To hire a web designer, you need to determine what your website needs to do, give each designer candidate the same brief, and compare their work and proposed scope. Before you commit, agree on who will build the site, what you’ll receive, and how support will work after launch.
A portfolio can help you find a style you like. The next step is figuring out whether the person behind it can handle the work your business needs. That might mean a straightforward service website, an online store, or a site connected to scheduling and customer inquiries.
The job your website needs to do
Write a short brief before requesting quotes. Describe your business, who uses the site, and the main action you want visitors to take. Include what isn’t working today, any tools the site needs to connect to, your budget range, and a preferred launch date.
Be specific about the problem. “We need a contact form that collects the project location and sends the inquiry to our office manager” gives a designer more to work with than “we need more leads.” You don’t have to choose the technology yourself. You do need to explain what a useful result looks like.
Separate the essentials from things that can wait. A booking connection might be necessary for opening day; a large resource library might come later. If you’re still deciding how much of your existing site needs to change, our website redesign guide for small businesses can help you work through the scope.
Choose a hiring route
You can find a web designer through referrals, independent studios, agencies, or online platforms. Each gives you a different way to find candidates.
A referral gives you someone to ask about the working relationship. Find out what the project involved and whether the person making the recommendation had needs similar to yours. When contacting a studio or agency, ask who will plan the project, build the site, and handle your feedback.
Online marketplaces let you review profiles and proposals, and portfolio sites like Dribbble.com can also help you discover designers. Be sure to check a platform’s current terms and fees before budgeting!
Some web designers provide layouts for a developer to build. Others handle design and development together. You’ll want to ask whether the quote includes a working website, content management, forms, integrations, and launch.
Compare costs
So, how much does it cost to hire a web designer? In its September 2026 web design pricing guide, Clutch reports that most projects reviewed on its platform cost less than $10,000. Page count alone won’t tell you enough. Five pages using one layout and supplied copy are different work from five custom layouts, new copy, and a booking integration. Make sure to ask each designer to identify what is included, what you must supply, and what could possibly change the price.
Compare the cost to launch with the cost to keep the site running. Hosting, software subscriptions, content updates, maintenance, and future development may be billed separately. For ongoing support, clarify whether you’re paying for routine care, an allowance of development time, or work requested as needed.
A fixed project fee and an hourly arrangement can both be useful. With a fixed fee, understand the assumptions and change process. With hourly work, ask for an estimate, a spending limit, and a checkpoint before more time is used.
Review the portfolio
Web Designers should be able to walk you through a similar project and answer what did the business need, what did the designer personally handle, which decision was difficult, and why did they choose that approach?
Then visit the live site if it’s available to see how it performs in the wild. You can also try keyboard navigation and enlarged text. These are preliminary checks, not a complete accessibility assessment. The W3C’s Easy Checks guide explains what to look for and the limits of this kind of review.
A live site may have changed since their involvement, and concept work can show design thinking even when it hasn’t been built. Ask which parts are theirs and what evidence they can share. Verified results are helpful, but a useful case study can also document a clearer booking process or a backend the client can manage. It doesn’t need a revenue claim to explain the work.
For example, in our work for The Baseball Lab, we connected the site to a scheduling app so visitors could view availability and book. The site also needed to explain memberships, rentals, training, and coaching. That connection was part of the website’s job, so it belonged in the project scope from the beginning.
Put details in writing
Before work starts, make sure the proposal or agreement records what you’ve discussed. Use this as a project checklist:
- Pages, distinct layouts, required features, and explicit exclusions.
- Responsibility for copy, images, content entry, and moving existing content.
- Mobile behavior, accessibility work, testing, and launch responsibilities.
- Review stages, revision allowance, feedback deadlines, and change approval.
- Payment amounts, due dates or milestones, and acceptance criteria.
- Domain and hosting accounts, site administrator access, source files, and licenses.
- Training, initial support, recurring costs, and the process for moving to another provider.