Five conditions, all free, that make a repeat structurally impossible rather than merely unlikely. You don’t need to become better at judging people — people are hard to read, and complaint records are full of buyers who found their vendor entirely convincing. You need arrangements that survive being wrong.
Part 1: Read your own timeline back first
Before hiring anyone, write what happened as dates and amounts — no adjectives. Then look for these. Most people find three or four:
☐ Nothing in writing about scope — the whole dispute traces here
☐ An advance of half or more — the main structural error
☐ The domain registered by the vendor — why you’re stuck now
☐ No date attached to any stage
☐ Money paid before anything viewable existed
☐ Chosen mainly on price
☐ No revision limit agreed
This is the most valuable output of the exercise. Not the record of what they did — the record of the decisions that made it possible. Every one is free to change.
Part 2: The five conditions
Send these to any vendor as a one-page sheet. Any competent one accepts all five.
☐ 1. The domain is registered in my name, in my own account
Better: register it yourself before you contact anyone. ₹700–1,200 a year, ten minutes, your own email. Then give the developer DNS access rather than the account — registrars support this.
This alone converts the worst realistic outcome from “lost my business name, my email and my money” to “lost an advance.” Nothing else on this list comes close.
☐ 2. Advance of 20–30%, not half
A vendor confident of being paid on delivery doesn’t need half. And note: refund policies are near-universally absent from small website offers here, so plan on bounding the loss rather than recovering it.
☐ 3. Payments tied to stages I can open on my phone
| Stage | Payment | What I must see first |
|---|---|---|
| Confirmation | 30% | Written scope, invoice, domain in my name |
| Design approved | 30% | A home page I’ve said yes to |
| Build complete | 30% | Every page viewable on a staging link |
| Live and checked | 10% | Live, forms tested, all logins received |
The small final instalment matters: 10% isn’t worth a three-week standoff to either side, whereas 30% outstanding is exactly how projects deadlock at the finish.
☐ 4. Written scope — six items
Named page list · who supplies content · revision rounds as a number · delivery date with “live” defined · the year-two cost · a per-page rate for additions.
A single confirmation message with a “yes” in reply is a written agreement in substance. Or use the free one-page template.
☐ 5. GST invoice from a registered firm
Or a written bill on letterhead if they’re below the registration threshold — that’s common and not a red flag. Before confirming payment, check the account holder name your UPI app displays matches the invoiced firm. That name is the detail every later claim turns on.
Part 3: Set the budget from your real total
The instinct after a loss pulls two ways, and both are wrong.
Spend much more feels like buying reliability. Price is largely uncorrelated with whether you get delivered to — a higher quote buys presentation and sometimes process, not protection.
Spend much less feels like limiting damage. At the floor of the market there’s no margin for support and domains sit in vendor accounts, which makes a repeat more likely.
Do this instead. Total what your attempts have actually cost — every advance, further payment, renewal on nothing, logo work, plus your own hours. People typically find the direct total is two to four times what they remembered.
If two attempts cost ₹40,000, you were never a ₹15,000 buyer. You were a ₹40,000 buyer spending it badly. Sit in the honest middle for your scope — roughly ₹15,000–40,000 for a properly built five-page site in NCR — and spend your caution on the five conditions.
Part 4: What proof to trust now
Trust what costs a vendor something to give you. Discount what costs nothing to say.
| Weight it | Discount it |
|---|---|
| A client in your trade you can phone | Star rating — NCR firms all sit 4.4–4.9 |
| The domain in your name, in writing | An impressive office — rentable monthly |
| Three live sites whose forms you tested | Big client logos — rarely verified |
| The year-two figure, stated | “10+ years experience” |
| A complaint search on their exact name | Guaranteed page-one rankings |
The single most informative check: ask a past client “what happened after you paid in full?” That’s the period no review covers, and it’s where your last project failed.
Part 5: Salvage before you rebuild
Do this before commissioning anything new:
☐ WHOIS lookup on any domain from the previous attempt — if it’s yours, secure it. Continuity has real value
☐ Check whether the old build is salvageable. A site at eighty percent may be cheaper to finish than replace — get an honest assessment
☐ Collect all your content into one folder you own. Text, prices, photographs, logo files. This is the slowest thing to recreate and the most commonly lost between attempts
☐ Cancel anything still charging you for a site that doesn’t exist. Often still running
The reframe worth holding
You didn’t fail at buying a website. You bought one using price as the main filter — the method the market presents and the one most likely to produce this outcome.
Changing the method costs nothing. Concluding that everyone is a fraud costs you the website you still need.
What to do this week
- Write the timeline and mark which of the seven decisions applied to you.
- Total both halves of what the attempts cost — that’s your budget reference.
- Register your domain in your own account today.
- Collect all content into one folder you own.
- Send the five conditions as a one-page sheet before paying anyone.
If you want it done the certain way
Send us what happened and what you paid. We’ll tell you what’s salvageable, what a properly done site costs against your real total, and whether finishing the old build beats starting again. All five conditions in writing before you pay — and register the domain yourself first, with us or anyone. WhatsApp us; we reply in about five minutes between 9am and 7pm.
Related reading
- Cheated once? The safe-rebuild guide
- The conditions to set the second time
- What proof rebuilds trust after a bad developer
- Add up everything: the true cost of failed attempts
- Free website development agreement template
FAQ
How do I safely hire a web developer after being cheated?
Five free conditions: register the domain in your own account before hiring, keep the advance to 20–30%, tie the balance to stages you can open on your phone with a 10% final instalment, get scope in writing including the year-two cost, and take a GST invoice.
Should I spend more on my second website attempt?
Not as protection — price is largely uncorrelated with delivery. Total what your previous attempts really cost and treat that as your budget reference, then sit in the honest middle and tighten the terms instead.
What should I check before hiring again?
Ask for a client in your trade and phone them with one question: what happened after they paid in full. Discount star ratings, offices and client logos — none costs a vendor anything to display.
Can I still use anything from the failed attempt?
Often yes. Secure the domain if it’s in your name, get an honest assessment of whether the old build is worth finishing, and collect all your content into a folder you own — that’s the slowest part to recreate.
