How to Choose a Web Design Company in Nairobi: 12-Point Checklist (2026)

Photo: RHoK Nairobi, Kenya by whiteafrican, CC BY 2.0. Cropped.

The 12-point checklist

1. Live portfolio, not screenshots. Ask for links to five recent websites. Open them on your phone using mobile data. Do they load quickly? Can you find prices and contact details in seconds?
2. Performance scores. Run two portfolio sites through PageSpeed Insights. Google's "good" thresholds are a Largest Contentful Paint of 2.5 s or less, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 ms or less and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less. A company whose own work fails these will likely build you a slow site.
3. Mobile-first design. With Android on about 95% of Kenyan mobile devices (StatCounter), the site must be designed for affordable Android phones first.
4. SEO built in. Ask what is included: titles and descriptions, structured data, sitemap, Google Search Console, Google Business Profile guidance, and AI-search readiness such as llms.txt. See SEO vs AEO.
5. M-Pesa and WhatsApp experience. If you need payments or bookings, ask to see a live site where M-Pesa checkout works, ideally through the Daraja API.
6. Ownership in writing. Domain, hosting, admin accounts, code and content must be in your name. This is non-negotiable.
7. Clear, itemised pricing. Pages, design, content, features, SEO, training, support and hosting should each appear in the quote.
8. Realistic timeline. Ask for the schedule and what you must supply, and by when.
9. Content support. Will they write or edit your copy, and source or take photos? Missing content is the most common cause of delays.
10. Training and handover. You should be able to update prices, add blog posts and change images yourself.
11. Support after launch. What is covered, response times, and cost of changes.
12. References. Speak to two past clients. Ask whether they would hire the company again.

Red flags

• The domain will be registered "for you" in the agency's name.
• A very low price with no itemisation, often a template with your logo dropped in.
• No live portfolio, or only overseas sites they can't explain.
• Guarantees of "first page on Google in a week".
• Pressure to sign today or pay 100% upfront.
• No written contract or scope document.

What a fair process looks like

Kavenacc runs this as a 9-step process that launches professional websites within 7 days, with a 50% deposit to start and the balance on delivery.

How much should you expect to pay?

Published Kenyan price guides put basic business websites at about KES 20,000–60,000, professional small-business sites at KES 50,000–120,000 and e-commerce stores from around KES 90,000 upwards. See our detailed website cost guide for Kenya. Instead of choosing the cheapest quote, choose the best value: a fast, findable site you own, built by someone who will still answer the phone next year.

Freelancer or company?

A skilled freelancer can be excellent for a simple site, provided ownership and handover are handled properly. For a business-critical site with payments, bookings or integrations, a company or studio offers more continuity, a broader skill set and less dependence on one person's availability. Whichever you choose, the checklist above applies.

Questions to ask on the first call

1. Can you show me three Nairobi or Kenyan business sites you built in the past year?
2. What will the site score on PageSpeed Insights on mobile?
3. Whose name will the domain and hosting be registered in?
4. What exactly do you need from me, and by when?
5. What happens if the launch date slips?
6. How will people find the site on Google and in AI answers after launch?

A good provider answers these clearly and without hesitation. Their answers will tell you more than any sales presentation.

How to test a portfolio site in five minutes

1. Open it on your phone over mobile data, not office Wi-Fi. Count the seconds until you can read the main heading.
2. Find the price or "from" price of the main service. If it takes more than two taps, visitors will leave.
3. Tap the WhatsApp or call button. Does it open correctly with a sensible pre-filled message?
4. Submit the contact form with a test message, and ask the company whether it arrived.
5. Search Google for the business name and a service, such as "dentist Westlands". Does the site appear, with a sensible title and description?
6. View the page source and look for a title tag, meta description and structured data. Their absence suggests SEO wasn't part of the job.

If the company's best work fails these simple tests, your site will too.

What a good proposal contains

• A summary of your goals, in your words, showing they listened.
• A sitemap: the list of pages and what each one is for.
• Features: forms, booking, payments, blog, languages, integrations.
• What you provide (content, photos, logo) and what they provide.
• Timeline with milestones, and payment tied to those milestones.
• Exactly what is included in SEO, speed optimisation and training.
• Hosting, domain and support costs for the first year and after.
• Ownership and handover terms.

Thinking beyond launch day

A website is a sales tool, not a one-off project. Ask how the company will help you after launch: monthly reports on visits and enquiries, adding new service pages, publishing articles that answer customer questions, keeping plugins and security up to date, and improving the pages that get traffic but few enquiries. The best web design partners in Nairobi measure success by the enquiries your site produces, not by how it looked on launch day.

Local knowledge that matters

A Nairobi-based company should understand how Kenyan customers buy: they contact businesses on WhatsApp, they pay by M-Pesa, they search with neighbourhood names, and they often compare prices before calling. Ask how the company designs for these behaviours. Generic templates built for Western markets, with email-only contact forms and card-only checkouts, consistently underperform here.

Pricing models you'll encounter

• Fixed price per project: the most common for business websites; clear, provided the scope is written down.
• Packages: set bundles, for example 5 pages with SEO and hosting; easy to compare, but check what happens if you need more.
• Hourly or daily rates: common for ongoing changes and complex custom work.
• Monthly website-as-a-service: lower upfront cost with a monthly fee covering hosting, updates and changes; check who owns the site if you stop paying.

None of these is wrong. What matters is that you understand the total cost and keep ownership of the site.

Finally, trust your experience of the sales process itself. A company that replies quickly, explains things clearly and puts commitments in writing before you pay is likely to work the same way during the project.

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