Ten minutes that tell you more about a web supplier than an hour in a meeting
You have three quotes on the table, all priced differently, and no way to compare them. Yet there is one piece of evidence you can check yourself, for free and without the supplier: their own website. This test works on us too, which is exactly why it is here.
Nothing is sent anywhere and we ask you for nothing. The scorecard is printable.
A supplier's own website is the one reference they cannot dress up
Companies choose on price and on how the portfolio looks. Both are understandable and both are the weakest evidence available.
Price hides what it leaves out
Two quotes with the same number can mean entirely different work. The cheaper one often moves copy, photos and hosting onto your side, and that never shows up in a comparison table.
A portfolio shows someone else's compromises
On someone else's project you cannot tell what the client decided, what the budget decided and what the supplier decided. Portfolio shots also age better than the sites themselves. Open them live.
Their own site is their ceiling
They set the brief, the budget, the deadline and the taste themselves. Nobody forced four tracking scripts or a background video on them. What you see is the maximum, not a compromise.
And it shows their order of priorities
A site nobody has touched for two years does not prove incompetence. It proves that their own work goes last. After launch, your project joins the same queue.
You would not sit down in a dentist's chair if the dentist had bad teeth, and you need no medical training for that
Four things that let you close the tab
If you have no time for the full test, run these four. Each one is entirely within the supplier's control, so its state is never an accident.
Mobile speed below 70
The median of three PageSpeed Insights runs on their home page.
This is not about seconds. It is about a number they either cannot raise or do not care about. Buy neither.
A cookie banner with no reject button
Consent you can only give, or refuse two screens deeper.
Consent that is harder to refuse than to give is not consent. You will get the same banner, and the risk lands on your company, not theirs.
Missing or borrowed legal texts
No company number and address in the footer, or a privacy policy with another company's name in it.
The first is a duty every trader has on their own site. The second means a copied template nobody read. You will get the same template.
No answer to an enquiry
You wrote to them through their own form and two working days later there is silence.
That is how it looks while they still want your business. Once you are paying a retainer it will not get faster.
Is a threshold of 90 too strict?
We measured 386 company websites in the Zlín region with one tool in a single week. The median mobile performance came out at 61 and 92 % of them sit below 90. The threshold is not strict, almost nobody just meets it.
See the survey resultsA machine does half the test for you
Paste the supplier's address. We find out what their site runs on, whether they keep plugins updated, what they track, which headers the server sends and how they stand on the legal minimum and accessibility. It takes about fifteen seconds.
What a machine measures for you
PageSpeed Insights is a free Google tool. You paste an address, wait a minute and get four numbers. The supplier does not produce them and neither do we.
- 01Open pagespeed.web.dev and paste the address of the supplier's home page.
- 02Switch to the Mobile tab. Almost everyone looks fine on desktop, but most people arrive on a phone.
- 03Run it three times and take the median. The test fluctuates by a few points and a single run proves nothing.
- 04Measure the address the page actually ends on. If the site redirects (from www, to a language, to a trailing slash), Google counts that hop as waiting and the score lands a few points below what a visitor experiences.
- 05Look at all four categories, not just performance.
| Category | What it actually measures | What you want to see |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | How long someone on a phone waits before they see content, and whether buttons jump under their thumb | 90 or above |
| Accessibility | Whether the site works for someone who cannot see detail, does not use a mouse or has enlarged their text | 90 or above |
| Best practices | Security, errors the browser reports and technology that should have retired years ago | 95 or above |
| SEO | The technical basics without which Google cannot present the site properly | 100 |
Thresholds for a supplier's own site, not for your future e-shop
Why ninety, and why no discount on it
On a client project a supplier has an excuse: the client asked for a chat widget, a map, a video and three tracking codes. On their own site there is no excuse. Green numbers there are today's baseline, not an achievement. If they are missing, ask why, and treat the answer „customers do not look at that anyway“ as a description of what is coming your way.
One thing that outranks even this test
If PageSpeed shows a section with data from real visitors at the top, it beats the lab number below it. That is measurement from real phones over the last twenty eight days, not a simulation. Most small sites do not have it, simply for lack of traffic.
Check accessibility with your hands too
A machine only finds part of it. On a desktop, walk through the site using the Tab key: you must always see where you are and be able to reach the submit button. Then zoom the page to two hundred per cent. If text disappears off the edge or overlaps, that is not taste, it is a defect.
Since 28 June 2025 accessibility is a duty for some companies, not a bonus. It does not apply to everyone, but whoever builds your website should be able to tell you whether it applies to you.
What those numbers mean and why a lab test differs from realityWhat you can see yourself, with no tools
Each check also says what it means for your project. Without that it would just be a list of nitpicks.
The cookie banner
What to doOpen their site in a private window and watch what appears before the content does.
- No banner at all, because the site does not measure with someone else's script and has nothing to ask about.
- A banner across half the screen, a single Got it button, pre ticked options, or refusal hidden two screens deep.
What it means for youA supplier who knows no way other than pasting a third party tracking code will build you a site that annoys people from the first second. And compliance then lands on you.
Dark mode
What to doSwitch your phone to dark mode and reload their site.
- The site adapts, text stays readable, logos and images do not glow in white boxes.
- A blinding white wall at eleven at night, or dark text on a dark background.
What it means for youThis shows whether the supplier controls colour through their own system or assembles the site from a template they cannot really see into.
One thumb on a phone
What to doFind the contact details, open the menu, start filling in the form. One handed, the way your customer does it.
- Everything is tappable first time, the phone number dials on tap, the form offers the right keyboard.
- Text you have to zoom into, buttons closer together than a thumb, a chat window covering the submit button.
What it means for youThis is where you find out whether anyone tested the site on a phone, or only on a large monitor in the office.
Five seconds on the home page
What to doOpen the home page, count to five, close it. Then try to recall what they do and who for.
- You know what they offer, to whom, roughly what it costs and what to do next.
- Complex tailored solutions, digital transformation, no price, no process, nobody's name.
What it means for youAnyone who cannot explain their own work in five seconds will not explain yours either. And that is exactly what you will be asking them to do.
What the site runs on and how to tell
This is information, not a verdict. Whatever a supplier builds their own site on is almost certainly what yours will run on, and you are buying its running costs along with it.
- 01On a desktop press Ctrl and U (on a Mac Cmd, Option and U). The page source opens.
- 02Press Ctrl and F and search it for the words in the table below.
- 03On a phone you can do the same by typing view-source: in front of the address.
It is the combination that decides, not the name of the system. WordPress with green numbers and four plugins is solid work. WordPress scoring 38 with twenty plugins and a full screen banner describes what you are about to get.
| If the source contains | The site probably runs on | What to ask about |
|---|---|---|
| wp-content, wp-includes, and /wp-admin opens a login screen | WordPress | The most widespread system in the world, and not a verdict in itself. Ask how many plugins there are, who keeps them updated for years, and what happens when two of them clash. |
| elementor, wpbakery, divi, avada | WordPress with a page builder | The design is assembled by mouse on top of a template. It appears quickly and holds up badly: every add on brings more scripts and the page gets heavier. |
| myshoptet.com, shoptet | A rented e-shop platform | Fine up to a certain size, then it starts limiting you and the monthly fees grow with every add on. |
| wixstatic, parastorage | Wix | The site is tied to the platform and cannot be moved elsewhere. Ask what you would take with you if you left. |
| webnode, squarespace, webflow, framer | A website builder or no-code tool | A legitimate choice for a simple site. For a company that needs to connect to stock or an internal system it is a ceiling you hit sooner than you expect. |
| none of the above and the source looks lean | A custom build or a modern framework | Ask what it is and why that one. You do not care about the name, you care whether the supplier understands it and whether someone else could take it over. |
What to search for in the source and what follows from it
Why we do not build company websites on WordPressWhat day to day running reveals
This is where a supplier differs from a salesperson. The earlier checks showed what they can do. These show how they keep it up over time.
The legal minimum in the footer
What to doScroll to the bottom of their home page and read what is there.
- Company name, company number, registered address, a working contact and a privacy policy written for them.
- None of that, another company's name in the legal texts, or a link to the EU online dispute resolution platform, which shut down in July 2025.
What it means for youA dead link in the footer is a detail, but it means nobody has opened those texts since. Your site will look exactly like that in two years.
Security and the error page
What to doTry their address without https, then add nonsense to it, for example /doesnotexist.
- The insecure address redirects on its own and the nonsense address returns their own error page with a way forward.
- The browser warns that the connection is not secure, or you get a bare server error message.
What it means for youError pages are where people from old links and printed business cards land. Whoever ignores it on their own site will not build one for you.
The link preview
What to doSend their address to yourself in a message.
- A card appears with an image, a title and a description.
- A bare blue link, or a title like Home.
What it means for youIt is ten minutes of work and it shows up everywhere anyone shares your company. If they did not do it for themselves, it will not occur to them to do it for you.
Their response to an enquiry
What to doWrite to them through their own form and watch three things: whether the email arrives at all, how long they take, and what the reply contains.
- A reply within one working day, a question about how your business runs, and a person's name at the bottom.
- Silence, an autoresponder with no follow up, or a price list by return with no questions asked.
What it means for youContact forms fail more often than anyone expects and their owners never find out. You also learn whether the supplier asks or sells. One who does not ask has no way to hit your brief.
A scorecard to take into the meeting
There is deliberately no score out of a hundred here. A number we invent is a number you cannot verify. Three states per check are enough.
Passed
No reservations, nothing to ask about.
Explainable
Something is off but there may be a reason. Write the question down and ask.
Failed
With no reason that would hold up. Count how many of these there are.
Only the list of checks prints, without backgrounds or buttons.
Once you have a shortlist, the second half begins: the questions a quote never answers.
Twenty questions for a web supplier, each with a good answer and a warning signWhere this test is unfair
A low number does not turn a good supplier into a bad one. In four cases it deserves a follow up question rather than a rejection.
An e-shop or a portal
Ninety on mobile is hard to hold there and that is defensible. A supplier's own presentation site has no stock system attached, which is exactly why the test runs on it.
A site built five years ago
Ask when it was built and what they plan to do with it. „We know, we are rebuilding it, here is the date“ is fine. „We have no time for that“ is an answer about priorities.
A specialist in one thing
A site full of animation and illustration is often heavy on purpose. But then they should be able to say what it cost and why it pays off for them.
A site inherited from another supplier
It happens to good people too. Ask what they are allowed to change and what they are not.
The test is not a verdict, it is a list of questions you want answered without evasion. A supplier who knows their own numbers and can explain them is a better bet than one who has never looked.
Hold us to the same standard
It would be cheap to write a guide on vetting suppliers and keep our own numbers for the meeting. Measure us. We do not produce the number, Google does, and you see it before we do.
Measure anyone, including us
Paste the address of the supplier you are considering. Once you have the result, one button measures us too, so you have them side by side.
And this you can verify right here
The values below were measured by your own browser on this page, just now. They are not numbers typed into the text.
- Server response
- measuring
- Weight of the page
- measuring
- Files downloaded
- measuring
- Third party scripts
- measuring
What these numbers mean
Measured directly in your browser, nothing is sent anywhere. The average page on the web weighs around 2.5 MB today, roughly eight times more. Zero third party scripts means no tracking, no cookies, and therefore no consent banner.
Google marks anything from 90 points up as green, and no visitor can tell 96 from 100. A site below 90 deserves attention, below 80 the speed puts people off, and below 75 the company measurably loses enquiries.
The same threshold is in our contract
A score above 90 on mobile and desktop is part of our terms and conditions. If a delivered site does not reach it, we keep tuning at our own cost until it does. It is not a promise made in a meeting, it is a clause in the contract we sign.
Read that clause in the terms and conditionsAnd where we come off worse
- There are two of us. We handle a limited number of projects at once, so sometimes we will offer a later date than an agency of twenty.
- We have no night shift. We have monitoring that wakes us up, but we do not run shifts.
- Our site is a presentation, not an e-shop with fourteen integrations. That makes our job easier than that of someone who builds e-shops, and it is fair to say so. Which is precisely why the whole test runs on the one thing every supplier has in common: their own presentation site.
What buyers ask most often
- How do I recognise a good web supplier?
- By their own website, not by their portfolio. Measure their home page in PageSpeed Insights on mobile, walk through it on a phone, check the cookie banner and the legal details in the footer, and send them an enquiry through their own form. Their own site is the one project where they set the brief, the budget and the deadline themselves, so it is their ceiling rather than a compromise with a client.
- What PageSpeed score should a web supplier have?
- On mobile, 90 or above for performance and accessibility, 95 or above for best practices and 100 for SEO. Measure the home page three times and take the median, because the test fluctuates. Below 70 is a reason to walk away: on their own presentation site none of the excuses that hold for a client project apply.
- Is a cheaper quote always the worse choice?
- No. The difference in price is usually not in quality but in what the price leaves out: copy, photos, integrations, hosting and the hours someone in your company will spend on it. Compare quotes over three years of running rather than the launch day price.
- What if a supplier comes recommended but their site scores badly?
- A recommendation is a strong signal and should not be thrown away. Ask about what you found and listen for whether they already know. „We know, here is the reason and here is the date“ is fine. „Customers do not look at that“ tells you how your site will look in two years.
- How do I tell what a website is built on?
- Open the page source with Ctrl and U and search it for wp-content (WordPress), myshoptet (a rented e-shop platform), wixstatic (Wix) or elementor (a page builder on top of WordPress). With WordPress you can also add /wp-admin to the address and a login screen appears. The system alone is not a verdict; what matters is how it combines with the measured numbers and the number of plugins.
- How many quotes should I ask for?
- Three is enough. Beyond that the decision collapses into comparing prices, because nobody remembers the rest. Ask for them against the same brief, otherwise there is nothing to compare, and run this test on all three first. It saves you meetings that would lead nowhere.
If someone else comes out better, go with them
This guide is not here so that you pick us. It is here so that you do not pick blind. If our numbers and the way we work suit you, get in touch and we will go through your project. If not, at least you know what to ask elsewhere.