal is not the cheapest. If any answer is no, think carefully before signing, however attractive the price or the portfolio.
Turning answers into a decision
Create a simple table with each agency in a column and the topics as rows: understanding, process, people, quality, AI use, security, ownership, support and price. Rate each from one to five based on the answers, and add a short note on anything that stood out. Share it with everyone involved in the decision. The discussion that follows usually makes the choice obvious, and the table becomes a useful record of why you chose as you did.
Keep your notes after you choose. If the project later drifts from what was promised, the answers you recorded give both sides a fair and specific basis for the conversation.