What you risk by choosing badly (and why it happens so often)
Hiring a web designer looks easy. You ask for three quotes, compare numbers, pick the middle one. That's how half the SMBs in Mallorca end up with a website that doesn't show up on Google, takes five seconds to load and that nobody knows how to touch when a price needs changing.
The problem is that the three quotes don't describe the same product. One is a €300 template with your logo on top. Another is a custom-built site. The third is full of line items you can't read. On paper, all three say "web design". In practice, one decorates and another sells.
A case of mine. África Navarro arrived with a WordPress site that crawled: slow, heavy, impossible to rank. She paid twice. First for the website that didn't work, then for the real one: the one that scores above 95 out of 100 on Google's metrics. The money from the first one never came back.
The opposite case exists too: Son Colom, a restaurant in Felanitx, spent years without a website. Everything by phone and word of mouth. They didn't choose badly: they didn't choose. That has a cost as well, it just never arrives as an invoice.
A cheap website that doesn't sell is the most expensive website you can buy.
This guide is what I'd tell a friend with a business on the island before signing anything. No smoke. With prices, and with the questions almost nobody asks.
The 6 criteria that separate a website that sells from one that decorates
Whatever logo signs the quote, this is what it has to deliver:
- A portfolio with real projects you can visit. Not pretty screenshots: live websites, with names, that you can open on your phone right now. If the portfolio is mockups or sites that no longer exist, bad sign. Ask for two or three URLs and check how long they take to load on your 4G.
- Custom code or template, said to your face. A template isn't a crime. The crime is charging you for it as if it were custom work. I built dozens of WordPress sites before moving to custom code: I know templates from the inside, they're heavy, they all look alike and they tie you to licences and plugins for life.
- SEO as standard, not as an extra on the invoice. Titles, structure, sitemap, schema, Search Console configured. That's not a €400 "SEO pack" on the side: that's doing the job properly. If they sell it as an extra, ask what they deliver without it.
- Measurable speed, not promised speed. Everyone says they build fast websites. Almost nobody proves it. Ask for the number: mobile PageSpeed score, measured in production.
- Full ownership: domain, hosting and code in your name. When you finish paying, the website has to be yours. There are businesses in Mallorca that can't change providers because their website lives in a closed system they can't take it out of. That has a name: hostage.
- One person who answers for the work. Who takes your first call, and who answers when something breaks on a Friday afternoon. If they're different people, there's a chain in between. The old game of broken telephone.
Freelance or agency? What I saw working at one
Before setting up the studio I worked at a marketing agency. I saw the process from the inside: the salesperson sells, the account manager translates, the designer designs, the developer codes. Six hands between what you asked for and what you receive. Every hand gets paid, and every translation loses something.
That doesn't make agencies bad. For big projects, with campaigns and several coordinated teams, they make sense. But for an SMB's website, that machinery adds cost without adding value: you pay for the structure, not the result.
A freelance gives you the opposite: the person who listens on the first call is the one who codes your website and answers afterwards. The freelance risk is different: that they disappear, get overwhelmed or turn out to be an amateur. That's why the criteria in the previous chapter matter more than the label. A freelance with a verifiable portfolio, a clear process and a contract beats an agency with a receptionist. And the other way around too.
The question that settles almost everything: who exactly will build my website? First and last name. If the answer is "our team", insist until a person appears.
How much does it cost to hire a web designer in Mallorca in 2026
The island's market moves in these bands: under €500 you get templates with your logo, between €700 and €1,500 is where most serious freelancers work, and from €2,000 upwards you're into agencies, with ceilings of €5,000 or €6,000 when there's a store or campaigns involved. Almost nobody publishes their prices. I do, and you can compare them without calling me:
Landing in 5-7 days, business website in 2-3 weeks, store in 3-4. All prices are from, closed from the first brief.
If you want the full breakdown of why prices range from €300 to €5,000, it's in how much a website costs in Mallorca in 2026, with real prices and the red flags of cheap quotes.
The final number matters less than knowing what it includes. A quote without a written scope isn't a quote: it's a number in the air.
Watch out for the costs that don't appear on the first page: annual template and plugin licences, a "content manager" with a monthly fee, hosting resold at triple the price. Always ask what you'll pay each year once the project is delivered. That answer separates an honest price from a subscription in disguise.
The 10 questions to ask before signing
Take them written down to the meeting. Anyone who works properly answers them without getting nervous.
- Who will build my website, first and last name?
- In whose name are the domain and hosting registered?
- Does it start from a template or is it coded from scratch?
- What mobile PageSpeed score will it have, measured in production?
- What exactly does the price include and what's charged separately?
- What will I pay per year once it's delivered (licences, hosting, maintenance)?
- Will I be able to edit the content myself, without paying for every change?
- What happens if I want to add a language or a section in a year?
- What deadline is in writing and what happens if it's missed?
- What support is there after delivery and at what price?
And three red flags that never fail: they guarantee "first place on Google" (nobody honest guarantees rankings), they want to register the domain in their name "to make it easier for you", and they quote you without having asked anything about your business.
Listening goes both ways too. When I built the website for Sorrentino's, in Artà, the owner told me he didn't want another dashboard to babysit: the kitchen was enough. Bookings go out through WhatsApp, the channel he already used. A good professional adapts the solution to your business. A bad one sells you their usual one.
Beware of the "best agencies in Mallorca" lists
If you search for "best web design agencies Mallorca", half of what comes up are lists written by agencies in Madrid that put themselves in first place. The same list exists for Tarragona, for Valencia and for wherever else, with the city name swapped. No author, no date, without ever having set foot on the island.
They're not a recommendation: they're advertising shaped like a ranking. Use them as a phone book if you like, but you'll have to do the filtering yourself. The better path: open the portfolios, visit the real websites, measure how they load and ask the ten questions from the previous chapter. One hour of checking saves you months of regret.
And if your business is on the island and you want to see how I work, it's all published: web design in Mallorca with prices in plain sight and ten real cases you can open right now. Hiring a web designer isn't an act of faith. It's comparing things you can verify.
What people ask me most before hiring
In 2026, a professional landing page starts around €745, a custom business website around €1,425 and an online store around €1,875. Under €500 there's almost always a template with your logo. Above €5,000, agency structure. What matters isn't just the number: it's the written scope that comes with it.
For an SMB's website, a freelance with a verifiable portfolio usually gives you more for less: you talk directly to the person who codes and you don't pay for an agency's sales chain. Agencies make sense for big projects with several teams. The deciding factor isn't the label: it's knowing, by first and last name, who will build your website.
The ten in chapter (005), and if you can only ask three: who exactly will build my website, in whose name do the domain and hosting stay, and what will I pay each year once it's delivered. With those three answers you know whether you're dealing with a professional or a subscription in disguise.
Three quick tells: it takes more than three seconds to load on a phone, it looks suspiciously like other websites in the same sector, and if you right-click and "view source" you see names like Elementor, Avada or Divi everywhere. The definitive test is asking to their face and having it stated in the quote.
You. Always. The domain registered in your name, the hosting in your account and the code handed over when the project closes. If the provider objects to any of the three, ask yourself why it suits them that you can't leave. A website you can't take with you isn't yours: it's a rental.
Written scope (pages, languages, features), a deadline with a date, payment terms, what technical SEO is included, who provides the copy and photos, and the recurring costs for the following year. If any of that is missing, it's not a quote: it's a number to hook you and negotiate the extras later.
Need, no. Help, it does: someone from the island understands the seasonality, the foreign clientele and why your website needs German as well as English. And if the project calls for it, you can sit at the same table. What doesn't pay off is choosing someone from outside just because a list written in Madrid put them first.
