Ask three people to quote for the same small business website in Spain and you can be shown €300, €1,200 and €6,000. All three are real offers for genuinely different things, and nothing in the quotes tells you which is which. These are the questions that do.
1. Whose name will the domain be registered in?
The most important question and the one almost nobody asks. It should be yours, with your email as the contact. «We manage it for you» means the day you want to leave you cannot take the address with you. Any decent supplier says yours without hesitating.
2. What happens if I want to leave?
You should be able to take the domain, the site and the listing, with no notice period and no exit fee. Hesitation here tells you more than the whole rest of the conversation.
3. Is it a template or built for me?
Both are legitimate at different prices. What is not legitimate is charging bespoke prices for a bought template. Ask directly, and ask to see three sites they built — if they all look like the same site with different photos, you have your answer.
4. Who writes the text?
The most commonly skipped item. Many quotes assume you deliver the words, and websites sit unfinished for months waiting on them. Get it stated: who writes it, who translates it, and whether translation is included or extra.
5. Does the price include the Spanish version, or just English?
On this coast this changes the quote substantially, and it is often left vague deliberately. A second language means separate pages and separate text, not a translate button in the corner.
6. What exactly is monthly, and what does it buy?
| Reasonable monthly | Questionable monthly |
|---|---|
| Hosting, backups, updates | «SEO» with no defined work |
| A number of changes per month | «Maintenance» with nothing listed |
| Monitoring and support | The SSL certificate, which is free |
7. Can I change things myself?
At minimum you should be able to change your own opening hours and prices. If every small edit is a support request, you will stop making them and the site will go stale within a year.
8. Who handles the Spanish side?
If you do not speak Spanish, this is worth real money: the registrar, the hosting company, the invoices, the cookie and privacy requirements. Ask whether that is included or whether you will be the one on the phone.
9. Will it appear in Google, and when?
The honest answer is that a new site takes months, and that the Google listing works far faster. Anyone promising first place in weeks is either talking about paid ads or not being straight with you.
Three answers that should end the conversation: the domain in their name, first place on Google guaranteed, and a monthly fee with nothing specific listed against it.