A number produced without questions is a warning, not a service level. An experienced provider responds with clarifying questions before any number: about users and volumes. A provider that commits to a figure without asking anything is probably guessing, and that guess will be corrected later — on your budget.
Be wary of any distance between the engineers on the sales call and the people who will code. Ask seo for saas company named engineers in the statement of work, with wording that requires notice before anyone is swapped. A vendor that will only describe roles and software development pricing models refuses to name people is keeping the option to staff you with whoever is free.
Insist on the source repository from the first week. A provider that hands over nothing between demos is inviting you to trust a black box. Visible commits show you who is really on the project far better than any status report. This extends to the build and deployment setup: if there is no pipeline, promises about quality remain unverifiable.
Vague phrasing around IP is never an oversight. The agreement must state plainly that the code, designs and documentation belong to the client on payment. Check also the governing law and how payments are structured: a large upfront payment with nothing due in return for weeks eliminates your only leverage.
Lastly, pay attention to how they communicate. Ask how many hours the teams will share with your working day, who is expected to answer your questions and how quickly. Four hours of overlap is normally sufficient; zero overlap turns each small question into a day of delay. Careless writing in the early emails will not improve under delivery pressure.
