How do you choose an agency for your digital project?

01

Choose an agency that fits the type of project

An institutional website redesign, a mobile application and a business CRM may share design needs, but delivery requires different skills. First describe the change you want: helping visitors find information, making a service available on mobile or simplifying an internal process. You can then examine the skills required.

A specialist agency can suit a clearly defined assignment. A team combining product strategy, UX/UI and development is worth considering when design decisions and technical constraints are linked. A freelancer may meet a specific need if you already have coordination capabilities. The right organisation depends on the work and your availability to manage it.

This guide is published by Gaspa Agency, a digital product agency in Brussels. We suggest criteria you can apply to every team you approach, including ours. It is not an agency ranking.

02

Give a shortlist of agencies the same brief

Prepare a short document covering the problem, users, a priority journey, existing tools and constraints. Include unanswered questions. You do not need a fully fixed specification to start a conversation; make clear what is known and what still needs discovery.

Present this same context to the shortlisted agencies. Ask them to restate the need, identify risks and suggest a first step. Notice the questions they ask about users, data, organisation, integrations, validation and operation. A useful recommendation should explain its assumptions and what could change it.

03

Examine references beyond their visual design

A portfolio shows visual styles and product types. To evaluate a reference, ask about the initial need, the agency’s precise role, deliverables and constraints. Distinguish a design assignment from full development, and a prototype from a product actually put into service.

Look for challenges comparable to yours: several user roles, data migration, iOS and Android delivery or a substantial publication library. Industry alone does not determine relevance. Related experience should be explained through the problems addressed, with attributed, verifiable results when outcomes are claimed.

A reference client conversation can add context if the client and agency agree. Ask how decisions, changes and difficulties were handled. Confidentiality may limit what can be shown; the agency should explain what it can document without inventing results.

04

Meet the team and understand how it works

Ask who manages the project, designs the interfaces and makes technical decisions. Identify the skills involved, any external contributors and arrangements if someone is unavailable. You need to know whom to speak to and how a decision becomes delivered work.

Ask for a concrete sequence: discovery, design, demonstration, feedback, approval and preparation for the next step. Clarify your responsibilities too: people to involve, content to provide and decisions to make. An understandable method makes dependencies and approval points visible before work starts.

A discovery workshop can be a first assignment when the need still contains unknowns. Its objectives, deliverables and terms should be explicit. It should support decisions about subsequent work; a general sales presentation cannot replace it.

05

Compare proposals and prepare for life after delivery

Before comparing totals, align scope: discovery, design, development, content, integrations, migration, testing and publication. Make exclusions, assumptions, contributions expected from your team and recurring costs visible. Proposals covering different scopes cannot be compared directly.

Then examine change handling. Who estimates a change, how is its impact presented and who approves it? The schedule should show dependencies and required decisions. Assess a delivery commitment alongside its scope and conditions, rather than as a promise independent of the project.

Finally, clarify what you receive and how the service will be supported: designs, code, documentation, accounts, environments, assistance and maintenance. Access, usage and transfer arrangements should be explicit in the proposal and agreements. Ask how another team could take over the product if your organisation changes.

06

Assess quality, SEO and accessibility from the start

For a website, ask how content, page addresses, any redirects, metadata and checks after publication will be prepared. For an application, ask about acceptance journeys, target devices and error handling. In both cases, identify the criteria used to accept a delivery.

Google recommends content that helps people, with understandable expertise and author identity. Examine how the agency connects content, usage and verifiable information. Presence in Google or an AI answer is then assessed through observed results; sales language is not evidence of visibility.

W3C recommends involving relevant users early and evaluating accessibility throughout a project. It also explains that an automated tool alone cannot determine conformance. Ask which human checks and journey tests are planned alongside technical measurements.

07

Use this interview checklist before choosing

Use the same questions with each agency. Check a point when its answer is sufficiently clear for your project and supported by an example, document or explicit arrangement. An unchecked point becomes a question to revisit before deciding.

This checklist does not rank suppliers or replace your judgement. Keep interview notes separately and compare the quality of answers. An essential point that remains uncertain may justify another conversation, even when the rest of the project seems well defined.

08

Why include Gaspa in your shortlist?

Gaspa Agency brings strategy, design, development and AI skills together in Brussels to create and evolve digital products. Our approach is worth examining when your project needs to connect business needs, user experience and technical delivery: a mobile app, web platform, CRM, website or automation.

Our method provides one main contact, direct conversations with relevant specialists, shared tracking and regular demonstrations. Scope, deliverables, responsibilities and changes are clarified with you. An assignment can start with discovery or design; post-launch involvement is defined around maintenance and development needs.

To assess this approach, examine the documented assignments below and apply the same checklist to us. Enneco illustrates the connection between discovery, art direction, design and CRM. ECSDA covers an institutional redesign and the organisation of publications and events. Alba Golf shows a mobile scope with a back office, APIs and store publication. These references describe delivered work; they do not predict your project’s results.