By Mehdi HassanMost website briefs are either a single paragraph or a twelve-page wish list. Neither gets you an accurate quote. This template gives you the sections that matter, a filled-in example for a SaaS startup, and the five questions that change price the most. It fits into our broader guide to website design and development for startups. If you only need something to send before the first call, see our web design brief template for a first agency call.
What should a website design brief include?
A website design brief should include the context an agency needs to scope, price and plan the work, and nothing else. Eight sections cover it.
Section | What to write | Why the agency needs it |
|---|---|---|
Business and product | What you sell, to whom, and your stage | Sets the depth of strategy work |
Audience | Primary buyer, secondary buyer, what each cares about | Shapes the message and structure |
Goal | The one action the site should drive | Defines success and the main call to action |
Pages | The list of pages you think you need | The biggest single driver of price |
Copy | Who writes it, and what exists today | Copywriting can be a large share of effort |
Assets | Brand files, photos, product screenshots, video | Shows what must be created from scratch |
Technical | CMS, integrations, migration, hosting preferences | Sets build complexity and risk |
Budget and deadline | A range and a real date, with the reason for it | Lets the agency scope to fit |
Keep each section to a few lines. The agency will ask follow-up questions on the call; the brief's job is to make those questions specific.
What does a filled-in website brief example look like?
Below is a filled-in website brief for a hypothetical seed-stage SaaS startup. It isn't a real client; it's an illustration of the level of detail that gets an accurate quote.
Hypothetical filled-in brief: a seed-stage SaaS for field service teams
Business and product: We sell job scheduling and dispatch software to small field service companies (HVAC, plumbing, electrical) in the US. Seed-funded, about 40 paying customers, sales-led with a free trial.
Audience: Primary buyer is the owner-operator of a 5–30 person company. Secondary is the office manager who runs dispatch day to day. Owners care about fewer missed jobs; office managers care about less time on the phone.
Goal: Book a demo. Secondary goal is trial signups.
Pages: Home, product, pricing, about, a page for office managers, demo request. We think six is right but are open to advice.
Copy: We want the agency to write it. We have sales call recordings, a pitch deck and a customer FAQ document.
Assets: Logo and colors exist; no full brand guide. Product screenshots available. No photography.
Technical: Our team must be able to edit pages and publish a blog. Demo form should send leads to our CRM. The current site is a template with about 15 URLs, some of which get search traffic, so redirects are needed.
Budget and deadline: $6,000 to $10,000. We'd like to launch before a trade show in the spring, but quality matters more than the date.
Decision-maker: The CEO approves; the head of sales reviews copy.
Notice what this example does well. It names the buyer and what they care about, admits uncertainty on page count, states who writes copy, flags the migration, and explains why the deadline exists. Every line helps an agency price the work.
Which five questions change a website quote the most?
Five answers move a website quote more than anything else in the brief: page count, who writes the copy, how much the team needs to edit, whether there's a migration, and which integrations are required.
- How many unique page designs? Each designed page needs copy, layout, mobile design and a build. Repeating templates, like blog posts, count once. See how many pages a startup website needs to sanity-check your list.
- Who writes the copy? If the agency writes it, the scope includes research and drafting. If you write it, the risk is late or ill-fitting copy. We explain why we prefer writing first in copy-first web design.
- What will your team edit? A few text fields is simple. A flexible page builder with reusable sections takes more setup.
- Is there a migration? Existing URLs with traffic need redirects and SEO checks. The research we use notes that redirect and content-migration work often adds 10 to 20 percent and is frequently left out of quotes. Our website migration project plan covers what's involved.
- Which integrations? A form posting to a CRM is routine. Custom product data, logins or pricing calculators add real development time.
How do you use a website design brief template with agencies?
Use the same brief with every agency so their answers are comparable. Send it before the first call, ask each agency to reply with questions, and judge them partly on the quality of those questions.
Fill in the template
Write each section in plain language. Mark anything you're unsure about as open, rather than guessing.
Attach what exists
Brand files, analytics access or screenshots, your current sitemap, and a few sales call notes.
Send it ahead of the call
A good agency reads it and arrives with specific questions. A weak one asks you to repeat it.
Ask for a scoped proposal
Ask each agency to state what's included, what's excluded and how changes are priced. Our article on scope creep and change orders explains what a clear change process looks like.
Compare like with like
Line the proposals up against your brief, section by section, before you look at price.
What should you leave out of a website brief?
Leave out design instructions dressed as requirements, long competitor lists and features nobody has asked for. They narrow the agency's thinking without adding information they can price.
- Prescribed layouts. "Hero with a video, then three cards" is a solution. Describe the problem the page must solve instead.
- Twenty competitor links. Two or three sites you admire, with a sentence on why, is more useful.
- Nice-to-haves without priority. Mark them as optional so they don't inflate every quote.
- Vague adjectives. "Modern and clean" describes almost every brief. Say what should feel different from your current site.
What should a brief say about accessibility, ownership and handover?
A brief should say what accessibility standard you expect and that all accounts and files must end up in your name. Both are cheaper to agree upfront than to argue about at launch.
For accessibility, state the target, commonly WCAG 2.2 level AA, and whether you need a published statement; our accessibility statement template shows what one contains. For ownership, list the domain, hosting, CMS, design files and analytics, and ask that the agency follow a website handover checklist. Finally, ask how the agency prices the project. If you want certainty, read how fixed-price website projects handle scope before you sign.
