In consultations I often review agreements clients are about to sign, and the same missing clauses cause the same disasters. Ask these questions before any signature — with me or anyone else.
Ownership questions
Who owns the domain, hosting, source code and all accounts? (Correct answer: you, in your name, from day one.) If we part ways, what exactly gets handed over, and in what timeframe? Vendors who resist written answers here are telling you something important.
Scope questions
Is every deliverable itemised — pages, features, revisions included? What counts as a "change request" and what does one cost? Undefined scope is where relationships sour: you assumed revisions were included; the vendor assumed three.
Money questions
Is the price fixed against the written scope? Are payments staged against milestones you can verify — design approval, test build, launch — rather than dates on a calendar? Is GST stated separately so the real total is clear?
Timeline questions
What is the delivery estimate, and what does it assume from you (content, images, approvals)? Most "developer delays" I investigate are actually content delays — the contract should make both sides' obligations explicit.
After-launch questions
What support is included and for how long? What are the charges after that? Where are backups kept, and who can restore them?
A professional answers all of this comfortably in writing — the questions themselves are a vendor filter. If the answers feel evasive, the cheapest time to walk away is now.