By Mehdi HassanWhat is it like working with a design agency?
Working with a design agency, when it's done well, is calmer than founders expect. There's a short kickoff, a clear plan, regular small updates and a few focused reviews where you make decisions. You shouldn't be chasing anyone for progress, and you shouldn't be surprised by what you see at a review.
The experience depends heavily on the studio's size and structure. At a large agency you might talk to an account manager who relays your feedback to a designer you never meet. At a small studio you talk directly to the people doing the work. We're a small in-house team where one group owns words, design and code, so the person you talk to is the person writing or building your page.
This guide sets out the weekly cadence we aim for, what each side owns, and how to tell early whether a project is healthy. For how the cadence maps onto a full schedule, see our hub on how long it takes to build a website.
What happens in the first week with a design studio?
The first week sets up everything else: goals, scope, owners, access and the way you'll communicate. A strong first week is the best predictor of a smooth project, because most later delays trace back to something that wasn't settled at the start.
- Kickoff call: goals, audience, what success looks like, what's out of scope.
- Shared channel: usually a Slack channel or similar, with the people who'll actually work on the project.
- Access: analytics, current site, brand files, domain and any tools the site connects to.
- Calendar: review dates booked for the main deliverables.
- Brief: a short written summary everyone agrees with, so later decisions have something to refer back to.
If you arrive with a written brief, the first week goes faster. Our web design brief template covers the questions a studio will ask anyway, so you can answer them before the call.
How should a design agency communicate week to week?
A design agency should communicate mostly async, with live calls kept for decisions. Progress, questions and small choices go in the shared channel as they happen. Reviews of real deliverables happen live or as recorded walkthroughs, depending on what your team prefers.
Touchpoint | How often | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
Async updates | Several times a week | Work in progress, questions, small decisions |
Review session | At each deliverable | Walk through work, agree changes, approve |
Written summary | After each review | What was decided and what happens next |
Risk flag | As soon as it appears | Anything that could move the date or the scope |
Customer calls | When useful | Hearing buyers directly, on retainers especially |
The written summary after each review is easy to skip and worth insisting on. It turns a conversation into a decision record, which stops the same question coming back two weeks later. Our monthly retainer goes one step further and joins customer calls when that helps the work, because hearing a buyer's objections first-hand is faster than reading about them.
What are your responsibilities as the client?
Your responsibilities are context, access, decisions and feedback. The agency can't invent your customer insight, can't log into your domain registrar, and can't approve its own work. When projects stall, it's usually because one of those four is waiting.
Give context early
Share what you know about customers, competitors and past attempts in the first week.
Provide access on day one
Analytics, CMS, domain, brand files and the tools the site connects to.
Name one approver
One person makes the final call. Others send their input through that person.
Consolidate feedback
Collect everyone's comments and send one set per review, with conflicts already resolved.
Reply within a working day
Small questions in the channel block real work. A quick answer keeps the week moving.
Hypothetical example: how one late approver changes a project
For example, suppose a startup's head of marketing runs a website project and approves the homepage copy and design. In the fourth week, a co-founder who hadn't been involved sees the design for the first time and wants a different headline and a new section.
The change itself is small. But the inner pages were designed to match the approved homepage, and the build has started. Every page now needs a review, and the date moves.
This is an illustration, not a real client story. The fix is simple: everyone with a veto attends the first review, or agrees in writing that one person decides.
How do reviews and feedback work with a design agency?
Reviews work best when the agency explains the reasoning first and you respond to the goal, not just the look. A good review starts with what the page needs to do, walks through how the design does it, and then asks for feedback against that. Taste matters, but it shouldn't be the only test.
Useful feedback is specific and tied to a reason: the pricing section needs to come before the testimonials because buyers ask about cost first. Less useful feedback is vague, like make it more modern, which forces the team to guess. If you're not sure what's wrong, say what feels off and let the studio propose options.
Feedback should also cover more than visuals. Ask how the page works for keyboard and screen-reader users, which our guide to accessible web design explains, and whether the structure supports search. If search is a priority, read SEO agency vs web design agency to see who should own what.
What are the warning signs in an agency relationship?
The main warning sign is silence. If you haven't seen work or heard a specific update in a week, something is wrong: the team may be overloaded, stuck on a question they haven't asked, or working on another client. Ask directly and early.
- Big reveals: the first look at design comes weeks in, fully polished, with no earlier drafts.
- Unclear people: you don't know who is actually designing or building your site.
- Vague dates: milestones are described as soon or next week with nothing written down.
- No decision record: past choices get reopened because nobody wrote them down.
- Surprise costs: changes are billed without being agreed first.
None of these mean you should end the project on the spot, but each one deserves a direct conversation. If you're switching platforms or studios mid-project, a Webflow migration agency guide explains what a handover should include.
How do you choose an agency you'll work well with?
Choose on working style as much as portfolio. Ask how often you'll see work, who you'll talk to, how feedback is handled and how changes are priced. Then test it: a short paid engagement shows you the real rhythm faster than any sales call.
Our lists of the best web design agencies for startups and affordable web design agencies set out the criteria we'd use. Whoever you choose, agree the communication rules in writing before kickoff.
