A site reads cheap when it looks unfinished, not when it looks plain. Most of the signals have nothing to do with taste.
The seven we run into most often:
- Content jumps as images load, so the first thing the page does is move under your thumb.
- Text that only fits in one language: add a longer translation and buttons wrap, headings clip.
- Forms that wipe what you typed when validation fails.
- No empty, loading, or error states, so a page with no data just looks broken.
- Placeholder copy and stock photos sitting right next to the real thing.
- Spacing and corner shapes that drift from page to page, because sections got built at different times by different hands.
- A slow first screen on mobile, with fonts and scripts loading before anything readable shows up.
None of this costs design money. It costs attention at build time, which makes it a process question: whose job is it to open the page in a second language, on a mid-range phone, with the data missing? For us that sits with QA and frontend review, not a polish pass at the end.
We're curious which of the seven bothers you most as a visitor.