How to choose an IT contractor without losing six months
Clients regularly come to us after their developer vanished mid-project. The money's been paid, there's no site, and the domain is registered to someone who doesn't pick up the phone. Almost every one of these stories could have been avoided at the point of choosing the contractor.
Azamat AbduyaminovFounder, lead engineer
Last autumn the owner of a small company messaged me. Six months earlier he'd found a freelancer through friends and paid 60% upfront for a site with a catalogue and online enquiries. The first two months went fine: mockups, a demo on a test domain, promises. Then replies started coming once a week. Then once a month. Then not at all.
What the client was left with: a link to a test site that no longer opened. A Telegram chat history. And a domain the freelancer had registered in his own name "for convenience".
There was no code. No hosting access. We started from scratch, including recovering the domain through the registrar, which took several more weeks.
This man wasn't naive. He chose a contractor the way almost everyone does: on a recommendation, on price, and on how pleasant the conversation felt. That isn't enough.
Red flags in the first conversation
I've been building websites and apps as a studio since 2022, and as a developer before that. Here's what worries me when I look at someone else's offer through a client's eyes.
A price with no questions
If you get an exact number after a single message saying "I need a website", the person either didn't understand the task or doesn't plan to dig into it. A decent contractor asks first: what's the site for, how many languages, who'll update it, where do enquiries go. There's more on preparing for that conversation in our article on writing a website brief.
A portfolio without links
Behance screenshots look great, but you can't check that they're real projects or that this person built them. Ask for live links. Open the site on your phone. See whether the form works. If you can, ask the site's owner what working together was like.
"We'll do it all in a week"
A corporate site with an admin panel and two languages usually takes 4–8 weeks. If someone promises a week, there are three options: a template sold to you as custom development, a promise that won't be kept, or both.
100% upfront
Even studios with a reputation rarely take everything in advance. The normal setup is milestones; more on that below.
No contract
"We trust each other" is a nice line while things are going well. A contract isn't for court. It's so both sides understand exactly what will be built in the same way.
Freelancer, studio or your own developer
There's no answer that's right for everyone. I'll be honest about when a freelancer is better than us.
| Freelancer | Studio | In-house developer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | lower | medium | a salary every month |
| Time to start | fast | 1–2 weeks | months of hiring |
| If the person gets sick or leaves | project stops | someone else picks it up | project stops |
| Design + front + back + server | rarely one person does it all | all roles in place | depends on the person |
| Good for | landing page, small fixes, a bot | site with CMS, app, long-term support | a product that changes every day |
For a single-service landing page, a good freelancer is a perfectly reasonable choice, and I sometimes recommend exactly that to clients. For a project that needs design, backend, frontend and then years of maintenance, the one-person risk is too high.
Who owns the website
This is the most important section, and it isn't about development.
We go through the same list with every client. If anything on it stays with us, we write that into the contract and hand it over on the first request.
- The domain is registered to the client, and the client has access to the registrar account
- Hosting or the VPS is paid from the client's card, or transferred after launch
- The code repository (GitLab, GitHub) belongs to the client, or the client gets a full copy
- Superuser access to the site's admin panel
- Google Search Console, Yandex Webmaster and analytics logins are on the client's email
- The Telegram bots and channels that receive enquiries are created on the client's account
- Documentation: how to run the project, where backups are, which keys exist and where they're stored
That last item gets forgotten a lot. Even with the code in hand, a new contractor without instructions will spend days working out how to run it.
“Handing over a project should take one day. If it takes a month of detective work, the project was built from the start so that you couldn't leave the contractor.”
How to pay without taking on risk
We work in milestones, and I'd advise asking the same of any contractor. The idea is simple: you never pay far ahead for something you haven't seen yet.
- 30–40% upfront. This is followed by a prototype and design of the main screens. It's the first point where you see results and can stop.
- Design sign-off. Payment for the next stage only after you've approved the mockups. Changes after sign-off are discussed separately, which is fair to both sides.
- Demo on a test server. You click through the live site, check the forms, the admin, the mobile version. We record a list of issues.
- Launch and final payment. The site moves to your domain, you receive every access on the list above, and only then comes the final payment.
- Warranty period. A month or two during which bugs are fixed free of charge. After that, support as agreed.
At every stage you should have access to what's already been built. Not "we'll show you at the end", but a test server link you can open whenever you like.
What to check in the contract
A contract doesn't need to be twenty pages. But it should cover:
- Scope. A list of pages and features, ideally by referring to the agreed brief.
- Deadlines per milestone, not just a final delivery date.
- What counts as a revision and what counts as a new task. The most common source of conflict.
- Rights to the code and design pass to you once paid.
- A warranty on bug fixes after launch.
- Exit terms. What happens if either side wants to stop: what gets handed over and how much is paid for the work done.
That last point feels pessimistic. In practice it protects both sides and keeps a parting of ways, if it happens, calm.
What it looks like when it's done right
A good sign of a contractor is how many clients stay with them. We built the website for the law firm Legal Alliance in 2022, along with the logo and brand book, and we still run it. Practices, team, news, video, search, company history: all of it is alive and regularly updated. That doesn't mean we've never disagreed. It means it was always clear how to resolve it.
Mirodil wrote in detail about what goes into long-term maintenance like this in Your website is live. What to do every month. And if you're still at the budget stage, the breakdown of website costs in Tashkent may help.
If I were choosing a contractor myself
I'd look at three live projects and message at least one of their owners. I'd ask for a prototype before paying for the whole project. I'd check whose name the domain will be registered in before signing anything. And I'd notice whether the contractor asks uncomfortable questions about my business. If they don't, they probably don't care how it turns out.
The most expensive mistake isn't overpaying by 20%. It's losing six months and starting over. The client from the start of this article did launch his site in the end, but seven months later than planned, and he paid for it almost twice.
If you'd like an outside opinion on an offer you've received, message me on Telegram at @Azamat_yamin. I'll be honest, even if it isn't about us.
