The Client Doesn’t Know What Websites Cost
The hardest part of quoting websites isn’t the pricing — it’s that the client arrives without the vocabulary to receive one. “A website” covers a one-page landing and a forty-page store with bookings, and the client genuinely doesn’t know which one they’re asking about. A quote built for this reality does something subtle first: it teaches. The questions themselves show the client what a website is made of, so by the time the number arrives, they understand what it’s built from.
The Price Drivers, as Questions
Every question in the form maps to a real cost driver:
- What kind of site. A multiple choice — landing page, portfolio, brochure, shop, booking-based. The answer alone halves the estimate range.
- How many pages, roughly. A number field with a gentle note: most sites land between five and fifteen. Clients who write three and mean twelve discover their own scope inside the question.
- What it has to do. Selling, taking bookings, member logins, multiple languages, a blog someone will actually update — checkboxes for the features that quietly multiply build time.
- Who’s writing it. The content question — copy, photos, product data — is the single best predictor of whether the project launches on time. “We’ll provide everything” deserves the follow-up: has it been written, or is that a plan?
- The site being replaced. If one exists, its URL — because redesigns carry migration, redirects, and history that fresh builds never do.
Bands as a Filter, Not a Fence
Ask the money question as bands — a dropdown question of your real ranges — and treat it as a courtesy to both sides. The client with a landing-page budget and a store ambition learns more from the band question than from any pitch. And when band and ambition don’t match, the thank-you screen can offer the honest alternative: start with phase one, grow the site as the budget grows.
From Request to Proposal
Submissions collect in the response archive ready to price against your rate card, and partial submissions rescue the half-finished request from the client who got called into a meeting — their band and page count survived even if the form didn’t. (Plan feature; pricing has details.) The sibling shelf for creative quotes sits in the web-design collection.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if the client refuses to name any budget?
Then the form’s other answers price the project anyway — pages, features, and content readiness tell you what it will cost to build, and the conversation starts from your figure instead of theirs. Refusal to share is information too.
Should shop quotes go through the same form?
The gate handles it: selecting “online store” reveals the product-count and payment questions that brochure sites never see. Same link, honest branches.
How do we quote "something like" a competitor's site?
The reference-URL field captures it — then the quote prices what the client’s version of that site needs, which is rarely the same thing. Reference sites set expectations; the form converts expectations into scope.
Is it worth quoting small projects at all?
Through this form, yes — the five-minute request costs little to serve, and today’s landing page is next year’s store rebuild. The economics work precisely because small quotes are cheap to produce.