UX audit services are sold by agencies, freelance consultants and, increasingly, tools that claim to do the same thing automatically. For a small business the useful ones share a shape: an expert walks the site's money-making tasks as a visitor would, measures what they find against published usability principles, and hands over a prioritised list of findings with fixes. The rest are a redesign pitch with a report attached, or a scan that emails a score. This page sets out what to expect from UX audit services, the questions that separate the useful from the rest, what they cost, and when the plain self-audit on this site is the better buy.
What a good service delivers
A set of tasks agreed with you before the audit, so the review is of what matters to your business rather than of the auditor's favourite pages. A walkthrough of each task on a phone and a desktop, recorded. Findings, each with a screenshot, the principle it breaks, the task it interrupts, an estimate of how many visitors it affects and a recommended fix with rough effort. A prioritised list, short enough to act on. A conversation at the end where the findings are explained. Some services add a usability test with a few real users, which is a different method and a real addition if the budget allows.
The questions to ask before hiring
Which tasks will you audit, and can we set them. Will a person do the walk or a tool. How many findings does a typical report contain, and can we see a sample with the client's name removed. Is the fix quoted separately from the audit. Do you also sell redesigns, and if so, is the audit independent of that. What is the price, and is it fixed. A service that answers all six plainly is usually worth the fee; one that answers with a portfolio is selling design.
What it costs, and when to do it yourself
An expert's audit of a small site is a day or two of their time plus the write-up, priced as such, and it is worth buying when the site's traffic makes a small rise in the enquiry rate worth more than the fee, or when a redesign is about to be briefed and needs a reason. Below that, the six-step self-audit on this site, done with a stranger and a phone, finds most of the same things at no cost, and the record it leaves is the brief a paid audit would start from anyway.
Questions people ask about ux audit services
How much do UX audit services cost?
For a small business site, the price of one to three days of an expert's time. Tools that email a score cost little and find little.
Should we buy a UX audit before a redesign?
Yes, if the redesign is meant to improve enquiries rather than looks. The audit becomes the brief and the acceptance test.
Can the same agency audit and redesign?
It can, if the audit is priced and delivered on its own and its findings would be useful to a different designer. If the findings only make sense as reasons to buy the redesign, the audit was a pitch.