7 Things to Check Before Hiring a Web Developer

Before you hire a web developer, check these 7 things — portfolio, security know-how, communication, and more — to avoid costly mistakes.

Don’t Hire the First Developer Who Says Yes

Hiring a web developer feels simple until you’re actually doing it. You post a job, ten people apply within an hour, and suddenly you’re staring at a wall of profiles with no clear way to tell who’s actually good — everyone claims years of experience, five-star ratings, and fast turnaround times.

The truth is, a lack of talented developers doesn’t cause most bad hiring outcomes. They’re caused by skipping a few basic checks before you commit. A slow site, a redesign that breaks halfway through, or a developer who goes quiet for two weeks — all of these are usually preventable if you know what to look for first. Most of these checks take a few minutes each, and doing them upfront is far less costly than discovering a problem after you’ve already paid a deposit and the work is already underway.

This guide walks through the seven things worth checking before you hire a web developer for your project, whether you’re building something from scratch or fixing an existing site. If you’d rather skip the guesswork entirely, you can browse vetted web developers on Fiverr and use the checklist below to compare your options.

Let’s get into it.

Quick Checklist: What to Verify Before You Hire

Keep this table open as you compare candidates — most hiring mistakes come from skipping two or three of these rows, not all seven.

1. Their Portfolio — Not Just Their Profile

A developer’s profile can say almost anything. Their portfolio tells you what they’ve actually shipped.

Look past the highlight reel and check for:

• Live links, not just screenshots. Anyone can show a polished screenshot. A live site tells you how it actually performs — load speed, mobile behavior, and real functionality included.
• Projects similar to yours. A developer who’s built ten e-commerce stores is a stronger fit for your online shop than one whose portfolio is mostly blogs and portfolios.
• Range and consistency. Look for a consistent standard of quality across multiple projects, not just one standout example.
• How recent the work is. Web design trends and technical standards shift quickly. A portfolio full of five-year-old projects doesn’t tell you much about how someone builds today.
• Whether they built it or just customized a template. Both are legitimate skills, but they’re different ones. If your project needs custom functionality, make sure their examples reflect that, not just template installs with new colors and logos.

If you’re hiring for something platform-specific, like an online store, this becomes even more important. A guide to hiring WooCommerce web developers and designers breaks down exactly what a strong WooCommerce portfolio should include, since e-commerce work has its own set of technical demands beyond general web design — product pages, checkout flows, and payment integrations all need to hold up under real customer traffic, not just look good in a demo.

2. Their Reviews — Read Between the Lines

Star ratings only tell you part of the story. The written reviews tell you the rest.

When you’re reading through them, pay attention to:

• Specifics over generic praise. “Great communication, delivered on time, fixed an issue I hadn’t even noticed” tells you more than “Great seller, would recommend!”
• How they handle problems. Look for reviews that mention a hiccup along the way and how the developer responded. Every project hits a snag eventually — what matters is what happens next.
• Recency. A seller with excellent reviews from two years ago and nothing recent may not be as active or responsive as their overall rating suggests.
• Volume relative to experience claims. Someone claiming ten years of experience with five total reviews is worth a second look, especially if their account is newly created.
• Patterns across multiple reviews. One negative review out of hundreds is normal. Several reviews mentioning the same issue — missed deadlines, poor communication, or unfinished revisions — is a pattern worth taking seriously.

None of this means you should dismiss newer freelancers outright. Everyone starts somewhere, and a smaller number of detailed, positive reviews can be just as reassuring as a large volume of generic ones. What matters more than the total count is whether the reviews actually describe working with this specific person on a project like yours.

3. Whether Their Skills Actually Match Your Platform

“Web developer” is a broad title. Someone who’s excellent at custom-coded React applications isn’t automatically the right fit for a WordPress site, and vice versa.

Before you hire, confirm they have direct, recent experience with:

• Your current platform (WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Webflow, Squarespace, or fully custom code)
• Any specific plugins or integrations you rely on (booking systems, payment processors, membership tools)
• The scope of your project — a developer who mainly does small fixes may not be the right fit for a full rebuild, and vice versa

If your site runs on a builder platform specifically, this guide to hiring the best frontend developer on Fiverr walks through how to match a developer’s actual skill set to your project instead of hiring based on price or availability alone.

A quick way to test this fit before committing: ask a specific, technical question about your platform in your first message. A developer with real experience will answer clearly and quickly. One who’s stretching their skills will often give a vague or overly general response, or pivot the conversation toward what they can do instead of directly answering what you asked.

4. Their Security Habits

This is the check most people skip entirely — and it’s one of the more expensive ones to get wrong.

A website built without basic security practices in mind can leave you exposed to data leaks, malware injections, or a site that gets hacked and blacklisted by search engines within months of launch. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), a nonprofit dedicated to improving software security, maintains a widely used awareness document outlining the most critical risks facing web applications today, and recommends that development teams build these protections in from the start rather than patch them in later, per the OWASP Top 10.

You don’t need to understand the technical details yourself to check for this. Just ask your candidate a few direct questions:

• How do you handle software and plugin updates after launch?
• Do you use secure login practices, like limiting login attempts or requiring strong passwords?
• What’s your process for backups before making major changes?
• Have you dealt with a hacked or compromised site before, and how did you fix it?
• Do you use a staging environment to test changes before pushing them to the live site?

A developer with real experience will answer these without hesitation, often adding detail you didn’t even ask for. Vague or dismissive answers are worth treating as a warning sign, especially if your site handles customer data, payments, or logins. This matters even for small business sites — attackers frequently target smaller, less-protected sites precisely because they’re easier to compromise than larger, well-defended ones.

5. Their Accessibility and Mobile Awareness

More than half of web traffic today comes from mobile devices, and a meaningful share of visitors rely on accessibility features to use a site at all — screen readers, keyboard navigation, and sufficient color contrast among them. A developer who’s never considered this is building for a fraction of your actual audience.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international standards body behind the core technologies of the web, publishes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as the globally recognized framework for making digital content usable by people with disabilities, according to W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative. You don’t need your developer to be an accessibility expert, but basic awareness — proper heading structure, readable contrast, functional mobile navigation — should be part of how they build by default, not an afterthought you have to request.

Beyond the ethical case, there’s a practical one too. A site that’s hard to navigate on a phone or unreadable for someone with low vision is a site that loses potential customers before they even get to your offer. Accessibility and good general usability overlap far more than most people expect — the same choices that help a screen reader user navigate your site tend to make it clearer and faster for everyone else as well.

Ask candidates directly: “How do you make sure a site works well on mobile and for users with disabilities?” A developer with solid habits will mention specific practices, like alt text on images, keyboard-navigable menus, or color contrast checks. One who’s never thought about it will likely improvise an answer on the spot, which tells you it hasn’t been part of their regular process.

6. How They Communicate — Before You’ve Even Paid Them

This is one of the most reliable predictors of how a project will actually go, and it’s something you can test immediately, for free, before you spend a cent.

Pay attention to:

• Response time. A developer who takes three days to answer a pre-sale question is unlikely to speed up once you’ve paid them.
• Clarity. Do they answer your actual question, or send a generic, copy-pasted reply that could apply to anyone?
• Proactive questions. A developer who asks smart, specific questions about your project understands it’s more than a checkbox to complete.
• Realistic expectations. Be cautious of anyone who promises an unusually fast turnaround for a complex project — it’s often a sign of overpromising, not efficiency.
• Written confirmation of key details. A developer who summarizes what they understood about your project before starting is far less likely to misunderstand it halfway through.

Writing a clear brief before you reach out helps here too, since it gives you a fair basis for comparing how different developers respond to the same information. This breakdown of what to include in a Fiverr gig brief for better results covers exactly what to include so you can send the same clear request to multiple candidates and compare their responses side by side. Sending an identical brief to three or four people also makes it much easier to spot who actually read it carefully versus who’s replying on autopilot.

7. Pricing Structure and What Happens After Launch

The final check is about the business side of the relationship, not just the technical side.

Before you commit, get clear answers on:

• What’s included in the quoted price. Does it cover a set number of pages, revisions, or hours? What counts as an extra?
• How revisions work. Some sellers include unlimited minor revisions; others charge per round. Know this before you start.
• What happens after launch. Will they fix bugs that show up in the first week or two at no extra charge? Get this in writing.
• Ongoing maintenance, if you need it. If you don’t have technical staff of your own, ask whether they offer paid maintenance plans for future updates.
• Payment structure. For larger projects, splitting payment into milestones (deposit, midpoint, final delivery) protects both sides better than paying everything upfront.
• Ownership of the final files. Confirm you’ll receive full access to the finished site, source files, and any accounts created during the project once it’s paid for and complete.

If your project involves a specific platform like WordPress, Wix, or a custom category, it’s worth browsing Fiverr’s website development category to compare pricing structures across multiple sellers before you settle on one. Seeing a range of quotes for similar work makes it much easier to spot when a price is unusually low — or unusually high — for what you’re actually asking for.

Bonus: Set a Realistic Timeline Before You Start

This isn’t one of the seven core checks, but it belongs here because it shapes how you’ll judge everything above, and it’s easy to skip when you’re excited to get started. Before you hire anyone, decide roughly how long your project should reasonably take.

A single landing page might take a few days. A full multi-page redesign with custom functionality might take two to four weeks. If a candidate promises a full e-commerce build in 48 hours, that’s not a sign of efficiency — it’s a sign corners are about to be cut somewhere you won’t notice until later.

Ask each candidate for their estimated timeline before you compare prices. A developer who gives you a specific, reasonable timeframe with a brief explanation of how they’d approach the work is telling you more about their process than one who just replies with a number, since it shows they’ve actually thought through the steps involved rather than guessing.

Putting It All Together: A Sample Screening Message

If you’d rather not run through all seven checks manually with every candidate, you can combine most of them into a single opening message. Something like this covers the key points in one go:

“Hi! I’m looking to [build/redesign] a [type of site] on [platform]. Could you share 2–3 live examples of similar work, let me know your process for backups and security before major changes, and confirm your typical turnaround for a project like this? I’d also love to know what’s included if I run into an issue in the first couple weeks after launch.”

This single message touches on portfolio, platform fit, security awareness, and post-launch support — and how someone responds to it tells you almost as much as the answer itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should it take a developer to respond to an initial message?

Within a day is reasonable for most freelance platforms. Faster responses are a good sign, but don’t rule out someone who takes a day or two if their portfolio and reviews are strong — some in-demand developers are simply juggling more projects.

Should I always hire the developer with the most reviews?

Not necessarily. More reviews mean more data points, but a smaller number of detailed, specific reviews can be just as reassuring as thousands of generic ones. Read a handful closely rather than relying on the total count, and weigh what the reviews actually describe more heavily than the star rating by itself.

What’s a reasonable price range for hiring a web developer on Fiverr?

It varies widely by scope, from around $50 for small fixes to $1,000+ for full custom builds. Get a few quotes for your specific project before assuming a price is too high or too low — the right benchmark is always what similar sellers are charging for similar work, not a fixed number.

Do I need to understand code myself to vet a developer properly?

No. Most of the checks in this guide — portfolio quality, communication, security awareness, pricing clarity — don’t require technical knowledge. They just require asking the right questions and paying attention to how confidently and specifically someone answers them.

What if a developer can’t answer my security or accessibility questions clearly?

Treat it as useful information, not necessarily a dealbreaker. For a simple brochure site, this may matter less. For anything handling customer data, payments, or logins, it’s worth continuing your search, since these gaps tend to turn into expensive problems after launch rather than before it.

How many developers should I compare before deciding?

Three is usually a good minimum. It gives you enough range to compare pricing, communication style, and portfolio quality without dragging the process out too long.

Is it better to hire one developer for the whole project or split design and development?

For smaller projects, one person handling both is usually simpler and cheaper. For larger or more complex builds, splitting design and development between specialists can produce a stronger result, though it requires more coordination on your end.

The Bottom Line

Hiring a web developer doesn’t need to feel like a gamble. Most of what determines whether a project goes smoothly comes down to a handful of checks you can run before you ever pay anyone: their portfolio, their reviews, how well their skills match your platform, their security and accessibility habits, how they communicate, and how clearly they explain pricing and support.

Run through this list with two or three candidates before you decide, and you’ll catch most of the problems that typically only show up after a project has already gone wrong. A few extra minutes of screening upfront is a small price to pay compared to redoing a project, or worse, fixing a security issue on a site that’s already live.

When you’re ready to start comparing, you can find a qualified web developer on Fiverr and use this checklist to narrow down your options with confidence.

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Muhammud Hasan

Muhammad Hasan is an experienced SEO expert and blog writer passionate about helping businesses connect with top freelance talent. With 4 years of hands-on experience in content strategy and search engine optimization, he specializes in writing SEO-friendly blog posts that rank, engage, and convert.