Before the Mood Boards
Website projects rarely fail on aesthetics. They fail on arithmetic nobody did: the page count that doubled, the ‘simple shop’ that turned out to mean four hundred SKUs, the content that arrived six weeks late. A written site brief before the proposal catches the boring reasons — which are, always, the expensive ones.
Start With the Site They Already Have
A website field captures the current URL; two open questions capture what works and what embarrasses them about it. Then the unglamorous essentials: who owns the domain, where it’s hosted, and whether anyone can actually log in. You would be surprised how often the answer to the last one is no — better to learn it in a brief than at handover.
Scope the Build, Honestly
- Page inventory. A number field for expected pages, with a note that ‘about ten’ usually means fourteen.
- Feature list. A multiple choice covering blog, booking, memberships, multilingual, search, portals — each selection is a line item on the quote.
- Migration. What content moves, in what condition, and who is doing the moving.
E-Commerce Changes Everything
One yes/no gate — selling online? — decides whether the brief is nearly finished or just starting. A yes reveals product counts, payment providers, shipping logic, and tax regions; a twenty-page brochure site and a four-hundred-product store are different quotes pretending to be the same question. Branching keeps brochure clients unbothered by questions that were never theirs.
Content Is the Critical Path
Most delayed launches are content delays wearing a design costume. Ask plainly: who writes — them, you, or a hired copywriter — and capture the delivery commitment with a date field. A client who has written ‘we’ll provide all copy’ into a dated field behaves differently from one who has said it aloud.
From Brief to Proposal
Budget bands via dropdown filter fantasy projects before they consume an afternoon. Finished briefs land in the responses view, and a thank-you page carrying your calendar link turns a completed brief into a booked call. Studios on Webflow can embed the brief directly on their own site so intake lives beside the portfolio.
Frequently Asked Questions
Redesign or fresh build — same brief?
Nearly. One branch question routes redesigns into the current-site section and builds into the from-scratch one; everything else is shared.
How do we price from a brief?
Bands first, exact figure after the call. The brief doesn’t replace the conversation — it shortens it by an hour.
What about clients who won't fill it in?
Offer to complete it together on a call: their answers, your typing speed, same structured record.
Should we collect logins in the form?
Never passwords. Ask what access exists; credentials travel through your password manager, not a web form. Sibling intakes for other creative work live in the web-design collection and the broader freelancer library.