What a website scope document contains before you pay
Before any money changes hands, a website scope document should name the pages, the features, the outside systems the site connects to, who supplies the content, what is excluded, the timeline, how changes are priced and who owns the result. At JP Studio that document comes first and the fixed quote follows it, landing on one of five steps: EUR 600-900 for a single-page landing at the bottom, from EUR 7.500 for a custom SaaS platform at the top.
A price without a scope is a guess about work nobody has written down, and guesses get corrected at the point where correcting them costs the most.
What moves the number
- How many pages. One page is step 01, two or three is step 02, and four to seven with service pages, a CMS and a booking or contact flow is step 03. Naming every page stops a business website quietly growing.
- Whether anyone signs in. A login, a customer dashboard or staff roles put a project at step 04, EUR 3.500-7.500, because accounts bring permissions, password resets and private data.
- Whether money moves through the site. Payments are step 04 work. A form that sends a booking request is a different build from a flow that charges a card, so the scope should say which one you are buying.
- What it connects to. An API, a CRM or a chatbot adds work on both sides: the site, and the system it talks to.
- Who writes the content. This does not decide the step, but it decides the launch date, because it is the part that waits on you.
The ten sections worth insisting on
These apply at every step. If a quote reaches you without most of them, ask for them before you pay anything.
| Section | What it says | What it protects you from |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | What the site is for and who it is for, in a few sentences | A site that looks right and does the wrong job |
| Step and price | Which step, the fixed figure, and what that figure includes | A price that covers less than you assumed |
| Page list | Every page by name, with its purpose | Pages appearing or disappearing mid-build |
| Features | Each form, flow and editable CMS area, in plain words | "I thought that was included" |
| Connections | Every outside system, and who holds each account | Finding a dependency in the final week |
| Content | Who supplies text and images, and by which week | A finished site with nothing to put in it |
| Exclusions | What is not part of this project | Scope creep, and things you needed quietly left out |
| Timeline | The week range for the step, and what you deliver at each stage | A launch date that ignores your own tasks |
| Changes | How revision rounds are counted and how new work is priced | Arguments later about what counts as extra |
| Ownership and after launch | Who owns the code, repository and database, how hosting is arranged, whether a Care plan follows | Being locked out of your own site |
That last row deserves plain words. You own the code, the repository and the database, and the scope should say so. Hosting is a separate decision: the studio can host the site, and if you want that, the arrangement is agreed for your project and written into this section.
What the scope has to settle at each step
The sections stay the same all the way up. The detail inside them changes. The full contents of every step are on the packages page.
| Step | Price | Timeline | What the scope must settle |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 Single-page landing | EUR 600-900 | 1-2 weeks | The one action the page asks for, what the form collects, where each submission lands, which analytics events matter |
| 02 Mini-site | EUR 900-1.500 | 2-3 weeks | The two or three pages by name, the contact flow, which parts of the basic CMS you will edit yourself |
| 03 Business website | EUR 1.500-3.500 | 3-6 weeks | The four to seven pages, each service page, the CMS fields, the booking or contact flow and where enquiries go |
| 04 Advanced site / web app | EUR 3.500-7.500 | 6-12 weeks | Who logs in and what each role sees, the dashboard, API and CRM connections, payments, how the chatbot behaves |
| 05 Custom SaaS platform | from EUR 7.500 | After discovery | Scope, auth, billing, admin and deployment, settled in discovery before any quote exists |
At steps 04 and 05 the scope is as much an engineering document as a design one. The design and engineering page shows how that side is planned.
How scoping runs, and when the weeks start counting
- A conversation about what the site is for and what you already have: a domain, a logo, text, photos, accounts.
- A written scope, sent to you to correct. Fixing a mistake here costs one message.
- A fixed quote based on that scope. The quote always follows scoping.
- The build, inside the week range for the step: 1-2 weeks for a landing page, 2-3 for a mini-site, 3-6 for a business website, 6-12 for an advanced site or web app.
- Launch, handover of the repository and access, and your choice about a Care plan.
A week range only holds if the content row is honest. A design can be built around placeholder text but not finished around it, which is why the content section names a week and not just a person. It is the part that waits on you.
When something changes halfway
A request that adjusts something already in the document is a revision. A request that adds something new is written up as a change, priced, and started only once you agree. Adding a customer login or online payments to a business website is priced as an add-on, EUR 1.500-4.000 for a login or EUR 600-1.500 for payments, and the change request makes that price visible before the work begins rather than on the final invoice.
When a shorter scope is the right call
A scope should be as long as the project needs. For a step 01 landing page, one page covering the goal, the form, the analytics and the content is enough. Spending days on paperwork for a EUR 600-900 build is overhead for both sides.
If you cannot yet name your pages, do not buy a step 03 business website yet. Put up a single-page landing, see what people ask you, and let those questions write the page list. And if your current site works and mainly needs Google to understand it, the SEO foundation is a one-off EUR 450-750, and its scope is a checklist rather than a design brief.
Questions buyers ask about scope documents
Who writes the scope document?
The studio writes it from your conversation and sends it to you to correct. Read it as the full description of what you are paying for, because anything missing from it is missing from the price. Mark whatever sounds vague and ask for plainer words.
What if I do not know how many pages I need?
Then the scope should say so, and the quote should be for the smaller step. Adding a page later, an add-on at EUR 150-250 for a simple page, costs less than paying now for pages nobody writes. A step 02 mini-site at EUR 900-1.500 is a sensible place to find out.
Is the scope document the contract?
The scope is the description of the work that the fixed quote refers to, so when you accept the quote, the scope is what you have agreed to buy. If a term matters to you, such as ownership or hosting, make sure it is written in the document and not only mentioned on a call.
Does the scope cover what happens after launch?
It should state that you own the code, the repository and the database, and how hosting is arranged. If you want ongoing help, a Care plan at EUR 100-300 a month covers updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes. Redesigns and new features sit outside Care and get a scope of their own.
If you would like a scope written for your own project before committing to anything, send a short note about what the site needs to do.
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