How to choose a web design company: what to check before you hire

TopWebAsia builds websites, so this guide is written by someone in the market you are choosing from, and every check in it works on us too. To see what we do, there is our website design service with the copy written and SEO done before launch and our price table for six website packages. If you are still comparing builders, read on first.

What should you know about your own site before asking for a price?

Know three things before you message anyone: what the site has to do, which pages it needs and who will write the words. With those settled, the quotes you get back can actually be compared; without them, each builder imagines a different job and the prices stop meaning anything.

• What the site must do: bring in LINE chats, sell online, or reassure a corporate buyer before they get in touch. Different jobs make different websites.
• The list of pages: home, one page per service, about, work and contact. The page count moves the price more than anything else.
• Who writes the words: if it is you, allow time for it, because most web projects stall waiting for the owner's text.
• What to have ready: your logo, real photos of your work or premises, two or three sites you like and a rough budget.

Freelancer, small team or agency: which suits your job?

Match the builder to the size of the job, not the other way round. A one-page site doesn't need a big agency, but an online shop with payments in two languages needs more than one person.

If you are choosing between a Fastwork freelancer and an agency you hire directly, we cover where the money sits, staged payments and receipts in Fastwork freelancer or web agency: what changes for your business.

How do you check a web designer's work yourself in 15 minutes?

Open three of their real client sites on your own phone and run these five checks in order. You need no technical knowledge, just a phone and free tools. Polished portfolio images show that someone can design; they don't show that the sites work.

1. Open three client sites on your phone

Pick sites from their own portfolio page and ask which ones they built end to end. Check the site still opens, the text is readable without zooming, the buttons are easy to tap, the images aren't broken and the details are current. One dead portfolio site happens; if all three are, ask why.

2. Test the speed in PageSpeed Insights

Paste each site into PageSpeed Insights (opens in a new tab) and read the mobile results. If there is a section of real-user data (Core Web Vitals), read that first. Google's thresholds are LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP of 200 milliseconds or less and CLS of 0.1 or less. One slow site can be down to images the client uploaded; if every site they built fails, that is how they build.

3. Open a link inside the LINE app

Send the link to yourself in LINE and open it from inside the app. Many Thai customers reach websites exactly this way, not through Chrome or Safari. LINE's in-app browser has less screen and its own bar along the top, so check that the menu opens, the LINE and phone buttons actually work and no pop-up covers the page.

4. Search them with site: on Google

Type site: followed by the client site's domain, such as site:example.com, into Google and you see the pages Google knows. Check that the page titles make sense (not "Home" or "Hello world") and watch for strange pages, such as gambling or Japanese pages the owner never made. Those usually mean the site was hacked and nobody is looking after it. Google says site: results aren't exhaustive, so use them for a general picture, not an exact count.

5. Check whose name the domains are in

For .com, .net and other global domains use ICANN Lookup (opens in a new tab); for .co.th and .ไทย use THNIC's WHOIS (opens in a new tab). Many domains hide the registrant for privacy, but if you see the builder's own business registered as the owner of a client's domain, ask how that client gets it back, because one day your domain could be in the same position.

If you have five more minutes, search the builder's name with the Thai words for an abandoned job or a scam (ทิ้งงาน, โกง) on Google and Pantip.

Comparing quotes: what should you check before the total?

Compare what each quote includes, line by line, before you look at the totals, because the cheapest total usually leaves out the content, the SEO setup or year-two costs. We read the price pages of 19 Thai web providers on 10 October 2026. The median entry price was ฿7,900, but what the pages left out mattered more than the numbers.

Two more things. A Thai quote that says ลงข้อมูล or ใส่ข้อมูล (data entry) means placing text you wrote, not writing it for you. And in this data, 2 providers stated a first payment of 70%.

You can set our prices against this grid in our price table for six website packages: every package includes writing the content, and the year-two costs are in the same table as figures.

Who writes the words, and why does it slow the job down?

Ask before you sign, because waiting for the owner's text is the most common reason we see a site launch late. Owners know their business best, but writing ten pages that make people get in touch, and that Google understands, is a different job.

• If the builder writes it: ask how many pages, in which languages, how many rounds of changes, and what they will need from you.
• If you write it: ask for the page list and the length each page needs, and put your date for the text into the plan.
• If you need English too: ask whether it is written fresh by a fluent English writer or translated from the Thai.

What SEO should the builder set up before launch?

At minimum: a title and description for every page, headings in the right order, a sitemap, Google Search Console connected and a speed test before handover. Ongoing SEO after launch is a separate job. If the new site replaces one that already ranks, ask for the map of old URLs to new ones too.

• A unique title and description on every page
• A single H1 per page, with the headings in order
• A sitemap already submitted in Search Console
• A mobile speed test before handover
• Business schema that matches your real phone number and address

Contact forms and cookies: what does PDPA mean for the build?

If the site collects names, phone numbers or emails through a form, or uses tracking cookies such as Google Analytics and the Meta Pixel, it needs a privacy notice and the consent the law requires under Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). Ask at the quote stage whether that is part of the job. For the legal detail, see the Office of the Personal Data Protection Committee (opens in a new tab) or ask a lawyer.

What should a website contract or quote include?

A good contract or quote answers what you get, when, how you pay and who owns what once the job is done. Anything left unwritten tends to become a fresh negotiation the moment something goes wrong.

The part people forget is handover. Put in writing what you receive on the day: administrator access, the domain and hosting accounts, the original files for the photos and logo, and the passwords for any service tied to the site.

Which warning signs mean you should stop talking?

Four signs mean stop: a promised Google ranking, a request for the full amount before work starts, a scope that isn't in writing, and portfolio sites that are dead, slow or full of strange pages. Google's own guide to hiring an SEO (opens in a new tab) says nobody can guarantee a ranking on Google.

What should you ask in the first chat?

Ask these ten questions and notice how clear the answers are. A builder who answers every one with numbers, in writing, works to a system.

What would TopWebAsia answer?

We build websites ourselves, so here are our answers to the questions above, to set against anyone else's.

• Work: real client sites are on our work page, and the live ones are linked from their case studies.
• Content: we write every page in every package, in Thai and English if you want both.
• Revisions: two rounds.
• Payment: every order is placed and paid through Fastwork, which holds the money until you accept the work. Jobs from ฿24,900 can be paid in 2 or 3 parts.
• Domain and hosting: free for the first year, with the domain registered by us. If you want it in your own name from day one, you buy it yourself and skip the free year, and if you ever leave, we transfer the domain to you free.
• Year two: ฿2,500 to ฿3,500 a year, depending on the package.
• After handover: for 30 days, we fix anything that doesn't work as agreed, free.
• SEO: set up on every page before handover, and we don't guarantee rankings.
• Tax invoice: we aren't VAT-registered, so we can't issue a tax invoice. A company that hires us through Fastwork gets a receipt in its own name.

The price and what is included in each package are in our price table for six website packages.