Paying a deposit for a website is normal and sensible; most developers ask for 25% to 50% of the job up front, and a developer who asks for nothing may be the bigger risk. The deposit is not the danger. The danger is the questions you never asked before it left your account: who owns the site, who controls the hosting, what happens when something breaks, and what a change costs. Here are the questions, what a good answer sounds like, and the answers that should end the conversation.
What the deposit actually buys
A deposit reserves the developer’s time and covers the setup work: research, planning, the first design pass. It is not payment for a finished product. The professional pattern is deposits plus milestones, where each payment lands against a deliverable you can see and approve. The common split, from industry guides: 25% to 50% at kickoff, then roughly 20% to 30% at design approval, 20% to 30% when the working site is ready for review, and the remainder at launch.
| Payment point | Typical share | What you should hold |
|---|---|---|
| Kickoff deposit | 25% to 50% | Written scope, timeline, payment schedule |
| Design approval | 20% to 30% | Approved design you have seen |
| Development complete | 20% to 30% | Working site on a test address |
| Launch | 20% to 25% | Live site, files, logins, ownership |
Small projects under about £5,000 often run at a straight 50% deposit and 50% on completion. That is fine if the other answers below are good. A request for 100% up front is not fine: you lose every lever you had. A deposit is also the seller’s filter, because developers who take deposits can afford to turn down time wasters, and the work benefits. The question is never whether to pay one; it is what the rest of the contract says before you do.
The six questions
Who owns it? Ask who owns the site, the files, the domain and the content once it is delivered. The good answer is unambiguous: you do, with logins handed over at launch. The answer to walk away from is “we use our own platform”, because that means you have not bought a website, you have rented one, and leaving means rebuilding.
Who controls the hosting? The hosting account should be in your name, or transferable to you without a fight. Ask what happens if you move to another developer in two years. “Straightforward, here is the process” is the only acceptable answer. “You would need to rebuild” means you are locked in.
What happens when it breaks? Ask who patches the software, who runs backups, and what happens if the site gets hacked. Sites on WordPress or similar need updating roughly monthly, and a developer with no answer to security is selling you a door with no lock. If they offer a care plan, ask what it covers and what it costs after year one.
How do change requests work? Ask how a change is priced: an hourly rate in writing, or a set fee per request. Ask what counts as a change rather than a fix, because that boundary is where budgets die. “We just work through it together” sounds friendly and means there is no process, which is how a £500 job becomes a £2,000 job.
What support comes after launch? Ask how long the free bug fixing window lasts and what happens when it ends. A professional answer names a period, usually a few weeks to a couple of months, and a support price after it. No answer means you will discover the cost of a broken form the hard way.
Who actually does the work? The person selling you the project may not build it. Ask who designs and who codes, whether they are employed or subcontracted, and ask to see two live sites like yours, not screenshots. Check those sites on your phone and time how long they take to load; five minutes of that beats an hour of presentation.
The answers that should make you walk away
| What you hear | What it means |
|---|---|
| “It’s our platform, we host everything” | You rent, you cannot leave |
| “The domain? We handle all that” | They own your address |
| “One price for the whole site” | No scope, no deliverable list |
| “We work through changes together” | No process, budget at risk |
| “Support? We’re always around” | Nothing in writing, nothing owed |
| “We need 100% up front” | All the risk on you |
That is not a paranoid list. Every row is a real clause missing from a real quote.
The deposit is not the risk. The risk is paying the final instalment for a website you cannot leave, cannot move and cannot get fixed. Every question above is really one question about your exit, and a developer with good answers has nothing to fear from it.
What to do now
Before you pay anything, send these questions in an email and ask for written answers. Then ask that the contract name the milestones, the ownership, and the change request rate. A developer who answers well in writing is a developer who will still be answering well in month six. If the answers come back vague, consider it the cheapest test you will ever run.