How to Choose a Software Development Agency (Without Getting Burned)

A credible agency asks about your users, your constraints, and what "done" looks like before naming a price. If a quote comes back within hours of a one-paragraph project description, that number wasn't derived from your actual scope — it was a template.

• Who actually writes the code — is any part of this subcontracted, and is that disclosed upfront?
• What does confidentiality handling look like — NDAs, private repositories, scoped access — as a default, not a special request?
• What happens after launch — is there a support window, and what does the transition to maintenance look like?
• Can you see examples of past work in a comparable domain, even if client names stay confidential?

The agencies worth working with treat the first call as genuine scoping, not a sales pitch — asking harder questions than you expected, and being willing to say a project isn't a good fit rather than force it into their standard package.

• What a Discovery Call With a Dev Agency Should Actually Cover
• Fixed-Price vs. Dedicated Team