How to brief a web agency so the quotes come back comparable

en 2026-09-15 6 min read

A brief that names the pages, the functions that must work at launch, the material you already have and what happens afterwards can be priced straight off a ladder: EUR 600-900 for a single-page landing at step 01, EUR 900-1.500 at step 02, EUR 1.500-3.500 at step 03, EUR 3.500-7.500 at step 04 and from EUR 7.500 at step 05 after discovery. A brief that asks for a modern website cannot be priced at all, so what comes back is either a wide range or an invitation to a call.

That is the mechanism behind quotes you cannot compare. Anything left out of a brief gets filled in with an assumption, and agencies do not make the same assumptions. One prices a booking system, another prices a contact form. Both are quoting your brief, and neither is quoting the same project.

What to write down

This does not have to be long, and plain sentences beat a template.

• The one action a visitor should take. Book, enquire, buy, apply or subscribe. If you name more than one, say which matters most, because everything else gets ranked against it.
• The pages, by name. Not a rough count. Write Home, Services, About, Contact, or whatever yours are. Page count is what separates step 02 from step 03.
• The functions that must work at launch. A contact form and a booking link sit comfortably inside step 03. A login, a dashboard, an API connection into a CRM, a chatbot or a checkout is step 04.
• What already exists. Copy, photography, logo and brand rules, the current site, the domain, analytics access. Material that exists removes work from the quote and material that is missing adds it, because copy for a service site is work somebody has to do.
• Languages. How many, and whether the others are translations of the same pages or different content. An extra language is an add-on, not a new step.
• What happens after launch. Who edits the site, who notices if it goes down, who fixes the small things. If the answer is nobody, say so, because that is what care at EUR 100-300/mo exists for.
• Your budget range. Withholding it does not get you a better price, it gets you a proposal aimed at the wrong step.

What you cannot know yet

Much of a first brief is unknowns, and writing not decided against them beats guessing. Nobody expects you to have settled:

• The final page count, as opposed to the pages you already know you need.
• The finished copy. An outline per page is enough to price against.
• The design direction. That is what the design phase is for, and a reference site you like says more than an adjective.
• The technical detail of an integration. Name the system you use; whether it has a usable API is our problem.

An agency that treats unknowns as a reason to refuse any number is hedging. An agency that turns unknowns into a fixed price without asking a single question is guessing. Scoping closes that gap, which is why a fixed quote always follows it.

How a brief maps to a step

The line worth reading twice is payments. A checkout moves a brief from step 03 to step 04 even when the site itself is small, because taking money is not a page. It is a set of states a brochure site never has: a payment that fails, a refund, an order that never completes, a customer record that has to stay correct.

What makes two detailed quotes still incomparable

The gap between two detailed quotes can sit in the terms rather than the build.

• Ownership. Ask who owns the code, the repository and the database when the project ends. With us, you do. An agency that cannot answer that plainly has answered it.
• Hosting. Ask where the site will run and on whose account. We can host it, and that gets agreed per customer rather than bundled in, so ask what it costs and what happens if you move away.
• What the monthly line covers. Care at EUR 100-300/mo is updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes. It is not redesign and it is not new features, and a cheaper monthly fee that excludes backups is not cheaper.
• SEO, which is two separate purchases. The foundation is a one-off at EUR 450-750 and covers Console, analytics, indexation, technical hygiene, titles, internal links and a three to six month plan. Continuing work is SEO growth at EUR 500-800/mo for technical and on-page work, service and location pages, internal links and reporting.
• Revisions. Ask what counts as a round of feedback and what counts as a new request. This is where a fixed price quietly becomes an hourly one.

Process and timeline

Our sequence is scoping, fixed quote, design, build, launch, then care or nothing. Build time follows the step: one to two weeks at step 01, two to three at step 02, three to six at step 03, six to twelve at step 04. Step 05 is quoted after discovery, because scope, auth, billing, admin and deployment are the discovery.

The part of the timeline your brief controls is everything before the build. A brief with named pages, named functions and an inventory of what exists keeps scoping short. A brief that leaves content undecided moves the delay into the middle of the project, where waiting for text is what stretches a three to six week build. The stack we build on is described on our Next.js development page, and every step is listed on the packages page.

When to brief less and spend less

If you are not certain the offer itself is right, do not brief a full site. Brief one page. Step 01 at EUR 600-900 puts the offer in front of people and gives you a form that tells you whether anyone wants it. Spend the rest later, with better information.

If the current site works and the problem is that it says the wrong thing, that is a copy job rather than a rebuild. If the problem is that nobody finds it, that is an SEO foundation at EUR 450-750 as a one-off rather than a new build.

Questions buyers ask

Should I send the same brief to several agencies?

Yes, and send exactly the same one. Differences in the brief create differences in the quotes that say nothing about the agencies. If one asks a question the others did not, send your answer to everyone, so you end up with quotes for one project rather than variations of it.

What if I genuinely do not know my budget?

Then write what the site has to achieve and ask which step fits it. A published ladder exists so the conversation can run in that direction. A range you can rule out is as useful as one you can afford.

Is a fixed price better than an hourly rate?

A fixed price is better when the scope is written down, which is exactly what the brief is for, and it moves the risk of an underestimate onto us. It also means a genuinely new request gets quoted rather than absorbed. The honest trade is that a fixed price rewards a clear brief and punishes a vague one.

How much detail is too much?

Detail about outcomes is never too much. Detail about implementation can be, because a brief that specifies the database and the framework before anyone has looked at the problem narrows what an agency is allowed to offer you. Say what has to be true, then let the build decisions be argued rather than inherited.

If you have the pages, the functions that have to work and a sense of who looks after the site afterwards, that is enough to place you on a step. Send it over and you will get a fixed quote once scoping is done.