Most badly-built Irish websites are not badly-built because the developer was bad. They're badly-built because the brief was vague, the scope was negotiated after work had started, and the buyer did not know what they were looking at when the first demo came in. If you've never hired a developer before, this guide is the cheat sheet for avoiding that.

Budget context. A solid mid-career freelance Irish web developer will typically cost €450–650 per day. A small 5-page marketing site well-built from scratch is 8–15 days of work (so roughly €4,000–10,000); a Shopify or WordPress site with light customisation is 6–12 days (so €2,800–7,500). See the full rate benchmark.

Step 1 — work out what kind of developer you actually need

"Web developer" is an umbrella term covering four distinct specialisms that barely overlap:

  • Front-end developer. Turns designs into code users see (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React/Vue). Best for marketing sites, landing pages, and anything where the visual output matters more than the data model.
  • Full-stack developer. Does front-end plus back-end (databases, APIs, server code). Best for product builds, internal tools, and anything that manages user accounts or processes data.
  • CMS specialist. WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Webflow. Best for content sites, e-commerce, and projects where the client needs to update content without calling a developer.
  • Back-end / infrastructure. APIs, database design, cloud deployment. Rarely the right first hire for a small business — usually joins an existing team.

The wrong match here is expensive. A full-stack developer building a WordPress site will build something more complex than needed and charge more for it; a WordPress specialist building a custom web app will struggle and deliver something fragile.

Step 2 — write the brief before you ask for a quote

The brief should answer four questions at minimum:

  1. What is the site/build for? Lead generation, e-commerce, internal tool, content publishing, etc. If you can't answer in one sentence, scope it further before briefing.
  2. What are the pages or features? Rough page list. For a web app, the feature list. No wireframes needed — a bullet list is fine.
  3. What's the tech preference (if any)? If you already have a preferred CMS or stack, say so. If not, say "no strong preference, recommend what fits best" — good developers prefer this framing to a tech decision made by someone who hasn't evaluated options.
  4. What does done look like? A working site at a live URL, handed over with admin access. Plus: who's hosting it, what's the design input, and who's writing the content.
The budget signal matters. Quotes with a budget range come in within 20% of each other. Quotes without a budget range come in anywhere from €1,500 to €15,000 for the exact same brief — because the developer is guessing what you'll pay.

Step 3 — where to find Irish web developers

Roughly in order of quality for one-off SME work:

  • Referrals from other Irish businesses. Single best source. Ask in Local Enterprise Office networks, in a trade body, in your accountant's client list.
  • Small Irish design-development collectives. Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick all have 2–4 person studios where the developer is a partner not an employee. The quality-to-price ratio is often better than bigger agencies.
  • Freelance-platform filters. The Indie List, Jobbers, Peopleperhour all have filters for Ireland-based developers. Quality is mixed but Irish-specific filters work.
  • Matched-quotes services like Fiverr.ie. Tell us the brief, we shortlist two or three. Useful when you don't have a referral network and don't want to vet 20 portfolios yourself.

Avoid the generic global marketplaces for Irish-market work unless you have a very clear brief and the patience to sift. The issue isn't quality — it's that a developer in a different timezone and business-culture is harder to brief well, and the VAT/invoicing side of cross-border freelance hires adds friction.

Step 4 — portfolio red flags

When you look at a developer's portfolio, you're mostly looking for pattern-recognition against your own brief. Red flags to filter on:

  • Every case study is "design led by X studio, development by us". Fine for a dev-only hire, but if you need design input too, you need a different person or a design partner on the side.
  • All case-study sites are offline. If a portfolio links to five sites and four return 404, the developer doesn't maintain long-term relationships — which often correlates with handover-and-disappear behaviour.
  • No "look under the hood" option. For WordPress or Shopify work you should be able to see page-source and tell whether the build is sloppy. If every site is heavily cached or on a closed platform where you can't inspect, be more cautious on references.
  • Case studies but no testimonials / client names. Work that the client wasn't happy to be publicly associated with is a weak signal. One or two anonymous cases are fine; a full portfolio of them is not.

Step 5 — the three-question sanity check before quoting

Before you ask for a quote, ask these three things of any developer you're seriously considering. The answers tell you more than portfolio screenshots:

  1. "Of sites like mine, what went wrong most often?" A senior developer will answer specifically: "clients underestimate the content phase", "hosting costs sneak up", "mobile QA is usually rushed". A junior or pretender will answer vaguely.
  2. "What does handover include?" Good answer: admin access, a documented theme/plugin list, documentation of any custom code, a 30-day post-launch bug fix window, and a handover call. Bad answer: "you'll get a login".
  3. "What are my ongoing hosting and maintenance costs?" A good developer gives you a real number (for example: "hosting roughly €10–20/month via SiteGround or Blacknight, plus €180/year for the SSL and domain renewals, plus €300–500/year if you want me to keep WordPress and plugins updated"). A bad developer waves vaguely.

Step 6 — contract essentials

For anything over €3,000, insist on a written contract or letter of engagement. It should cover, at minimum:

  • Scope of work (in and out).
  • Timeline and milestones.
  • Payment schedule (typical Irish structure: 30–50% deposit, 30% on alpha/beta, balance on go-live).
  • IP and code ownership on final payment (default in Ireland is that the developer owns copyright on custom code until the contract transfers it).
  • Hosting and domain ownership (you should own the domain and the hosting account — not the developer, even if they set them up on your behalf).
  • A post-launch bug-fix window (usually 14–30 days).
  • What happens if the project is cancelled mid-way (usually: deposit retained, any work done to date billed at day rate, no further fees).

Step 7 — after launch

Two things most buyers forget:

  1. Get the admin logins, domain registrar login, and hosting login in writing. Move them to your own accounts if the developer set them up in theirs. If the developer ever disappears, you need to be able to keep the site running.
  2. Set up maintenance. WordPress sites need monthly plugin/core updates. Shopify needs less but still needs SEO and theme upkeep. Budget €30–80/month for this ongoing, either with your original developer on a retainer or with a separate maintenance-only provider.

Next steps

If you'd rather skip the portfolio-sifting, the matched-quotes form will send your brief to two or three Irish developers who actually fit it. See also: the general Irish freelance-hiring guide and freelancer vs agency for Irish projects.