10 Red Flags Smart Founders Watch for When Hiring a Webflow Agency

When they need to migrate to Webflow or create a Webflow website from scratch, founders know that they need to hire a Webflow agency. Doing it on your own can be complex, and can take too much time and resources you don’t want to waste. 

However, smart founders also know that they can’t just choose a Webflow agency based on their pricing or a glance at the portfolio. There are plenty of red flags you should avoid, and rushing into things is undoubtedly one of them. But there’s a lot more, so let’s take a closer look at the biggest red flags.

1. Expertise Issues

If the agency lacks true Webflow expertise, then that’s a major red flag that should make you steer away from it. Here are a few things that will help you determine that:

• Inconsistent branding or design on their site, like inconsistent fonts and colors
• Poor website responsiveness and discrepancies between the desktop and mobile versions 

If anything on the site isn’t performing well and you can easily notice it, that’s a major flag. If the agency can’t make their own site operate smoothly, there’s no reason to trust them to create or improve your own.

Outside their own site, you need to ensure they follow the latest Webflow design trends. It’s also good if they have been in the business for a long time, which can further prove their competence and expertise, and show you that they are the right Webflow agency for your business. 

2. The Agency Can’t Be Found in Webflow’s Certified Partners Directory

Finding the best Webflow agency is not the same as finding another web development company. You need to look in one specific place — the Webflow Certified Partners Directory. 

Since Webflow agencies specialize in developing sites in Webflow, you should only go for true Webflow experts. The website experience platform has a directory where it lists its partners, the agency it has checked and certified. There are over 1,200 partners in the directory. 

The best part is that the directory has filters that help you create a shortlist, like budget range, location, language, type of Webflow partner, and services offered. 

3. Their Portfolio Is Incomplete or Lacks Quality

If you take a deep look into the agency you’re considering, you’ll be able to spot some critical red flags, including: 

• Generic or password-protected portfolio
• Portfolio with designs like Figma files, instead of live Webflow sites
• All showcased websites are built with Webflow templates, instead of some showing signs of custom work

Moreover, by scrutinizing their portfolio, you’ll be able to see if the agency worked on projects that are part of your industry or were complex enough to suit your needs. 

You want to see live sites they’ve worked on that have excellent performance, which you can test with PageSpeed Insights if you need to. You’ll also want to see proof that the sites they did have led to higher traffic and conversion rates, which you can get from case studies. 

4. Noticeable Trust Issues

If the site displays one or more clear trust problems, then that’s a serious red flag. 

Every Webflow agency should have an About Us section where you can learn more about the company and especially its employees. You need to put some faces on the names, so each employee should have a name, a picture, and the role they have in the agency. Bonus points if they have links to their LinkedIn profiles.

The more details the agency has on itself, the more you can trust that they are real people, real professionals with true expertise. 

Overall, the agency shouldn’t make any unsubstantiated claims, and they should make it easy for you to verify that they are who they are. 

5. Red Flags With Their Process

At some point, the process of finding the right Webflow agency needs to take a big step forward. You need to start contacting potential partners. That’s where you also need to inquire about their process, as it’s one of the things you won’t be able to easily find on your own on their site. 

A good Webflow process starts with determining your goals, audience, and success metrics. After strategizing, the design process and eventual prototypes follow. Once that’s over, the agency can start developing the website and eventually do QA and SEO optimization. Once all of that is over, comes the launch.

You want an agency that’s genuinely your partner here, so a big red flag is when they don’t ask enough questions and avoid enough meetings with you to discuss the project further. More than that, if you get vague answers to your questions, like “we’ll figure it out down the line,” know that’s a big red flag.

6. Lack of Proper Client Testimonials and Reviews

You should always check the agency's reviews and testimonials, and we’ve covered this as one of the most important steps in evaluating a Webflow agency’s track record. 

You can check testimonials on the agency’s website, as most want to clearly position them on the site and include as many as possible. 

A major red flag is when the agency has no testimonials or only a handful of vague ones. A proper testimonial should have at least a couple of sentences and the name and position of the person who made it, so you can easily check that the testimonials came from a real former or current client. 

As for independent reviews, you can use sites like Clutch to see what real clients are saying. 

7. Poor Communication Skills

We already covered what a big red flag is when the agency is dismissive of your questions, but poor communication skills in general are also a major red flag. 

Effective communication is crucial in the whole process. It’s the glue that holds everything together and ensures the project runs smoothly.

The good news is you can assess this early. As soon as you start inquiring about the company’s services, pay attention to how prompt they are and how clear their answers are. Moreover, you’ll want to see how the agency handles things like discussions about the needs of your project and your questions about their services. 

Ultimately, it’s all about how you feel the agency can meet your needs. It’s best to discuss as many topics as possible at the start to determine whether they’re a good fit for your company. 

8. Existence of Hidden Costs

The goal with pricing here is to get a clearly defined estimate and complete transparency as soon as possible. Most reputable Webflow agencies are clear about their prices, but some might keep a few hidden costs. 

The base package with these types of firms tends to exclude costs like:

• Overhead costs like project management or third-party software subscriptions
• Additional hours are charged at an extra rate
• Different pricing, usually higher, for out-of-scope initiatives

It’s best to inquire about the full breakdown of costs immediately and to avoid agencies that don’t cover these extra costs or tend to avoid mentioning them. 

9. Price to Value Ratio is Poor

Webflow agencies offer various pricing depending on what you want from them, most notably the size and complexity of the site. 

However, you also need to check what kind of value you get for the price you’re paying. You can’t merely compare pricings from several agencies. 

Consider everything the specific pricing covers, like SEO setup, ongoing optimization, training, and analytics. 

Most of all, know that the best Webflow agencies tend to outline their deliverables fully, like ownership upon launch and Core Web Vitals targets. 

10. Not Checking the Agency’s SEO and Performance Capabilities

SEO and performance always go hand in hand, and it’s crucial to determine what results the agency can deliver. Naturally, you can never get an exact number and 100% assurance, but you can still get clear targets and goals. 

A proper Webflow agency will know to optimize for Core Web Vitals from the get-go. It will know how to structure your site’s schema and metadata, compress images, and configure redirects and sitemaps.

You’ll want to partner with companies that are clear about how they achieve results. Case studies of what they accomplished for others are important proof for this, so pay attention to them in the agency’s portfolio. 

Bottom Line

So, there you have them, 10 important red flags you should pay attention to when hiring a Webflow agency. It’s crucial to know these when evaluating potential partners, so you can easily land the right one. 

If you want to avoid partnering with the wrong firm, you can always reach out to Flow Ninja. We are the Webflow agency that pays attention to red flags like these and avoids them. We have extensive experience, and we are one of the leading agencies in the industry for a reason. If you’re feeling uncertain about us, schedule a meeting and let us put your mind at ease.

FAQs