How to Choose a Web Designer in Cardiff (10-Point Checklist)

Picking the wrong web designer in Cardiff costs more than the deposit. It costs the six weeks of revisions, the embarrassment when you cannot send the link to a client, and the months of lost enquiries from a site that should have been live in March and went live in July.

This is the 10-point checklist Studio 72 uses to vet competitors when small business owners ask "is this quote any good?"

1. Do they have live work you can actually visit?

Not screenshots. Not Behance mockups. URLs to live sites that have been running for at least six months. Open three of them on your phone. If any of them are slow, broken or visibly dated, that is your answer.

2. Can they name a specific outcome the site is supposed to achieve?

"More leads" is not an outcome. "Three enquiries a week from Cardiff homeowners searching for boiler servicing" is an outcome. If the designer cannot translate your business into a specific, measurable result, the site they build will not be aimed at one.

3. Is the price fixed, or is it "starting at"?

Fixed prices are honest. "Starting at £1,200" is the line that becomes £4,800 once the scope reveals itself. Ask for a fixed quote against a written scope. If the answer is no, you are signing up for hourly billing dressed up as a project.

4. Who writes the copy?

This is the question that catches out 80% of buyers. If the designer says "you'll provide the copy," you are now also the copywriter. If the designer says "we'll write it," ask to see two examples of copy they have written for similar businesses. Most cannot.

5. What stack is the site built on?

The answer matters because it determines what happens after launch. Common Cardiff answers:

• **WordPress + page builder (Elementor, Divi)** — easy to update, often slow, security maintenance required
• **Wix / Squarespace** — easy to update, locked to the platform, fees forever
• **Webflow** — fast, good design control, monthly hosting fee
• **Next.js / Astro on Vercel or Netlify** — fastest, best for SEO, requires a developer for content changes

None of these are wrong. They each have trade-offs. A designer who refuses to discuss the trade-offs is hiding something.

6. What is the speed score they target?

A reasonable Cardiff designer in 2026 should target a Lighthouse mobile score of 85+ on launch. Anything below 60 is a problem they should be willing to talk about. If they do not know what their last three sites scored, they are not measuring it.

7. How does the contact form actually work?

This sounds trivial. It is not. Native platform forms (Wix's, WordPress's defaults) lose roughly 5–15% of submissions to spam filtering, deliverability issues and silent failures. A serious designer uses something like Resend, Brevo, Postmark or a dedicated form service with delivery monitoring.

8. What's included in the post-launch period?

Standard expectations in Cardiff in 2026:

• 30-day bug-fix window included in the build price
• Defined hourly rate for changes after that window
• Documentation of how to update content
• A clear answer on hosting renewal (price + provider)

If any of those four are missing, the price is incomplete.

9. Do they own their own work first?

Look at the designer's own website. If their site is slow, badly written, or last updated in 2022, you are not getting the version of them that exists in their portfolio screenshots. The professional standard they apply to themselves is the ceiling for what they will apply to you.

10. What's their answer to "what would you not build"?

This is the trick question. A good designer will say no to certain projects — the wrong stack for the budget, the wrong scope for the goal, a feature that adds complexity without commercial return. A designer who says yes to everything is selling time, not judgement.

A scoring guide

For each of the 10 points, give the designer a score:

• **2** — confident, specific answer with examples
• **1** — answer is reasonable but vague
• **0** — cannot or will not answer

Hire designers who score 16+. Avoid designers who score below 12. The middle band is where you ask better questions.

Where Studio 72 lands

Studio 72 publishes its own answers to these 10 questions on the /get-started page so you can score before you call. Pricing is fixed:

Next steps

Run /audit on your current site if you have one — half of the choice is knowing what the bar should be. Then start the conversation at /get-started.

*Garth Adams runs Studio 72 from Cardiff and writes about how to hire web designers without losing a quarter to it.*