Most Mauritian small-business owners who ask "how do I choose a web developer" ask because they've been burned already. They hired someone who pushed an expensive custom build when a standard WordPress site would do, or they got locked out of their own domain when the developer went missing. Choosing a developer here isn't just about a portfolio. It's about infrastructure, compliance, and control. Here is how I'd navigate it.
1. Decide the build type first: WordPress or custom
Before you even look at a developer's portfolio, know what platform you need. A CMS like WordPress or Shopify is vastly different from a custom-built web application.
A custom app, using a framework like React, Laravel, or Node.js, makes sense if your business logic is genuinely unique. If you run a standard service, an e-commerce store, or a corporate site, a CMS plateform is almost always faster and cheaper to build, and easier to maintain. Be wary of developers pushing you toward a custom build for a standard brochure site or a run-of-the-mill online store; that is a common route to vendor lock-in. The WordPress market share (near 40% of the public web, per W3Techs) exists for a reason: for a brochure, a shop, or a blog, someone has already built the thing you need.
| Factor | WordPress / Shopify (CMS) | Custom build |
|---|---|---|
| You don't code yourself | The client-facing UI is intuitive and usable without a developer. | Harder; requires a developer for almost every change. |
| Budget and tight deadlines | Faster to build and highly cost-effective. | Expensive and time-consuming to map out. |
| You need specific integrations | Thousands of existing plugins (booking, forms, payments). | Every integration coded from scratch. |
| Long-term maintenance | Lower initial cost, but requires regular plugin updates. | Higher initial cost, but the core architecture stays stable longer. |
| Custom graphics and logic | Restrictive if you want highly unconventional layouts. | Effectively limitless; if you can design it, it can be coded. |
| Database complexity | Ideal for standard forms, blogs, and user profiles. | Essential for complex or heavy logic systems. |
The honest split: WordPress for the marketing site, the blog, anything content-heavy. Custom only for the one part of the business that genuinely needs it: a booking flow with rules WordPress can't model, a member portal, a product configurator. Don't pay someone to custom-build what a free plugin already does. Don't run your whole operation on WordPress if one custom screen would save you hours every week.
2. Register the domain in your name before any work starts
This is the single most common lock-in I see, and it's entirely avoidable. The developer registers the .mu domain and the hosting in their name, builds the site, and two years later when the relationship sours you find out you don't own your own web address.
The .mu country-code domain is administered by the Mauritius Network Information Centre (MUNIC) and has no registration restrictions. You can register at the second level (yourbusiness.mu) or under labels like .com.mu and .org.mu. Any accredited registrar can sell you one. Prices vary by registrar but standard registration typically runs $51 to $75 USD per year; local resellers like cloud.mu and register.mu list it at roughly MUR 2,800. So register it in your company's name, with your company email as the admin contact, before a single line of code gets written. Control stays with you, and don't let anyone overcharge you for the renewal or hold the domain hostage.
3. Hosting: where is your audience, actually?
Don't blindly buy whatever hosting package your developer recommends. Ask where they'd host your site and watch how they answer. "Local is best" is a weak answer. The strong answer sounds more like "your audience is mostly European tourists planning trips, so I'd host in Frankfurt with a CDN edge close to Mauritius for the domestic traffic." That second answer tells you they've thought about who loads the site and where.
If your audience is strictly in Mauritius, hosting locally with providers like cloud.mu or Mauritius Telecom can reduce latency, because what matters is peering into the Mauritius Telecom and Emtel networks. For a diaspora or tourism audience, a European host fronted by a CDN often serves them faster than a domestic one. International cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, or DigitalOcean are generally more reliable and scalable if your traffic is global. The point is the answer should be reasoned, not reflexive.
One compliance note worth keeping in mind: the Data Protection Act 2017 (DPA 2017) governs personal data processing in Mauritius and is broadly modelled on the EU's GDPR. If your site collects names, emails, or booking details, it applies to you. Any credible developer should be able to talk through cookie consent, a privacy policy, and where visitor data is stored. If they can't, treat that as a yellow flag regardless of how good their portfolio looks.
4. Address MRA e-invoicing before, not after, you build
If you sell online in Mauritius, e-invoicing is no longer optional. The Mauritius Revenue Authority (MRA) has been rolling out a national e-invoicing system for VAT-registered businesses, and depending on your turnover band, invoices your site generates must conform to a structured format the MRA can receive, not just a PDF that looks right to a customer.
The rollout is phased by turnover. Mandatory phases began on May 15, 2024 for businesses with annual turnover above MUR 100 million. It extends to businesses above MUR 80 million by June 30, 2026, and above MUR 40 million by September 1, 2026. Confirm what applies to you against the MRA's current e-invoicing guidance before you scope any invoicing feature.
On the technical side, your developer can't just install a standard checkout plugin and walk away. Your store must integrate with an MRA-certified Electronic Billing System (EBS). The system has to generate structured JSON invoices, transmit them in real time to the MRA's Invoice Fiscalisation Platform (IFP) for validation, and produce a unique Invoice Reference Number (IRN) and QR code for the customer. Retrofitting this into a site built to email pretty PDFs is expensive and annoying. If you're VAT-registered and your site issues invoices, it should produce them in the right shape from day one.
What this means for picking a developer: ask explicitly whether they've built invoicing flows that comply with current Mauritian tax rules, and whether they can integrate your store with an MRA-compliant EBS before writing a single line of code. A wave-off like "we'll add it later" tells you they don't know the cost of retrofitting. Get your accountant and your developer in the same thread before scope closes. The cheapest time to get this right is at build time.
5. Then, and only then, evaluate the developer
Once those four decisions are made, build type, domain ownership, hosting location, compliance scope, the developer shortlist shrinks to a few checks.
- Portfolio of comparable scope. Restaurant booking experience doesn't transfer to B2B services. Ask for two projects that match your shape, and one that didn't work out. Test those live sites on your phone to see how fast they load.
- Communication speed. If they take five days to answer an email, that's how long they'll take to fix a broken payment gateway. Hire someone who communicates proactively.
- Ownership terms in writing. The contract states: on final payment you get all source files, hosting and domain are in your name, you're free to leave. Verbal versions of these terms are worth nothing.
- A maintenance plan. Every site needs upkeep. Ask what they charge monthly or quarterly, what's included (patching, backups, uptime monitoring), and what happens if they're unavailable. WordPress in particular needs a defined cadence. No answer means you'll discover the cost on your own later.
- Development stack. If they're pitching a custom build, what languages and frameworks are they using? Avoid obscure or outdated stacks, so you can transition to a new developer later if you need to.
- Local payment fit. Can they wire up MCB or SBM rails if you need online payment? Do they work in the language and channels you actually use: WhatsApp, email, phone, in English or French?
6. Handover is where most projects actually fail
The launch isn't the finish line. Projects go wrong in the three months after, when the developer moves on and the business finds out nobody explained how to change the menu, update the phone number, add a post, or restore from backup.
Before final payment, require a handover session, recorded, with you and whoever will run the site present. It should cover how to edit each content type, where backups live and how to restore one, where the domain and hosting accounts are, what the monthly maintenance cost and cadence is, and who to call if the site is down on a Friday night. You should walk away with full administrative access, not an "editor" role, clear documentation on hosting and domain renewal dates, and a training session so your team can process orders and make minor text edits. If the developer resists a handover, that resistance tells you more about the whole engagement than anything in their portfolio.
Getting a website built in Mauritius is a major investment. Treat it like opening a physical branch: secure the lease (domain name), check the regulatory compliance (MRA and DPA), and hold the builder accountable to a real handover. Get the four pre-decisions right, get the ownership terms in writing, get the handover recording. Almost everything else is negotiable.