How to brief a web designer: the one-page brief that gets real quotes

Most of the painful website projects we hear about started the same way: a two-line email saying “we need a new website, how much?”, a quote based on guesses, and six months of discovering what each side actually meant. A one-page brief fixes nearly all of it. It takes an hour, it makes every quote you receive comparable, and it tells you within a day which designers read it. Here is what goes in it, why, and a template to copy.

What a brief is for

A brief is not a specification. You are not drawing the site. You are giving the designer the things only you know: what the business does, who you want more of, what has to be true for the project to count as a success, and the constraints (money, time, content, existing systems). A good designer takes those and proposes the how. If you find yourself specifying button colours, stop; if you find yourself unable to say what the site is for, keep going.

The eight things to write down

1. The business in three sentences

What you do, where, and for whom. “We are a two-van plumbing and heating firm covering Brentwood and Billericay. Most of our work is boiler servicing and replacements for homeowners, with some landlord work. We have traded for nine years and most new jobs come from recommendations.” That paragraph tells a designer more than a mood board ever will.

2. What the website has to achieve

Be specific and, if possible, numeric. Not “look more professional” but “generate boiler replacement enquiries from homeowners in Brentwood who found us on Google, because that work pays best and we only get two a month now”. Pick one primary goal and at most two secondary ones. A site that tries to do everything does nothing well. Examples of good primary goals:

• Phone calls and quote requests from a specific area.
• Online bookings, replacing the phone tag.
• Online sales of a defined product range.
• Credibility for tenders and trade accounts, where the site is checked rather than found.

3. Who you want more of (and less of)

Describe your best customer and your worst. “Best: homeowners aged 40 plus in older properties who want it done properly and will pay for it. Worst: people shopping six quotes on price for a tap washer.” The design, the words and even the enquiry form change depending on the answer. This section is where most of the value in a brief lives, and most briefs skip it.

4. What you have and what you need

List what already exists and its condition:

• Domain name: which one, who controls it. (If you are not sure, find out first.)
• Logo and brand: files you have, whether you are happy with them.
• Photos: real ones of you, the team, the work. Honest assessment: “about 30 phone photos of finished jobs, no team photos”.
• Content: existing site text you want to keep, brochures, and crucially, who will write the new content.
• Systems to connect: booking software, a CRM, accounting, a payment provider, Google Business Profile.
• Reviews: where they are and roughly how many.

5. Rough page list

A bullet list is enough, and “I don’t know, please suggest” is a valid answer. For most service businesses it looks like: Home, a page per main service, About, Reviews or Work, Areas covered, Contact. Say if you want a blog, and be honest about whether you will write for it. A list of pages is what turns a guess into a quote: a five-page site and a twenty-page site are different jobs.

6. Three websites you like, and one you don’t

Not competitors necessarily, any site. For each, one line on why: “like the way the prices are upfront”, “like how calm it feels”, “hate the pop-ups”. This is the fastest way to communicate taste without a design degree. The one you dislike is often more informative than the three you like.

7. Budget range and timeline

Give a range, even a wide one. “Between £1,000 and £2,500, ideally live before the heating season in September.” A budget tells the designer which of several reasonable approaches to propose. Withholding it does not get you a better price; it gets you a quote designed to start a conversation rather than to be accurate. If you have no idea, our cost estimator gives you a band in a minute, and our pricing is published.

For timelines, name the real deadline and why. “Before the trade show on 14 November” is actionable; “ASAP” is not.

8. How you will judge it a success in six months

One or two sentences. “More enquiries from the right postcodes, and I can update the prices myself without calling anyone.” This is the sentence a good designer will quote back to you at the end of the project, so write the one you actually mean.

The one-page template

Copy this, fill it in, send the same version to everyone you ask to quote.

How to read the quotes that come back

With the same brief in front of everyone, differences in the quotes become meaningful. Look for:

• Did they answer the brief? A quote that does not mention your primary goal was written from a template. That tells you how the project will go.
• Is the price fixed or an estimate? “Estimated 40 to 60 hours” can double. Ask what happens if it takes longer. Ours are fixed; the price in the quote is the price on the invoice.
• What happens after launch? Hosting, updates, backups, security and who to call. Ask what it costs per month and what it includes. Read our guide to what maintenance includes before you compare.
• Who owns what? The domain, the hosting account, the code, the content. The answer should be “you” for all four.
• Content. If your brief said “please write it” and the quote does not include writing, the price is missing a large chunk.
• Timeline with your dependencies. A good quote says “four weeks from receiving content and photos”, which is honest. “Four weeks” alone usually is not.

Cheapest is rarely the right pick, but neither is most expensive. Pick the one whose quote shows they understood the brief, whose price is within your range and fixed, and who you would be happy to phone with a problem in a year. Our comparison guides on freelancers and large agencies cover the trade-offs between the kinds of supplier.

Before you send it

Read the brief as if you were the designer. Can you tell what the business does, what the site must achieve and what the constraints are, without asking a question? If yes, send it. If you would like to send it to us, use the enquiry form and paste it into the message; we reply within one working day with questions or a fixed price, and we will tell you if a smaller project would meet the goal just as well.