Local service guide
Website Design in El Paso, TX: Hiring Guide
For Website Design in El Paso, choose a designer who can demonstrate your intended customer task, explain the full project and recurring charges, and hand over the accounts you need to run the site. Give bidders the same brief: required pages, customer actions, content responsibilities, integrations, accessibility testing, and launch conditions. Before paying for a build, clarify your marketing goal through the local SBDC if needed. Ask each bidder to explain Texas tax treatment, since the Comptroller lists website creation, maintenance, and hosting as taxable data-processing services. [1] [3]
Write a brief bidders can price
Describe one complete customer journey. For an appointment business, specify how a visitor chooses a service, sees availability, books, and receives confirmation. For a shop, describe product selection, payment, pickup or delivery, and your process for changing inventory. Ask the designer to demonstrate that journey before you approve the final payment.
List the pages and features you need at launch. Name who supplies photographs, writes copy, approves wording, and enters products. If your customers need English and Spanish content, ask for a separate translation and review allowance, identify who approves both versions, and include forms and confirmation messages in that scope. Decide this from your customer needs and agree on a content plan before buying a bilingual package.
For a redesign, give bidders an inventory of existing pages, account access, and examples of customer tasks that fail. Ask them to identify which addresses they will preserve and how they will handle replaced pages. Put any booking, payment, email, or customer-management connection in the written scope, including who owns the connected account and who troubleshoots failures.
Compare the full cost and Texas tax treatment
Build your budget from itemized bids for the same scope. Request separate amounts for discovery, design, development, content work, migration, and launch. Then ask for a recurring-cost schedule covering hosting, domain renewal, paid software, maintenance, and support. Specify whether the quote includes tax and ask how the provider calculated it. Identify optional features you can defer while keeping the customer task you need at launch.
The Texas Comptroller's Taxable Services publication includes web hosting, website creation, and maintenance among data-processing examples. It states that 20 percent of data-processing charges is exempt from tax. Ask the provider to identify the applicable taxable services and explain the exemption on your proposed invoice. The exemption concerns the charge subject to tax, not a 20 percent sales-tax rate. [3]
In an April 2024 summary of a private letter ruling, the Comptroller distinguished the taxpayer's standalone website blueprinting from development. The blueprint covered goals, site mapping, usability consulting, and architecture planning without creating a website. The Comptroller found that standalone service nontaxable and the taxpayer's website development taxable. If you are buying discovery before deciding on a build, ask how the provider's actual work compares with that distinction. Confirm the treatment of the complete package rather than extending the standalone finding to bundled work. [2]
Make accessibility a deliverable
The Department of Justice states that ADA requirements apply to goods and services that businesses open to the public offer through the web. Its business guidance describes barriers involving contrast, missing image descriptions, inaccessible forms, and mouse-only navigation. Include accessibility work in the initial brief and ask the designer to name the testing standard and methods they propose. [4]
Ask the designer to walk through your contact, booking, or checkout form using a keyboard. Review field labels, instructions, and error messages, and check whether visitors can enlarge text. Request a record of checks, defects, and fixes. DOJ advises pairing manual checks with automated tools and cautions that a clean automated report does not establish that everything is accessible. Review the testing evidence before accepting the site, and ask the designer to explain the limits of any compliance promise. [4]
Agree on launch, ownership, and support
Ask bidders to show a working example with features comparable to yours. Have them explain which work they performed and demonstrate how an owner edits a page or updates a product. For any portfolio reference, request permission to contact the business and ask about communication, handover, and support.
Write down who will control the domain registration, hosting, site administration, analytics, and payment accounts. Request owner access and a list of subscriptions, renewal dates, and cancellation terms. Define the rights you receive to copy, photographs, design files, and custom code, including any licensed assets you cannot transfer.
Set approval points for the brief, design, working site, and launch. Require written approval for extra work with its price and schedule effect. Before launch, test customer submissions and confirmations, verify contact details, and confirm a backup and recovery process. Ask who handles defects after launch, how you report them, and what support costs after the included period.
Texas data-processing charge: exempt and taxable shares
Local details that affect your job
Clarify the business goal with EPCC SBDC
El Paso Community College SBDC provides no-cost, confidential, one-on-one business advising, including sales and marketing, market research, and financial forecasting. If you cannot decide whether you need a brochure site, bookings, or online sales, request advising before paying for design discovery. Call 915.831.7742 or use the center's request form. Its services page asks prospective clients to download and complete both the intake and pre-client questions forms and submit them before the meeting. [1]
Apply Texas scope distinctions to your quote
Texas guidance affects how you compare an El Paso website proposal: the Comptroller lists hosting, creation, and maintenance as data processing, with a 20 percent exemption from the charge. Its separate ruling summary describes nontaxable standalone blueprinting under the stated facts. Ask bidders to explain discovery-only work, website construction, and recurring services separately, then confirm the tax treatment of your actual package with the provider or your tax adviser. [2] [3]
Choose the scope before choosing a designer
| Your situation | Scope to request | Evidence to ask for |
|---|---|---|
| You have not settled the marketing goal | Business advising, then a written brief | Use EPCC SBDC's no-cost advising for sales and marketing planning |
| You need planning before committing to construction | Standalone discovery with defined deliverables | Ask how the work compares with the Comptroller's blueprinting ruling |
| Customers need to book or buy | A complete transaction journey | A demonstration of submission, confirmation, and owner administration |
| Your existing site needs replacement | Content and account inventory plus migration scope | A plan for existing page addresses, backups, and launch testing |
| You need someone to maintain the site | Recurring support with itemized fees | Response terms, cancellation terms, and Texas data-processing tax treatment |
Your hiring checklist
- Write the customer journey and list the pages and features needed for launch.
- Assign responsibility for copy, images, translations, products, and approvals.
- Give bidders the same brief and request project charges, recurring fees, and tax treatment.
- Review a working example and ask the designer to demonstrate owner editing.
- Agree on accessibility checks for navigation and the main customer form.
- Record account ownership, content rights, subscriptions, and cancellation terms.
- Set approval milestones, extra-work rules, launch tests, and support terms.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should I budget for the website?
Build your budget from itemized bids for the same scope. Compare construction, content, integrations, tax, and recurring fees together. Ask bidders to identify optional features so you can defer work without losing the customer task you need at launch. Agree on the price and approval process for additions before signing.
Does Texas tax website design?
The Comptroller lists website creation, maintenance, and hosting as taxable data processing and exempts 20 percent of data-processing charges. Its April 2024 ruling summary found the described standalone blueprinting service nontaxable. Ask the provider to explain your package's treatment based on the work they will perform. [2] [3]
Can an automated scan confirm accessibility?
DOJ cautions that a clean automated report does not mean everything is accessible. Request manual checks alongside automated testing, including keyboard navigation and form labels, instructions, and errors. Ask the designer to record defects and demonstrate corrections before you accept the site. [4]
What should I receive at handover?
Request owner access to the agreed accounts, an account and subscription inventory, backups, editing instructions, and the deliverables named in your contract. Confirm rights to content and code and identify licensed assets. Arrange a demonstration in which you perform a routine update yourself.
Sources and scope
This guide combines the sources below with practical planning guidance. Figures apply to the stated geography and period; request a written quote for your property.