A brief is the document you send to an agency before they quote your project. Most clients either skip it entirely or write one so vague it’s useless. Both approaches guarantee one thing: the quote you receive will be based on assumptions the agency made, not requirements you specified.
Here is what a good agency brief actually contains, why each section matters, and how to write one that generates accurate proposals.
Why Most Briefs Fail
The typical client brief looks like this: “We need a new website. We’re a [industry] company. We want something modern and professional. Budget around $X. Can you send a quote?”
That is not a brief. That is a conversation starter. Any agency that sends a fixed-price quote based on that description is either guessing (and will adjust the price later) or deliberately quoting low to win the business (and will adjust through change orders).
A brief fails when it:
- Describes what you want aesthetically instead of what you need functionally
- Has no information about your current situation
- Doesn’t specify technical requirements
- Omits your actual timeline and budget parameters
The goal of a brief is not to make you sound impressive. It’s to give an agency enough information to quote accurately — and to give you a basis for comparing quotes across agencies fairly.
Section 1: Company and Context
Start with your business, not your website. An agency needs to understand what you do, who your customers are, and what problem the website is meant to solve before they can make any meaningful recommendations.
Include:
- What your company does and who it serves (2–3 sentences)
- Your primary market or geography
- Key competitors (not as an ask for their analysis — so the agency can understand your positioning)
- The problem the new or revised website is meant to solve — specifically
That last point matters most. “We need a new website because our current one is outdated” is not a problem statement. “Our current website has a 78% bounce rate on mobile and generates fewer than 3 contact form submissions per month” is. Specific problems produce specific solutions.
Section 2: Project Scope
This section is where most briefs collapse into vagueness. “We need a professional website with about 10 pages” tells an agency almost nothing.
Useful scope information includes:
- Page count and type — list the actual pages by name: Homepage, About, Services (with subtypes), Product pages (how many), Blog, Contact, Custom tools or calculators
- Functional requirements — e-commerce (how many products, which payment gateways?), membership or login functionality, booking or reservation system, contact forms with specific routing, integrations with CRMs or external tools
- Content status — do you have copy ready, or does the agency need to write it? Do you have photography, or is that a separate line item?
- Design status — do you have brand guidelines, a logo, an existing style, or are you starting from scratch?
Sandra ran a specialty consulting firm and sent a brief that described her website as “10–12 pages, mostly informational, with a contact form.” Three agencies quoted her between $4,000 and $6,000. The build she actually needed — with a gated resource library, two client portals, and a CRM integration — came in at $22,000. The brief didn’t describe what she actually needed. The quotes reflected what was described, not what was required.
Section 3: Technical Requirements
This section is often skipped by clients who don’t feel technically qualified to fill it in. Fill it in anyway — even partial information helps.
- What CMS do you require, or are you open to a recommendation?
- Are you moving from an existing platform? What is it?
- Do you have hosting already, or will that need to be scoped?
- Are there specific third-party tools you need integrated? (CRM, email marketing, analytics, booking, payment, membership)
- Do you have existing code or custom development that needs to be preserved or migrated?
- Are there accessibility requirements (ADA compliance, WCAG level)?
If you’re on WordPress already and want to stay on WordPress, say so. If you’re on Squarespace and need to move to a platform with more flexibility, say so. An agency that doesn’t ask these questions before quoting is either very experienced (and will ask during a scoping call) or is quoting generically.
Be wary of agencies that push proprietary platforms or page builders without asking what you need first. If you want to understand why that matters for long-term ownership, our custom WordPress development page explains the technical difference between a platform-locked build and one you actually own.
Section 4: Goals and Metrics
What does success look like six months after launch? This section gives the agency context for prioritization decisions during the build.
Include:
- The primary conversion action (contact form submission, phone call, purchase, booking)
- Any existing benchmarks you want to improve (current conversion rate, traffic volume, search rankings)
- How you will measure success — which analytics tools, what reporting cadence
- Secondary goals that matter but aren’t the primary target
An agency that doesn’t care about your success metrics after launch is an agency that is optimizing for project delivery, not business outcomes. Those are different things.
Section 5: Timeline and Budget
State both explicitly. The discomfort most clients feel about stating a budget is understandable but counterproductive. Without a budget range, agencies either quote high (leaving room to negotiate) or quote low (leaving room to add scope). Neither serves you.
For budget, a range is fine: “$15,000–$25,000” or “under $10,000 for initial build.” What you want to avoid is the phrase “budget to be determined” — that means you’ll receive wildly different quotes with no common basis for comparison.
For timeline, state two dates: when you need to start (often driven by a business event like a product launch or event), and when the site must be live. Let the agency tell you if that’s achievable given the scope. If it’s not, you want to know early.
If you’re evaluating our fixed-price packages, the pricing and timeline are already published — which removes the guessing from both sides.
Section 6: Decision Process
Tell agencies how you’ll make your decision, and by when. This serves you as much as it serves them — it forces you to think through your evaluation criteria before you’re holding multiple quotes.
Include:
- How many agencies are being asked to quote
- What the selection criteria are (not just price — process, timeline, portfolio, communication style)
- Who makes the final decision and when
- What you need from them to make a complete evaluation (portfolio examples, client references, a scoping call, a proposal document)
An agency that won’t provide references from completed projects of similar scope is an agency that either doesn’t have them or doesn’t want you talking to previous clients.
Michael ran a small manufacturing firm and was evaluating three agencies for a WooCommerce build. His brief included the request: “Please provide two client references for WooCommerce projects in the $15,000–$25,000 range completed in the last 18 months.” One agency declined, citing client confidentiality. The other two provided references immediately. He spoke to both. One reference mentioned the agency had gone 11 weeks over timeline with no warning. That eliminated them. He hired the third. His project launched on schedule.
What to Do With the Responses
Evaluate responses on scope alignment first, price second. An agency that has clearly read your brief and is responding specifically to it is more likely to deliver what you need than one sending a templated proposal with your company name swapped in.
Red flags in proposals:
- No reference to your specific functional requirements
- Scope defined in pages, not functionality
- Timeline stated in weeks without milestones
- No mention of what’s explicitly not included
- Payment schedule that demands 50% before any work begins with no cancellation protections
A well-written brief makes the quality difference between agencies visible immediately.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should an agency brief be? Long enough to cover the six sections above, short enough to be read in 15 minutes. For a standard web project, 2–4 pages is appropriate. For a complex e-commerce or multi-platform build, 5–8 pages may be needed. Do not pad with company history or marketing language — agencies don’t need your pitch deck; they need your requirements.
Should I share my budget in the brief? Yes. The discomfort of stating a number is real, but it’s less costly than receiving quotes that are all over the map. State a range rather than a fixed number if you prefer. The range tells agencies whether you’re a fit for their pricing and lets them scope accordingly. Without a budget, you’ll receive proposals designed to win a range of budgets rather than proposals designed to deliver your project.
What’s the difference between a brief and an RFP? An RFP (Request for Proposal) is a formal document used by larger organizations that typically requires agencies to respond to specific questions in a structured format and may involve a scoring rubric. A brief is less formal and gives agencies more flexibility in how they respond. For most small-to-mid-sized web projects, a brief is sufficient and easier to write. RFPs are more appropriate for government contracts, enterprise builds, or highly regulated industries.
Do I need a brief if I already know which agency I want to hire? Yes — the brief becomes the project scope document that the contract is built on. Even if you’re not shopping the project, writing the brief forces you to articulate your requirements clearly. Agencies that skip the scoping brief and go straight to contracts are setting up the engagement with a vague foundation. That’s usually where scope disputes start.
What if I don’t know enough technically to write the scope section? Write what you know and mark the gaps explicitly: “We currently use Salesforce CRM and need it integrated, but we’re not sure what the integration requires — we need advice on this.” A good agency will use those gaps to ask the right questions. Leaving the gap unstated is worse — the agency will either assume something specific (which may be wrong) or exclude it from scope entirely.