10 questions to ask before signing with a dev studio

You’ve got three quotes on your desk. All three studios seem competent. All three cost roughly the same. Their pitch decks look similar. How do you actually pick one?

Here’s what to ask on the second call, in the order that matters.

1. Who is going to write my code — and can I meet them today?

The single most important question. If the pitch is done by a sales person and the engineer is nameless and unreachable, walk away. You will be shepherded from a polished sales team to a junior team you never met. Ask to meet the actual engineers on your project before signing.

2. Show me three case studies of projects in my industry or category

Not their best work — work like yours. If you’re a D2C brand, ask for a D2C case study. If you’re building a B2B ordering portal, ask for one. Any studio with real experience will have this ready. Wide-net studios that “do it all” often do none of it especially well.

3. What’s your usual project size — and where would mine fit?

If they usually do ₹50L+ enterprise projects and yours is ₹8L, you’ll be the smallest client and treated accordingly. If they usually do ₹2L freelance jobs and yours is ₹15L, they may struggle with the scale. Aim to be a median-size client, not a fringe one.

4. How do you handle scope changes?

This is where most contracts turn sour. Ask specifically: if week 3, we decide to add a payment integration we hadn’t discussed, what happens? Good studios have a written process — a change request form, a re-quote, a re-timeline. Bad studios say “we’re flexible” and then either quietly do it (and burn out) or dramatically re-negotiate at the worst moment.

5. What does handover look like?

Post-launch, who owns the code? Where does it live? What’s the deploy process? Is there documentation? Can my team maintain it after you leave, or am I locked into calling you every time? Insist on a written runbook and a code repository you own from day one.

6. What’s your average project duration — and how do you communicate weekly?

If you’re being told “3 months” for a build most studios ship in 6 weeks, question why. If you’re being told 6 weeks for something most do in 3 months, question harder. Ask about weekly rituals: what does check-in look like, what artifact do I see, who joins?

7. What are you not going to do?

A studio that says yes to everything is either lying or unfocused. Good studios are clear about what they don’t do. “We don’t do marketing content.” “We don’t do SEO copywriting.” “We don’t handle app store submissions.” Knowing where the boundaries are prevents ugly surprises.

8. What’s the biggest project you’ve cancelled — and why?

Real answer here separates practitioners from vendors. Studios that have never cancelled a project either don’t take risks or are lying. The specifics of a cancelled project — what went wrong, what they learned — tell you more about culture than any case study.

9. Can I talk to two of your recent clients?

Any studio confident in their work will happily connect you. Ask the client: was the timeline honest, was the price honest, would you hire them again. If a studio hesitates or gives excuses, that’s an answer in itself.

10. What tech stack are you recommending — and why?

The right answer isn’t a stack, it’s a reason. If they lead with “we’ll build in Next.js” without asking what you’re building, they only know one hammer. If they say “given what you described, we’d probably use X because Y, but let’s confirm after discovery week” — they think first.

Red flags at a glance

• Sales talks, engineers stay silent
• No written scope in the proposal
• “We’ll figure it out as we go”
• Vague post-launch handover
• Payment 100% upfront
• No project management tool mentioned
• Case studies with no client name or link
• Can’t answer #8

Green flags at a glance

• Engineer joins the second call
• Written phase-gated proposal with milestones
• Named references you can call
• Clear scope + change request process
• Payment in phases tied to milestones
• Live repository access from week 1
• Honest about what’s outside their wheelhouse

The last thing

Trust your gut on the second call. If something feels off — pushy sales, evasive answers, over-promising — it will get worse under pressure. The studio you pick will be your partner for weeks or months. Pick someone you’d want on your team.