The 22-point checklist for hiring a landing-page designer (without getting burned)

Hiring a designer is one of those decisions where everything looks fine until it isn't. The portfolio is gorgeous. The price seems reasonable. The Zoom call was friendly. Three weeks in you're getting one email reply per week and the site looks nothing like what you saw in the deck.

I've watched this play out dozens of times. Here's the actual checklist that prevents it.

Portfolio (1–6)

1. Live URL for every project. Static portfolio screenshots prove nothing. You want a real link you can click. If they can't give you 3+ live URLs, walk.
2. Pull up each one on your phone. Does it actually work on mobile? Or are you looking at desktop-only beauty shots?
3. Run PageSpeed on the live URLs. Anything below 70 on mobile is a sign their builds are bloated. Below 50 is disqualifying.
4. Check that the live sites are recent. A portfolio full of 2019 projects means they haven't built much since 2019.
5. Variety of niches. If every project is for the same kind of business, they may be using one template. Variety is a quality signal.
6. Ask which projects they did 100% of. A lot of "portfolio" work is collab work. You want to know which builds are theirs end-to-end.

Contract + ownership (7–11)

7. You own the final files. Source code, design files, image assets — yours when the project ships. Get this in writing. It is the #1 thing freelancers try to keep that you should keep.
8. No platform lock-in. If they're building you a "custom Webflow site" you do not own anything Webflow-related and your monthly cost is forever. Decide deliberately.
9. Domain stays in your name. Domain registered through your account, on your credit card. Never theirs.
10. Hosting in your name. Same. If they're hosting it on their server, you'll be a hostage when you want to leave.
11. 50/50 payment structure. 50% upfront, 50% on delivery. Anything that asks for 100% upfront is a flag. Anything that asks for nothing upfront is a different flag — that designer takes whoever pays first and ghosts the rest.

Scope clarity (12–16)

12. What's included in revisions? "Unlimited revisions" usually means "we'll fight about each one." 2 rounds of design revisions + 1 round of build revisions is healthy.
13. What costs extra? Get a list. Common gotchas: copywriting, photography, custom integrations, additional pages, post-launch fixes, training.
14. What about copy? Are they writing it or are you? If you're writing it and you've never written for the web, expect to ask for help — better to bake that in upfront.
15. What about photos? Stock photos included? Real photo shoot? Both cost real money — clarify.
16. Post-launch support? 14–30 days of "fix small things" is standard. After that, what's the hourly rate? Get it written down.

Every fight you'll ever have with your designer is about something that wasn't pinned down in writing before the project started. Pin everything down.

Code quality (17–19)

17. What stack are they using? Custom HTML/CSS/JS is fastest and most SEO-friendly. WordPress is fine if necessary. Webflow is a lock-in. Wix/Squarespace is template territory. None of these are wrong but they all have tradeoffs you should know about — see Wix vs Squarespace vs custom.
18. Inspect their portfolio sites. Right-click → View Source. Is it readable? Does it use semantic HTML? Are images optimized? Don't need to be a developer to spot a bloated build.
19. SEO basics included? Title tags, meta descriptions, sitemap, schema markup, OG tags. All of these should be free with any build worth paying for in 2026.

Communication + red flags (20–22)

20. Reply time during the sales process. If they take 4 days to send a quote, expect 4-day replies during the build. The sales process is the best behavior they will ever show you.
21. One person or a team? If you talked to a senior in the sales call but the work happens with someone you haven't met, ask to meet that person before signing.
22. Trust your gut on Zoom. If they were vague about the timeline, couldn't show recent work, dodged questions about ownership, or made you feel like you were being upsold — that's the data. Pay attention.

The three things that disqualify a designer instantly

• They won't show you live URLs. Either they don't have them or they're hiding something. Either way, no.
• They quote without asking what success looks like. If they didn't ask about your goals before quoting, they're selling a deliverable, not a result.
• They pressure you to decide today. Real designers have a pipeline. They don't need to close you in 24 hours. "Today only" pricing is a sales tactic that has no business in a build relationship.

What a green-flag conversation looks like

• They ask about your business, your customers, your goals before talking about price.
• They send you live URLs you can browse on your phone.
• They have a written process — what happens on day 1, day 7, day 14.
• They tell you what they don't do (a red flag is a designer who claims to do everything).
• They write a clear, scoped quote — not "trust me, it'll be around $5k."
• They send you a contract before asking for money.
• They reply to your emails in under 24 hours during the sales process.

If you get most of these, you're in good hands. If you don't get any of them, keep looking.

Run the 22 points above on whoever you're talking to. Run it on me too — every single one is something I do. If you want to compare, the showroom has 38 live URLs you can pull up on your phone and PageSpeed-test right now.