Most freelance devs skip QA because it feels like it'll take forever. But shipping a broken site to a client is the fastest way to lose a retainer.

Here's the quick checklist I run on every project:

1. Cross-browser check — Chrome, Safari, Firefox. At minimum. Safari will break your CSS in ways you didn't think possible.

2. Mobile responsiveness — Resize to 375px wide. If anything overflows or stacks weird, fix it now. Clients always check on their phone first.

3. Forms & CTAs — Submit every form. Click every button. Broken contact forms = lost leads for your client.

4. Page speed — Run a Lighthouse audit. Anything under 80 on mobile performance needs attention. Compress images, lazy load what you can.

5. 404s & dead links — Crawl the site for broken links. One dead link in the nav and your credibility takes a hit.

This takes 5 minutes and saves you from the "hey, my site is broken" email at 11pm.

I built TestLab to automate exactly this. If you're tired of manual QA, check it out.