Website brief: what to prepare before the quote

Prepare

The eight answers.

Set aside an hour for them. That hour pays itself back many times over — in the price and in the result.

What needs to happenNot “I want a website” but “I want people to call me for a quote” or “I want to sell online”. The goal determines everything else.

Who your customer isWho buys, what age they are, on a phone or a computer, what worries them before they buy.

What the services or products areA list. If they're products — roughly how many, and whether there's a file with them.

Whether you have contentTexts, photos, a logo. The honest answer “we have nothing” is perfectly normal and important for the quote.

Sites you likeTwo or three examples, including from other industries, with one sentence on why. That saves days of arguing.

Who will maintain the siteWhether there's someone on your side who'll update it. If not, that changes the decisions.

DeadlineIs there a real date — a trade fair, a season, an opening? If not, say so, because that's information too. What's realistic in what time is covered in how long it takes to build a website.

BudgetThe order of magnitude is enough. Not so they can take everything you have, but so they don't make you an offer you can't possibly accept.

Not needed

What NOT to do.

These things usually get in the way more than they help.

Describing technologiesWhich platform, which database, which hosting — that's the contractor's job. You describe what needs to happen.

Drawing the layoutA sketch saying “logo here, menu here” restricts without adding information. It's more useful to say what matters most.

Listing features from other people's sitesA list of thirty features with no reason for each leads to an expensive site of which five get used.

Hiding the budgetSilence doesn't lead to a lower quote. It leads to a quote for the wrong scale, and to wasted time.

Waiting until you have everythingMissing texts aren't a reason not to talk. They're part of the quote.

Writing a long documentEight answers on half a page do more than thirty pages nobody will read to the end.

Questions

Short answers.

If your question isn't here, call us — we answer by phone too.

+359 882 95 89 89

Do I have to have a brief?

No. You can come with just an idea, and a good contractor will draw out the rest with questions in the first conversation.

Prepared answers simply shorten the path to an exact quote and let you compare several offers on the same basis.

How should I describe my budget?

As an order of magnitude: “up to 1,000”, “around 2,000”, “over 5,000”. It's not an invitation to take everything you have — it's information about which version of the solution makes sense to offer.

What if I don't know what I want?

Then start with the problem, not the solution. “Customers can't find us” is a perfectly good start to a conversation.

Do I need a finished logo?

Not necessarily, but it helps. If you don't have one, that's a separate job and it needs to be in the quote — otherwise it turns up as a surprise halfway through.

Next step

Prepare the eight answers.

Then call or write. With them, the quote comes out exact and fixed instead of a range.

+359 882 95 89 89 office@illumi.bg

Sofia, Bulgaria We reply within 24 hours In business since 2012