How to choose a web design agency in Amsterdam

Start with what you need

Agencies differ in what they are good at: brand, web design, product design, build, content, ongoing marketing. Write down the job in a few sentences before you talk to anyone: who the site is for, what a visitor should do, and what is wrong with the current one. A clear brief gets better answers and honest “not for us” replies.

Build a short list of three to five

• Look for work like yours in kind and in difficulty, not only in looks. A beautiful consumer site says little about a platform with many countries or products.
• Open the sites they built on a phone. Check how fast they load and whether they are easy to use. A portfolio is only as good as the live result.
• Read what clients say in their own words. Be wary of reviews without names, or without any detail about the work.
• Directories and ranking lists are a place to find names, not a verdict. Their methods are rarely independent.

Questions worth asking

• Who will do the work? Many agencies sell with senior people and deliver with juniors or outsource it. At a small studio, the people on the first call should be the people building it.
• What does the process look like, and how often will we see progress? Weekly demos beat a long silence ending in a reveal.
• Who owns the files, the design and the code at the end, and what do we need to run the site without you?
• How is speed handled? Ask for the result on a mid-range phone, not a promise.
• How is search handled? A redesign should protect existing rankings: titles, redirects, structure and structured data all need to be planned.
• How do you handle changes to the scope? Every project changes. The answer shows how they will treat you when it does.

Comparing proposals

Proposals are hard to compare on price alone, because the scope behind a figure differs. Put them side by side on what is actually included:

• Deliverables: the number of templates, not only pages; what content work is included; what the CMS setup covers.
• Timeline and milestones, and what you need to provide and by when.
• Performance, accessibility and search work: included, or an extra?
• Handover and support after launch: documentation, training, and who fixes what, for how long.

A very low figure usually means something above is missing. A very high one should come with a reason you can see in the scope.

Things specific to working in Amsterdam and the Netherlands

• Language: most studios work in English and Dutch. Decide whether the site needs both and plan for it from the start, because adding a language later costs more.
• Privacy: Dutch and European sites need a cookie and consent approach that complies with the GDPR (AVG in Dutch). Ask what they do by default.
• Accessibility: the European Accessibility Act has applied to many consumer-facing services since June 2025. If you sell online or offer a digital service, ask how accessibility is handled.
• Payments: for a Dutch shop, iDEAL is expected at checkout.
• Same time zone: weekly demos and quick answers are easier when you share a working day.

Red flags

• No questions about your business before a quote.
• A template with your logo on it, presented as custom design.
• No access to the site’s content system, files or analytics at the end.
• Guaranteed rankings. Nobody can promise them.
• Pressure to sign quickly.

Where we fit

Kliqer is a creative technology agency in Amsterdam with a small team, working on brands, websites and digital products. The people in the first call design and build the work, we show progress every week, and we hand over a site your team can run. We do not publish prices, because the range between projects is too wide for one number to help, but we answer within two working days with an honest view on whether we are the right agency.

Quick answers