Questions to ask before you sign

You can ask these questions of any developer, freelancer or agency. They make sure you mean the same thing before anything gets signed, and the conversation about them also tells you something about how working together will go.

Ask for the answers in writing, in the quote or the contract, so everyone can fall back on them later. This is not legal advice. Have a lawyer read an important contract.

Who does the work?

Ask who writes the code, and who your point of contact is. That can be the same person, or at an agency a project manager and a team. Ask too whether work is subcontracted to others, and what happens if someone is ill or on holiday.

What exactly do you get?

A good quote describes what gets built, in words you understand. “An app for appointments” says little. “A customer chooses a day, sees the free slots and gets a confirmation by email” says more. Ask what is not included as well, because that is where the surprises come from later.

Go through these parts, because they often stay out of view:

• Which devices it works on: iPhone, Android, the browser, or a combination.
• Whether design is included, or only the build.
• Who writes and translates the text.
• Who submits the app to the app stores, and who responds if it does not pass the review.
• Whether existing data gets brought over, for example from your Excel files.
• Whether a connection to your other software is needed, and what that takes.

How is it charged?

Software is usually charged in one of two ways. With a fixed price you agree in advance what you get and what it costs. With a price per hour or per day you pay for the time spent. With a fixed price, ask what happens if the work changes, and with an hourly price, ask how you get to see the hours worked and what happens if an estimate turns out wrong.

When you pay belongs in there too: all at once, in parts or per month, and what each part delivers. Then there are the costs that appear on someone else’s invoice, such as hosting, a domain name, app store accounts, AI services and licences. Those carry on after launch too, and it is good to know who pays them. This article explains what sets the price of an app.

What if something changes?

With software, something nearly always changes, because you only see what you want once you can get your hands on something. Ask how a change works: who decides, how you hear what it costs and what it means for the schedule, and whether you get that in writing in advance. Ask too what happens if a date is missed, on either side, because your feedback or text can also come later than planned.

When do you see something, and when is it finished?

Ask when you can first try something out, and whether that can be on a test address, a separate version you can open yourself. Agree how often you will look at it together.

Agree as well when something counts as finished. Who tests it? How do you say something is fine? How long do you have for that? An error you find after delivery can fall under the agreed work or under new work, so ask which applies and for how long.

Who owns what?

Ask who owns the code, the data and the design once the work is finished and paid for. If the contract says nothing about it, the copyright on the code can stay with the maker. Have a lawyer look at the wording. Some developers also use building blocks of their own that they deploy for several customers, or publicly available code. That can be perfectly fine, but ask what you may do with them if you carry on with someone else.

Ask as well in whose name the accounts will be: the domain name, the hosting, the place the code is kept and the app store accounts. Who owns your code and data? explains what to look out for.

What happens to personal data?

If the software stores data about customers or staff, ask where it is kept, who can get to it and how it is backed up. Ask too whether AI services or other outside services get to see any data, and which ones. Under the GDPR, the European privacy law, you often need a separate agreement with whoever processes personal data for you, called a data processing agreement. A lawyer can tell you what applies to you.

What happens after launch?

Software needs maintenance. Phones get updates, parts go out of date, and errors turn up that nobody had seen. Ask who does that, whether it is charged separately and how you reach someone if something stops. Ask too what someone counts as urgent, and what applies outside office hours.

How do you stop, if you need to?

This question is easiest to ask while all is going well. Ask how each side can stop and what you will have paid by then. You also want to know what you take with you: the code, the data, access to accounts and the documentation, the explanation another developer can carry on with. Could someone else take it on, and what would they need for that?