How to Choose a Web Design Company in Kolkata: 10 Checks

Kolkata has hundreds of web design vendors, from world-class studios to one-room template mills — and their websites all say the same things. Awards, passion, pixels. Here are ten checks that cut through the marketing and reveal which one you're actually talking to, before any money moves.

The ten checks

Open five live sites they built. Not screenshots — URLs. Click around on your phone. Broken sliders, stretched images and dead links in a portfolio tell you everything about the work you'll get.
Speed-test their portfolio and their own site. Run two of their builds through PageSpeed Insights. Slow sites for past clients = a slow site for you. A studio whose own site scores 40 on mobile is telling you their real standard.
Ask the ownership questions. Domain in your registrar account, hosting credentials handed over, full site files yours. Any hedging — "we manage that for clients" — is the single biggest red flag in this market.
Get the renewal economics in writing. What exactly costs money next year? Domain, hosting, "maintenance", licences? Lowball year one with punishing renewals is the classic local pattern.
Check who actually builds it. Some Kolkata "agencies" are sales fronts that subcontract to the cheapest available freelancer per project. Ask directly: is the team in-house? Who is my point of contact during the build?
Demand a written scope. Page list, features, revision rounds included, timeline, what counts as done. A vendor who resists writing this down is planning to argue about it later.
Verify SEO basics are included. Unique titles and meta descriptions, mobile-first build, clean URLs, image alt text, Google Search Console setup. "SEO-friendly" on a brochure means nothing; this list in a contract means something.
Ask what CMS you get and whether you'll be trained. You should be able to edit text, images and add pages yourself after handover — or know explicitly that you've chosen a static site and updates go through the studio.
Call one past client. One phone call. Ask two questions: "did they deliver on time?" and "what happened when something broke after launch?" The second answer is the one that matters.
Watch response quality during sales. Slow, vague replies while they're trying to win your money become slower and vaguer after they have it. The sales experience is the best behavior you will ever see from a vendor.

Red flags that end the conversation

"Domain and hosting stay with us — it's easier for you."
No contract, no written scope, "trust us, sir."
A portfolio with no live URLs.
Guaranteed #1 Google ranking bundled with the build. Nobody can guarantee that; vendors who promise it know exactly what they're doing.

What a fair Kolkata engagement looks like

Written scope, milestone payments (say 40/40/20), 2–5 week timeline for a business site, all credentials handed over at launch, 15–30 days of post-launch fixes included, and optional maintenance after that. Costs and ranges are in our Kolkata website pricing guide. And yes — we're one of the studios you should run these ten checks on: here's our live work, and here's the door.

Frequently asked questions

Should I choose a Kolkata company or hire from another city online?

For most businesses the deciding factors are portfolio, communication and ownership terms — not the vendor's pin code. A local studio helps when you want face-to-face meetings or local-market understanding (Bengali content, Kolkata customer behavior). Judge local and remote candidates by the same ten checks.

What advance payment is normal in Kolkata?

30–50% upfront is standard and fair; milestone-based payment (e.g., 40/40/20 tied to design approval, build completion, launch) is even better. Treat 100%-upfront demands as a red flag, and equally, be suspicious of vendors who'll start with nothing — both patterns correlate with abandonment.

How do I verify a portfolio is real?

Ask for live URLs, then check the footer credits, page source, or simply email the business: "did [studio] build your site?" Also try the Wayback Machine to confirm the site existed before your conversation. Fake portfolios assembled from templates are common at the market's bottom end.