Short answer
Choose a web agency by deciding the job first, then checking what you can verify on your own: whether they publish a price, how their own site performs on real-user data, and whether the text stays readable with JavaScript turned off. Brief three of them identically, and compare on scope, languages, integrations and deadline.
Agency sales material describes roughly the same process in roughly the same words. What actually separates them can be checked from outside, and most of it takes ten minutes before you send a single email.
How do I choose a web agency?
Start with the job. The supplier list comes after it. Once you know what is being built, three things are yours to check: what the agency publishes about price and process, how its own site measures up, and whether the content survives with JavaScript turned off. Only after that is it worth sending out a brief.
Start with the job
Four questions decide what kind of agency you should be talking to, and they take half an hour to answer internally. The answers are also the brief itself, so the work is done once and used three times.
- Should the site sell on the spot, or lead to a conversation?
- How many languages does it need, now and in two years?
- Which systems must it talk to — ERP, booking, CRM?
- Who edits the content after launch, and how often?
Check the agency’s own site first
An agency selling websites has built at least one for itself, and it is the only reference you can reach on your own. Five checks are enough.
- Turn JavaScript off and reload: the body text should still be there
- Run the page through PageSpeed Insights and read the field data at the top
- Tab through the page: the focus outline should show on every control
- Look for a published price, and for what it assumes
- If they advertise several languages, check the source for hreflang tags
Google publishes the thresholds that field data is judged against: Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds, and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1. An agency whose own site misses all three is telling you something about the sites it ships.
Brief three agencies identically
Three is enough to see the spread and few enough to read the answers properly. The brief has to be identical: the same pages, the same languages, the same deadline, and the same statement about who writes the content. Two quotes written against different briefs can only be compared on price, which is exactly the comparison you want to avoid.
Compare on the four things that move the number
- Scope: how many pages, and how many of them have their own structure
- Languages: every extra language is content, review and hreflang
- Integrations: every system to be connected carries its own risk
- Deadline: the Swedish market overview puts a 15–30 percent surcharge on compressing three months into a six-week delivery
Decide on what you checked
Weigh the five checks and the four comparison points together, and let the pitch deck carry the least weight of anything. What a build costs here sits on the pricing page, and what it includes is described under websites. Then ask your favorite for a week-by-week schedule, so you know what you are signing.
Common questions
- What should I check before contacting any agency at all?
- The agency’s own site. Turn JavaScript off and see whether the text stays, run the page through PageSpeed Insights and read the field data, and tab through it with the keyboard. Three checks in ten minutes say more about the craft than an hour-long meeting.
- How many agencies should I send a brief to?
- Three. Fewer shows no spread in price or approach, and more means the answers get skimmed. What matters is that all three receive exactly the same brief, or you end up comparing three different projects with each other.
- Does an agency’s own website tell me anything worth knowing?
- It is the only reference you can reach on your own, and it was built free of a client’s compromises. If it loads slowly, drops the focus outline, or needs JavaScript to show text, the agency has shown what it prioritizes when nobody is watching.
- How do I test an agency’s technical quality myself?
- The field data in PageSpeed Insights against Google’s published thresholds: 2.5 seconds for Largest Contentful Paint, 200 milliseconds for Interaction to Next Paint, and 0.1 for Cumulative Layout Shift. The lab score at the top is a simulation; the field data is real visits.
- What belongs in the brief I send out?
- A page list, the languages, the deadline, the systems to connect, and who writes the content. Five lines is enough. Whatever the brief leaves out comes back as a difference in assumptions between the quotes, and then you are comparing apples with pears.
- How long should choosing an agency take?
- Two to three weeks is reasonable: half a day on the brief, a week for the agencies to answer, and a few days for calls and a decision. When it runs longer, the cause is usually a brief that left too much open.
Sources
- Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google search results
The thresholds of 2.5 seconds for LCP, 200 milliseconds for INP and 0.1 for CLS.
- Swivrr — Ny hemsida företag 2026
The 15–30 percent surcharge for compressing a three-month project into a six-week delivery.
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