How to Vet an Indian Web Agency in 15 Minutes (No Sales Call Needed)

If you have ever compared Indian web agency websites late at night, you already know the pattern. Everyone is premier. Everyone is award-winning. A few even write a "Top 10" list and put themselves at number one.

That is advertising, not diligence. You can do a better check yourself, for free, in about 15 minutes. I use this when we are on the other side of the table too. You should run it on us.

Set a timer. Pick the firm you are most tempted by. Work in this order.

Minutes 1–3: Test their own website

Paste the firm's homepage into PageSpeed Insights, then test two sites from the portfolio, on mobile.

A team that sells fast, SEO-ready websites should be able to live with its own result. A poor score is not an automatic rejection. The useful part is the explanation. "We have not had time" tells you something. "Here is why, and here is the fix we would apply to yours" tells you something else.

Minutes 4–6: Confirm they exist on paper

Ask for a GSTIN and look it up on the GST taxpayer search. Legal name and state should match the proposal. If they are a private limited company, search the same name on the MCA portal.

A freelancer with no GST can still be the right hire for a small brochure site. You should just know that is who you are hiring, and agree ownership of the domain and files in writing.

Minutes 7–9: Check the age of the story

Paste the firm's site into the Wayback Machine and look at the oldest snapshot. "15 years of experience" should leave a trail of old versions. A young site is not a crime. A history that contradicts the homepage is a question you should ask before you ask for a quote.

Minutes 10–12: Ask the ownership question

Send this in writing:

If we stop working together after launch, what exactly do I get, and how?

You want: domain in your name, hosting in your account, admin logins, code or theme files, and a handover call. "We'll handle everything" is the answer that should worry you.

Minutes 13–15: Read the quote line by line

Ignore the big number at the bottom until the line items make sense. A fair quote names pages, who writes the content, ownership, milestone payments, revision rounds, SEO and testing tasks, maintenance, and GST. "Complete website, 50% now" is not a scope. It is a hope.

When two quotes are miles apart, the gap is usually in what one of them left out, not in the hourly rate.

A simple scoring rule

We score firms out of 20 across proof, ownership, process and growth, and only shortlist 16 or above. The full table, the red-flag list and the quote decoder are in our web development firm india guide. Use them on any firm, including MGTech Labs in Ranchi.

If a team flinches at a public GST search or a written handover question, you just saved yourself a much longer 15 minutes later.