How to Evaluate a Development Agency's Portfolio and Cases
Practice3 minInnovialabs editorial team
In short
Ignore pretty screenshots: open the live products, clarify the agency's exact role in each case and talk to at least two past clients — that shows the team's real level.
The short answer: what a portfolio actually shows
A portfolio is a shop window, not proof. Screenshots and polished descriptions show how well an agency presents itself. How it actually works is revealed by live products, the team's specific role in each project and feedback from people who paid the bills. The check takes a couple of hours and can save months.
Step 1. Make sure the cases are real
First find out whether the product exists at all and whether this agency really built it.
- Links to the live product. The website opens, the app is in the App Store or Google Play, the bot replies in Telegram.
- Credit inside the product. Some agencies are named in the footer or app description, but not always — many clients do not allow it.
- Matching details. Ask for the story behind the project: constraints, what went wrong, how it was fixed. A real team answers specifically, not with a script.
- NDA is fine, but not for everything. If nearly every case is "under NDA", ask for fragments: an anonymized architecture, a redacted interface, a demo environment.
Step 2. Test the live products yourself
Open the product as an ordinary user. It is the most honest test.
- How fast does the site load on a phone over mobile data?
- Do forms, search, payment and login work correctly?
- Are there obvious layout bugs on a small screen?
- Is the product being updated, or does it look abandoned?
Keep in mind that another team may have developed the product after the agency left. That is why the next step matters.
Step 3. Find out the agency's role in each case
One agency built the whole product, another did only the design or a single integration. In a portfolio both often look the same.
| Question | Why ask it |
|---|---|
| Which stages did you handle? | Analysis, design, development, launch, support — what was really yours |
| How big was the team? | Understand scale and compare it with your project |
| Who from the current team took part? | Experience leaves with people |
| Do you still support the product? | Long relationships are a good sign |
Step 4. Judge how relevant the experience is
Industry experience helps, but similar problems matter more. An agency that built a marketplace will understand your online store better than one that only made landing pages in your niche.
Look for overlaps in:
- product type — website, mobile app, CRM, bot;
- complexity — payment systems, ERP, external APIs;
- load and data — user accounts, roles, reports;
- market — local payment providers, languages, data requirements.
Step 5. Talk to past clients
Ask for two or three client contacts and keep the questions short:
- Did they meet the deadline and budget? If not, how did the agency explain it?
- How were disagreements resolved?
- How transparent was communication?
- Would you work with them again?
If an agency cannot give a single contact, treat it as a warning sign.
Common mistakes
- Choosing by screenshot design. A beautiful mockup is not a working product.
- Not separating roles. "We took part in the project" may mean one week of work.
- Ignoring how recent the cases are. Work from five years ago says little about today's team.
- Avoiding awkward questions. Honest teams talk calmly about their failures.