Choosing a web development company in Karachi: 9 questions to ask

Karachi has a large number of web development companies and software houses, and nearly all of them have a portfolio that looks good in a pitch. The differences that matter show up later: when a developer leaves, when the site needs changing six months after launch, or when you want to move hosting and discover you never had the passwords.

These are the questions we would ask if we were on the buying side. They work just as well for a company in Lahore, Islamabad or anywhere else.

1. Who owns the code, the domain and the accounts?

The answer should be you, from day one. Code should live in a repository you control, or be handed over with its full history. The domain, hosting, analytics and ad accounts should be registered to your business, with the agency added as a user. If a company resists this, it tells you how the relationship will end.

2. Who will actually do the work?

Ask whether the people in the pitch meeting are the people who build the project, and whether any part of it is subcontracted. Neither answer is automatically wrong, but you should know who is writing your code and who you call when it breaks.

3. What will it be built on, and why?

Good answers name standard, well-supported technology — WordPress, Shopify, Laravel, React, Next.js, Flutter — and explain why it fits your case. Be wary of a proprietary CMS that only one company can maintain. It makes you dependent on them for every small change.

4. Can we see progress before launch?

You should have a staging site you can open at any point, not a big reveal at the end. Regular demos catch misunderstandings while they are still cheap to fix.

5. How is it tested?

Ask how forms, checkout and payment flows are tested, which phones and browsers are checked, and whether any of it is automated. On a store or a booking system, the parts that carry money deserve more than a quick click-through.

6. What happens to our SEO if we are replacing an old site?

A redesign is where many businesses lose years of search traffic overnight. The company should plan to map every old URL to its new equivalent with permanent redirects, carry over page titles and descriptions, and watch Google Search Console for errors after launch. If nobody mentions redirects, ask.

7. Who looks after hosting, security and backups?

Find out where the site will be hosted, who applies security updates, how often backups run and whether a restore has ever been tested. A backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan.

8. What does support look like after launch?

Most sites need small changes every month. Ask whether support is a retainer, pay-as-you-go or not offered at all, what the response time is when something breaks, and whether you are locked into a long contract.

9. How is the price worked out?

A serious quote follows a conversation about scope, not a price list. Common models are a fixed-scope project, a monthly retainer or a dedicated team. Whichever you choose, the proposal should say exactly what is included, what counts as a change and how changes are priced. The cheapest quote often becomes the most expensive project once the exclusions surface.

Red flags worth walking away from

• A price given before anyone has asked what the site needs to do.
• No written scope, or a scope that fits on one line.
• Reluctance to put your business name on the domain and hosting accounts.
• A portfolio where none of the live sites can be opened.
• No mention of mobile performance, redirects or backups.

We are a web and software development company in Karachi and Lahore, so we have an obvious interest here, but these questions are worth asking whoever you hire. If you are building an online store, our e-commerce website development page covers the extra questions that apply to Shopify and WooCommerce. When you are ready, tell us about the project and we will come back with an approach and a number.