How to Choose a Web Development Company in Kenya: 12 Questions to Ask

Start with what the website must do

Before you compare developers, write one page about the job. Not colours and fonts — outcomes. A shop needs a checkout and a payment flow. A consultancy needs qualified enquiries. A hotel needs bookings. A school needs admissions and term dates.

A developer who takes that page seriously will quote accurately. A developer who skips it will quote low, discover the real requirements later, and either cut corners or come back for more money.

Ask to see websites that are live right now

Portfolio screenshots prove nothing — they are chosen from the best day of a project, and often of sites that were never launched. Ask for three live URLs and open them on your own phone, on mobile data, not on office Wi-Fi.

• ✓Does it load in a few seconds on mobile data?
• ✓Can you find the phone number or enquiry form without hunting?
• ✓Does anything look broken, stretched or out of date?
• ✓Then message the business and ask how the site has worked for them.

The twelve questions to ask before you pay a deposit

These are the questions that reveal how a project will actually run. The answers matter more than the price.

• ✓Can I see an itemised quotation — design, development, integrations, content, launch?
• ✓Who owns the design, the source code and the content when the project ends?
• ✓Will I have my own domain, hosting and email accounts, in my name?
• ✓What exactly is included after launch, for how long, and at what cost?
• ✓How will the site be built to load fast on Kenyan mobile networks?
• ✓What will you do about SEO — titles, descriptions, page structure, sitemap?
• ✓Can you integrate M-Pesa (Lipa na M-Pesa or paybill) and cards?
• ✓Who writes the content, and when do you need it from me?
• ✓What are the milestones, and what do I pay at each one?
• ✓What happens if I ask for changes mid-project — how are they priced?
• ✓Who will I actually talk to, and what is the response time when something breaks?
• ✓If we part ways in two years, who can take over this website?

Red flags in a cheap Kenyan website quote

Low prices are not automatically a problem — some developers are simply efficient. These patterns are the problem, because they shift cost and risk onto you later.

• ✓A single-line quote with no breakdown of what is included.
• ✓No live websites to look at, or a portfolio of screenshots only.
• ✓A deposit request before you have seen anything in writing.
• ✓The developer keeps the hosting, domain or admin access in their own name.
• ✓"SEO included" with no explanation of what that means.
• ✓No answer for what happens when the site breaks at 9pm.
• ✓Pressure to decide today because of a "promotion" that never ends.

What a good quotation contains

A proper quote is a short document, not a number. It should list the pages and features you are buying, the integrations, who provides content, the timeline, the payment schedule tied to milestones, what is excluded, and the cost of ongoing maintenance.

It should also state who owns what. If ownership, hosting and handover are vague in the quote, they will be harder to resolve at the end of the project — when you have the least leverage.

Freelancer, agency or template builder?

A good freelancer can be excellent value for a straightforward business website: lower overheads, direct communication, and often more care than a large agency gives a small project. The risk is capacity — one person can get sick, overloaded or take a full-time job.

An agency costs more but spreads the risk: several people can pick up your project, and there is a process and a support number. For e-commerce, bookings or anything handling money, that redundancy is usually worth paying for.

Template builders are fine when the website is genuinely a brochure and you will edit it yourself. They stop being fine the moment you need custom logic, real search visibility or a payment integration.

Judge the process, not the pitch

The most reliable signal is how a developer behaves before they have your money. Do they ask about your customers and margins, or jump straight to design ideas? Do they challenge a feature you do not need, or agree with everything? Do they answer a query in a day or in a week?

Delivery is rarely decided by talent. It is decided by whether changes, timelines and responsibilities were agreed in writing at the start.

Next steps

Microstation has designed and built websites, e-commerce stores and web applications for Kenyan businesses since 1995, and answers all twelve questions above in writing. Send us your one-page brief and we will reply with an honest recommendation and an itemised quotation — no obligation, and no pressure to decide on the spot.