A web service provider should not be chosen based on a portfolio or daily rate. The distinguishing factor in 2024 is the provider’s ability to deliver a project that complies with recent regulatory obligations, particularly regarding accessibility, while ensuring your technical autonomy after the site goes live.
Accessibility and the European Accessibility Act: the criterion your specifications overlook
Since June 28, 2025, the European Accessibility Act mandates that e-commerce services aimed at consumers must be compliant. New services must be accessible from the moment they go live. Existing services have a transitional period until June 28, 2030.
The responsibility for this compliance lies with the company providing the service to the consumer, not with the agency developing the site. In clear terms, if your provider delivers a non-compliant site, you bear the legal risk.
We recommend contractually requiring three elements: the accessibility reference used (RGAA or WCAG), the tests planned during development, and a documented correction procedure with audit deliverables. A provider that does not mention accessibility in their quote in 2024 shows a significant methodological lag.
Accessibility is not limited to color contrast. The requirements cover the entire purchasing journey, forms, keyboard navigation, the semantic structure of HTML, and compatibility with assistive technologies. Ensure that the proposed team includes real expertise on these topics, not just a commercial mention.
The exemption only applies to microenterprises with fewer than ten employees whose annual turnover or total balance sheet does not exceed 2 million euros. If your organization exceeds these thresholds, you are affected, regardless of the size of your site.
Ownership of code and access: contractual clause before any technical criteria
Before evaluating the skills of a web agency, it is essential to clarify a legal point often overlooked in quotes: who owns the source code, domain name, and hosting access once the project is delivered. We still observe contracts where the provider retains ownership of the code, making any subsequent migration legally complex and technically costly.
The contract must explicitly state the transfer of property rights on the delivered code. It should also provide for the handover of all identifiers (hosting, registrar, CMS back-office, analytics accounts) within a defined period after going live. A provider that refuses this clause locks you into technical dependency.
When you seek to find a provider with CM 35, these contractual points should be raised from the first exchange, even before discussing CMS or design.
Technical stack and CMS choice: compare methods, not logos
The choice between WordPress, custom development, or a no-code platform should not depend on the provider’s preferences. It depends on the functional complexity of your project, your internal content management capabilities, and your performance constraints.
A showcase site with a dozen pages and a contact form does not justify custom development. In contrast, an e-commerce site with specific inventory management features, multiple payment methods, or particular business logic may require a headless CMS or a dedicated framework.
We recommend evaluating the technical stack based on three concrete criteria:
- Editorial autonomy: can you modify content, add pages, and manage media without the provider’s intervention after delivery?
- Maintainability: does the provider document their code, use a version control system (Git), and have a security update plan?
- Measurable performance: does the quote include quantified objectives on Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP), or is it limited to responsive design?
A provider that consistently offers the same CMS platform regardless of the project indicates a lack of technical versatility. The CMS recommendation should stem from analyzing your functional needs, not the other way around.
Project team composition and subcontracting: questions to ask before signing
The quality of a web provider is measured by the team that actually works on your project. Ask for the names and roles of the assigned individuals. A project manager juggling twelve clients simultaneously does not provide the same follow-up as a dedicated team with structured weekly check-ins.
Offshore subcontracting is not a problem in itself, but it must be declared in the contract. The main risk: a commercial contact in France and developers abroad with no direct communication possible. Demand to know who codes, who integrates, and who tests.
Also check what is excluded from the quote. Content writing, on-page SEO optimization, analytics tool setup, back-office training: these services often represent a workload comparable to the development itself. A quote that displays an attractive rate while excluding these items is not comparable to a comprehensive quote.
- Request a delivery schedule with intermediate milestones and deliverables to be validated at each stage
- Check if the acceptance (testing phase before going live) is included and how many correction cycles are planned
- Clarify the conditions for post-delivery maintenance: duration, scope, guaranteed response time in case of failure
The choice of a web provider in 2024 hinges less on design than on contractual solidity, regulatory compliance, and operational transparency. A good provider makes you autonomous after going live, they do not make you dependent for every text modification or security update.
