Red Flags in a Web Proposal, and the Questions That Expose Them

en 2026-09-23 7 min read

A proposal for a business website should name a price you can check against a range, EUR 1.500-3.500 for a step 03 site of 4-7 pages with a CMS, service pages and a booking or contact flow, and it should say exactly what that number buys. A thin proposal gives you the number and skips the second half.

A range is honest before anyone has scoped your project. A fixed number is honest only after scoping. Length is not the test. The test is whether, when something goes wrong, there is a line on paper you can point to.

What sits behind the number

A web price is the sum of a few decisions: how many pages, whether you edit the content yourself, what the site connects to, and whether it holds accounts or money. On our ladder those decisions sort a project into five steps.

Use the table to read any proposal, not only ours. If the features belong to one step and the price belongs to another, one of the two is wrong, and you want to know which before you sign.

Eight red flags and the question that exposes each

1. One total, no scope

A single total with a paragraph about quality underneath it. No page list, no feature list, nothing that defines finished. Any disagreement later becomes your memory against theirs.

Ask: which pages and features does this price cover, and what happens to the price if I add one?

2. Features and price from different steps

A checkout, customer logins or a CRM connection listed inside a price from the business-website range. Payments need a provider account, stored records and tested failure cases, which is why they sit at step 04, EUR 3.500-7.500. When a proposal prices them lower, some part of that work has not been thought through yet.

Ask: which line covers payments, and what happens when a payment fails or a customer asks for a refund?

3. A fixed price before any scoping

A firm number after one call or one email. A fixed quote is a promise about a defined piece of work, and at that point the work is not defined. The number holds until the first thing nobody discussed turns up.

Ask: what did you assume about my project to arrive at this number?

4. Ownership missing or vague

No mention of who owns the result, or phrases like "licence to use" with nothing behind them. You can end up paying for a site you are only permitted to use.

Ask: who owns the code, the repository and the database, and in whose account does each one sit? On our projects the client owns all three.

5. Hosting you cannot leave

Hosting folded into a monthly fee with no word on where the site runs, or a proprietary builder only the agency can edit. Leaving then means rebuilding.

Ask: if I stop working with you, how does the site move, and what does that cost? We can host, and it is agreed per project, so the answer belongs in writing before the build starts.

6. A timeline that asks nothing of you

Dates for design, build and launch, and no dates for your copy, your photos, your feedback or your account setup. Those are the part that waits on you, and a timeline that ignores them cannot be kept. Check the weeks against the step too: a step 03 site promised in less than its 3-6 weeks deserves a question about what was cut.

Ask: what do you need from me, and by when, for this launch date to hold?

7. Unlimited revisions

It reads as generous. What it means is that nobody has defined done, so the project ends when one side runs out of patience.

Ask: what counts as finished, and who signs it off?

8. "Maintenance" and "SEO included" with no detail

Two phrases that can mean anything. Maintenance should name what it covers: our Care at EUR 100-300 a month is updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes, and it excludes redesign and new features. SEO should say whether it is one-off or monthly: our SEO foundation at EUR 450-750 is a one-off, and SEO growth at EUR 500-800 a month is the ongoing work. A promised ranking position is a red flag on its own.

Ask: what is included, what is excluded, and which parts continue after launch?

How a solid proposal reads, phase by phase

A proposal worth signing follows the order the work happens in, and names what each phase needs from you.

1. Scoping. Pages, features, integrations, content, accounts and hosting agreed in writing. The fixed quote comes after this.
2. Design. What you will see, how feedback is given, and what your approval means.
3. Build. The weeks that match the step: 1-2 for step 01, 2-3 for step 02, 3-6 for step 03, 6-12 for step 04. Step 05 is timed after discovery.
4. Launch. Domain switched, analytics checked, forms tested, and at step 04 a payment run through end to end.
5. Handover and after. What you receive, what access the agency keeps, and what any monthly fee pays for.

How we plan and build against that order is on design and engineering.

When to spend less

Sometimes the red flag is the scope, and the agency has quoted exactly what it was asked for. If you receive a web app proposal when all you need is to explain one service and collect enquiries, the fix is a smaller step. A step 01 landing page at EUR 600-900 is enough to test a single offer, and a step 02 mini-site at EUR 900-1.500 covers a business with 2-3 pages worth of things to say.

A short proposal is also fine for a small job. A one-page landing does not need a document the length of a contract. It needs the price, the page, the form, the analytics, the week range and a line on ownership.

And do not buy monthly extras at signing just because they are on the page. Decide on Care and SEO growth once the site exists and you can see what it needs.

Questions buyers ask about proposals

Is a cheap proposal a red flag on its own?

No. A low number is a problem only when the scope under it does not match. Compare the feature list with the step it belongs to: a single landing page at EUR 600-900 is a fair price, and a checkout inside that price is not.

An agency will not give any price before a call. Should I walk away?

Not straight away, but ask for a range. A fixed quote needs scoping and a range does not, so an agency that cannot give even a range has not decided what it charges. Ours are published on packages.

How do I compare proposals that are laid out differently?

Rewrite each one into the same rows: pages, features, ownership, hosting, timeline, and anything charged monthly. Keep one-off costs in one column and monthly costs in another, with the SEO foundation in the one-off column. Once every proposal answers the same rows, the gaps are easy to spot.

What if a proposal fails several of these checks?

Send the questions back in writing and read the answers. An agency that knows its work will fill the gaps with specifics. If the answers stay vague, you have learned what working together would feel like, before it cost you anything.

If you want a fixed quote to set next to the one you already have, tell us what you are building.