How to Check a Vendor Before You Hire

Most bad hires were checkable. The vendor who disappeared mid-project, the one whose "portfolio" belonged to a subcontractor, the one who wasn't actually insured — in nearly every case, the warning signs existed before the contract was signed. The buyer just didn't know where to look, or looked at the wrong signals.

Vetting a vendor doesn't require a private investigator. It requires about an hour, a short list of questions, and the discipline to actually ask them. Here's the checklist.

Verified reviews beat testimonials — by a lot

Start by understanding the difference between two things that look similar:

• Testimonials are quotes a vendor chose to display on their own website. They're curated by definition. You'll never see the bad one, and nothing confirms the person — or the project — existed at all.
• Verified reviews are tied to a real transaction on a platform that confirmed the work happened. The vendor can't delete the unflattering ones.

That difference changes how much weight each deserves. Testimonials tell you what a vendor wants you to think; verified reviews tell you what paying clients actually experienced. On DealNest, reviews on storefronts in the vendor directory come from completed projects, which is exactly the property you want.

When reading reviews, go past the star average:

• Read the 3-star reviews first. They're usually the most honest — detailed, specific, and written by someone with no axe to grind.
• Watch how the vendor responds to criticism. A measured, accountable reply to a bad review tells you how they'll handle conflict with you. A defensive rant tells you that too.
• Look for your project type. Twenty glowing reviews for furniture assembly say little about a full kitchen remodel.
• Check recency. A business can change hands, lose its best crew, or take on too much work. Reviews from three years ago describe a company that may no longer exist in practice.

Completed work is the signal; activity is noise

A slick profile, a big follower count, years-in-business claims — these are activity signals, and they're easy to manufacture. What's hard to fake is a record of completed projects: jobs that started, finished, and ended with a client willing to say so.

Things worth checking:

• How many completed projects does the vendor show, and how recently?
• Do completions cluster around work like yours, or is yours an outlier for them?
• Is there a pattern of projects that started but never show a finish? On platforms, abandoned engagements sometimes leave visible gaps.

A vendor with a modest but consistent completion record is usually a safer bet than one with a dazzling profile and a thin history.

Response time is a preview of your project

Here's an underrated predictor: how a vendor communicates before you've paid them is the best behavior you will ever see. Pre-sale is when they're motivated. If a vendor takes five days to answer your quote request, expect slower once your deposit clears.

You're not looking for instant replies — good vendors are busy doing actual work. You're looking for:

• Consistency. Do they reply within roughly the same window every time?
• Completeness. Do they answer all three of your questions, or just the easiest one?
• Clarity about availability. "I can't start until July, and here's why" is a great answer. Vagueness about scheduling is not.

A vendor who communicates well but starts later is almost always a better hire than a fast starter who goes quiet.

License and insurance: the questions by trade

This is the unglamorous part that protects you from the worst outcomes. What to verify depends on the work:

• Electrical, plumbing, HVAC, structural work: Ask for the contractor or trade license number and check it against your state's licensing board — most have free online lookups showing status and disciplinary history. Unlicensed work in these trades can void insurance claims and create problems when you sell the house.
• General contracting and remodels: Licensing rules vary widely by state and even city; check your local requirements, then ask about both general liability insurance (covers damage to your property) and workers' compensation (covers injuries to their crew — without it, an injured worker on your property can become your problem).
• Landscaping, painting, handyman work: Licensing may not be required where you live, but liability insurance is still worth asking about for anything involving ladders, machinery, or your roof.
• Design, marketing, software, professional services: Licenses rarely apply. Ask instead about errors-and-omissions coverage for high-stakes work, and who actually owns the deliverables and accounts when the engagement ends.

Two practical notes. First, ask for a certificate of insurance (COI) sent directly from the vendor's insurance agent — it's a routine request and takes them minutes. Second, watch the reaction. Professionals handle these questions every week and answer without friction. Hesitation, offense, or "you don't need that" is itself an answer.

Probe the portfolio with questions only the real builder can answer

Portfolio fraud is more common than most buyers assume — images pulled from the internet, or projects where the vendor played a minor role presented as their own. You don't need forensics to catch it; you need specific questions:

• "Walk me through this project — what was the starting condition, and what surprised you?"
• "What was the rough budget and timeline on this one?"
• "What would you do differently if you did it again?"
• "Which parts did your team do directly, and which were subcontracted?"

Someone who actually did the work answers easily, with the kind of texture and small complaints that can't be invented on the spot. Someone borrowing images gets vague fast. For physical trades, ask if you can speak to one or two past clients — and when you call, ask those clients the most revealing question in vetting: "Would you hire them again, and was the final cost close to the quote?"

For digital work, ask for live links or repositories rather than screenshots, and confirm what their specific contribution was on team projects.

Trust scores: useful summary, not a verdict

Marketplaces increasingly compute trust or quality scores from signals like verified reviews, completion rates, response times, and dispute history. These scores are genuinely useful as a first filter — they aggregate data you couldn't easily collect yourself, and they're hard for a vendor to game across every input at once.

But use them the way you'd use a credit score: a strong score earns a vendor your attention, not your signature. A composite number can't tell you whether this vendor is right for your project, your timeline, or your communication style. That's what the rest of this checklist is for. Conversely, a mediocre score with an explanation — a new storefront, a single old dispute with a reasonable response — shouldn't automatically end the conversation.

The one-hour vetting routine

For any meaningful hire, run this sequence:

1. Shortlist two or three providers — from the vendor directory or wherever you found them — and skim their completed work for projects like yours.
2. Read reviews, starting with the middling ones and the vendor's responses.
3. Send the same brief to each and note response time, completeness, and tone.
4. Ask the license and insurance questions for your trade, and request a COI from anyone who makes your final round.
5. Probe the portfolio with two or three specific questions; call a reference if the project is large.
6. Decide based on the whole picture — signals, answers, and how the conversation felt.

An hour of this, before any money moves, filters out the vast majority of bad outcomes. The vendors who pass aren't just safer — they're usually better at the work too, because the same habits that produce clean paperwork and prompt answers tend to produce finished, well-run projects.