How to brief a web designer (and what to leave for them to figure out)
The right brief lowers your quote, attracts better designers, and sets up a smoother project. Eight questions to answer, three things to leave open, and a sample template UK SMBs can copy.
By James Sheen
How to brief a web designer (and what to leave for them to figure out)
A tight brief does two things a vague one cannot: it lowers your quote, and it attracts better designers. When an agency receives a brief that clearly answers the eight questions below, they spend less time guessing (and billing for that guessing) and can price more confidently. The difference on a typical SMB project can run to £1,000 or more. This post extends the buyer checklist in the complete UK website cost guide into a full briefing guide. It includes a sample website brief template you can copy verbatim.
What goes in a great brief
A brief does not need to be long. It needs to be honest and specific. Eight questions, answered in plain language, will outperform a ten-page document that hedges every line.
What does your business do, and who is it for? One paragraph. Industry, what you sell or provide, who the customer is. Skip adjectives like "innovative". What do you actually do?
What is this site for? Pick one primary goal: generate enquiries, sell products directly, inform visitors before a sales conversation, showcase work. A site that tries to do everything often does nothing well.
How do you measure success? If the answer is "more enquiries", name a number. If it is "sell products", name a monthly revenue target. Vague goals produce vague sites. Measurable goals focus a designer's decisions.
How many templates do you need, and at what complexity? Not pages: templates. A homepage at bespoke complexity is very different from a templated location page. Name the key ones: homepage, services, about, contact, blog index. See Section 2 of the cost guide for how this directly drives your quote.
What platform, if any, do you have a preference for? Shopify for commerce, a headless CMS for content-heavy sites, or open to recommendation. If you do not have a preference, say so: "Open, recommend based on our needs." That is useful information.
What needs to integrate with the site? Booking tools, CRM, payment processor, inventory system. Name them specifically. "Some integrations" is not a brief — it is a blank line in someone else's quote.
Will you provide copy, or do you need it written? Final copy ready to drop in, or do you need a copywriter? This single question can add or save £1,000–£3,000 on a 10-page site. Be honest about it upfront.
What is your budget range and timeline? A range, not a ceiling. "£3,000–£5,000" tells a designer what shape of solution to propose. "As cheap as possible by August" tells them nothing useful.
What to leave OUT
Just as important as what you include. Specifying the wrong things at brief stage wastes everyone's time.
Colour palettes and fonts. You can have preferences, but do not mandate them without a rationale. A designer who has studied your audience and your competitors is better placed to make that call. Share brand guidelines if you have them; do not invent a brand direction in the brief if you have none.
The platform, if you are not sure. "We want it built in WordPress" is fine if you have a clear reason. "We want it in WordPress because our old one was" is a constraint that may not serve you. Leave it open if you are genuinely undecided.
The page count, if you are not sure. Let the designer map the site structure during discovery. Over-specifying page count before the information architecture is agreed leads to quotes for the wrong scope.
Vague design direction. "Make it pop", "clean and modern", "like Apple but for a plumber" land in every inbox. They mean nothing to a designer and slow down the brief. Avoid preference signalling without substance.
How a tight brief lowers your quote
Here is a concrete example. A typical SMB project (eight templates, contact form, blog, one integration) with a vague brief might come back at £6,000. The same project with a tight brief — clear platform preference, copy provided, named integration, measurable success goal — might come back at £4,500. Same work, same deliverable. The difference is discovery time baked into the quote. Honestly, this is the single most consistent pattern I see across projects I quote.
When a brief is vague, agencies build a buffer for the conversations they will need to have: scope calls, assumption loops, revision rounds driven by misalignment. A tight brief removes that buffer and filters out agencies that rely on scope creep to make their margin.
Clarity also attracts quality. Designers who work on clearly scoped projects know when they are done and when they are not.
Red flags in YOUR brief that scare off good designers
| Red flag | Why it concerns a good designer | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| "Open scope, fixed price" | No top line on cost means the designer absorbs every scope change | Give a budget range upfront. Honest ranges get honest quotes. |
| "We'll know what we want when we see it" | Discovery is billable. Iterating toward an invisible target is not a project, it's a retainer without the contract. | Describe one or two sites you like, and why specifically. |
| "We want it to be more dynamic" | "Dynamic" means three different things to a designer, a developer, and a client. None of them match. | Be specific: animation on scroll, interactive product configurator, rotating testimonials. Name the effect. |
| Screenshots of competitor sites with no context | Without the strategic reason, a designer cannot tell if you want to look like them or beat them. | "I like this because X" is a brief. "Copy this" is not. |
| "We're talking to five agencies" | On its own, fine. Combined with a tight deadline and a vague brief, it signals a race-to-bottom procurement. | Tell them your decision criteria. Serious agencies respond to clarity. |
Sample website brief template
This is a working website brief template. Copy it, fill in the blanks, and send it as-is. You do not need to format it further.
1. About the business Name, industry, what you do, and who your customers are. Two to three sentences.
2. Project goal One primary goal for this website. What does success look like in 12 months?
3. Success metric A number or observable outcome that tells you the site has worked. Enquiries per month, revenue, sign-up rate.
4. Templates needed List the key page types. Note which are bespoke (homepage, key landing page) and which are templated (location pages, T&Cs).
5. Platform preference Your current view, or "open, please recommend." If you have an existing platform you want to keep, name it and say why.
6. Integrations required Name each tool. Include whether you have an existing account or need one set up.
7. Content Confirm whether copy is provided, needs writing, or is a mix. Note if you have photography, or if image sourcing is needed.
8. Budget range A range in pounds. Not "as low as possible" — a range that reflects what you are prepared to invest for a site that hits your goal.
9. Timeline Desired go-live date. Note any hard deadlines (event, product launch, season).
10. Decision process How many people sign off? Will there be one point of contact? Who gives final approval?
What happens after you send a brief
A well-scoped brief is the start of a conversation, not the end of one. Expect a short clarification email, a discovery call (30-45 minutes), and then a written quote or proposal.
The brief does its work by giving the designer enough to have a useful conversation — not by replacing that conversation. Any agency that quotes without a call after receiving your brief is quoting blind. After the discovery call, a good agency will ask follow-up questions the brief alone could not answer. That is a good sign. It means they are thinking about your actual project.
Next steps
If you want to understand where the numbers in your quote come from before you write a brief, the full UK website cost guide walks through every cost driver in detail. Once you have a brief ready and want to understand what happens from first call to launch, the website project timeline guide covers the typical 4-8 week arc for a UK SMB build.
If you want to run your brief past me before sending it to agencies, a scoping call is the right place to do that.
References
- GoDaddy (2026). How Much Does a UK Website Cost? https://www.godaddy.com/resources/uk/smallbusiness/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-website-uk
- Yellowball (2026). How much does a website cost in the UK? https://weareyellowball.com/guides/how-much-does-a-website-cost-in-the-uk/
- Authentic Style (2026). How much does a website cost UK? https://authenticstyle.co.uk/how-much-does-a-website-cost-uk/
- Made by Shape (2026). Web Design Brief Template. https://madebyshape.co.uk
- Smashing Magazine (2024). How To Write A Web Design Brief. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/07/how-to-write-a-web-design-brief/
