Pay for an Audit Before You Sign a Retainer
Before committing to months of agency fees, pay for a short audit and judge the team by it. What a good audit should hand you, the questions that expose a weak agency, and how our own audit is priced.
Many brands that come to us have already paid one agency. The pattern is familiar: a strong pitch, a long retainer, a few good weeks, then less output and more reports. By the time it's clear the work isn't moving sales, months of fees have gone.
The cheapest protection is to pay for a short audit first and judge the team by what it hands you.
What a good audit hands you
- A ranked list of problems, ordered by what each one costs you, not by how easy it is to fix.
- Evidence for each one: the report, the screenshot, the console error or the funnel step where people drop off.
- What fixing each one involves, with a rough effort and who should do it, even if that isn't the agency.
- A walkthrough, live, where you can ask why.
You should be able to act on the list without hiring the team that wrote it. If the report only makes sense as a sales pitch, that tells you how the retainer would go.
Questions that expose a weak agency
Who will write the code? Ask whether the people on the call are the people doing the work, and whether any part is subcontracted. You're entitled to know who will have access to your store and data.
When will I see a working preview? A Shopify developer can push a theme to a development store and send a password-protected preview link within minutes. If an agency can't show you anything for weeks, ask why.
Can I see numbers from a similar client, including ad spend? Growth figures without spend, return on ad spend and order value tell you little. A sales lift bought with triple the ad budget isn't the same result.
What's the shortest commitment you'll accept? Start with an audit or a fixed-scope sprint. Move to a monthly arrangement only once you've seen the work.
Who owns the code and accounts? You should own the store, domain, analytics and ad accounts in your name from the start. Our handover checklist lists the rest.
How ours works
We price our audits publicly so you can compare:
| Step | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Website & Commerce Audit | ₹60,000 | What's costing you sales, ranked by what to fix first, in 5 to 10 working days |
| Fix Sprint | ₹1.5 lakh | Speed, checkout, tracking and technical SEO fixed in 2 to 3 weeks on your current platform |
| Retainer | From ₹90,000 a month | Ongoing work, with a 3-month minimum (6 for a dedicated pod) |
The audit is ₹40,000 for a business site without a store and up to ₹90,000 for Shopify Plus or several stores. Its fee is credited against a project you sign with us within 60 days of the report. If you cancel before we start work, we refund the fee in full. Prices exclude GST.
If the audit shows you don't need us, you keep the report. That's the point of doing it first.
See the audit options, or read how we run a discovery call to know what the first conversation looks like.
