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Begin with domain experience, not the size of the portfolio. Ask to see two or three projects that sit close to your technology stack, and then ask specifically who actually wrote that code. A serious vendor will put you on a call with the tech lead. Answers that name nobody at this stage usually mean the demo work came from somewhere else.

The agreement deserves more scrutiny than the proposal. Three sections matter more than the rest: assignment of intellectual property, the NDA, and termination and handover. All the work product must transfer to you once invoices are settled, along with designs, scripts and infrastructure configuration. Look closely at wording that leaves reusable components with the vendor, flutter development agency since this is frequently the dependency that makes switching painful.

Ask how they estimate. A credible estimate comes with a written set of assumptions, a breakdown per feature and a range rather than a single number. A fixed price is only reasonable when the scope is genuinely frozen; when the scope is still moving the vendor pads the number and you fund the buffer regardless. A time-and-materials model puts the risk on your side, so it requires visible weekly reporting and a spending cap.

Process matters as much as the number of developers. Establish what happens when the scope changes, who writes the acceptance criteria and what the QA setup looks like. A well-run team can show you a working build an mvp every one or two weeks. Written acceptance criteria remain the only reliable protection against the it-was-never-in-scope conversation.

Last, consider the day you no longer need this vendor at the start rather than at the end. Require that the repository stays on infrastructure you own from the beginning, and that a readme and architecture notes are kept current as the code changes. A partner who is comfortable with this says yes immediately; hesitation here reveals a great deal.