Website Brief — How to Write One?

You are starting a new website project. You have contacts at several agencies and freelancers, you want to send an RFP and compare prices. Seems simple — just describe what you want, right?

In practice, the lack of a professional brief is one of the most common reasons for budget overruns, delivery delays and disappointment with the final result. A website brief is not a bureaucratic form — it is a tool that protects your interests and ensures you get exactly what you need, at the price you planned.

In this article I will show you what a brief is, why it is essential, and give you a ready-to-use template with 15 questions you must answer before sending your first enquiry to a supplier.

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What Is a Brief and Why Do You Need One?

A website brief (also called a creative brief) is a document describing your expectations, business goals, technical requirements and project constraints. You write it once, send it to several potential suppliers, and they use it as the basis for their proposal and quote.

A good brief serves several key functions:

Translates expectations into technical language. You say “I want a website that sells” — the supplier hears “a site with a contact form.” A brief helps clarify what you actually mean: a sales funnel, a landing page with A/B tests, automated follow-up emails, CRM integration. This is a fundamental difference in scope and pricing.

Comparable proposals. Without a brief, every agency prices a different project. One assumes a simple brochure site, another a fully developed portal with a blog. A brief means all proposals cover the same scope — you can compare them fairly.

Budget protection. A well-written brief limits the risk of “scope creep” — unplanned project expansion that inflates costs. If the scope is clearly defined in writing, it is easier to manage changes and their costs.

Smoother communication. The brief is a point of reference throughout the project. Instead of trying to remember what was agreed two months ago, both parties refer back to the document.

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What Happens When You Don’t Have a Brief

The absence of a website brief has real financial and time consequences. Here are three typical scenarios:

Scenario 1 — “Extra features.” A company commissions a website for PLN 12,000. During the project it turns out that a multilingual online shop with ERP integration was “obviously” expected. The supplier prices this as a “change in scope” — an additional PLN 18,000. The project that was supposed to cost PLN 12,000 ends up at PLN 30,000 and 3 months over schedule.

Scenario 2 — “That’s not what I wanted.” An agency delivers a design after 6 weeks of work. The client looks and says: “I don’t feel it — not professional enough, I want something more like Apple.” Without a brief containing inspiration references and style guidelines, 6 weeks of work goes in the bin. Cost of revisions: PLN 5,000–10,000 and more weeks of delay.

Scenario 3 — “It doesn’t display for me.” The project is finished and approved. At the final presentation it turns out that half the company uses Internet Explorer 11, and the site built with modern JavaScript simply doesn’t work in it. Nobody asked about the technical requirements of the environment. Cost of re-testing and fixes: PLN 3,000–6,000.

These scenarios share one root cause: no document describing the requirements before the project began. A brief costs 2–4 hours of your time — and can save tens of thousands of pounds.

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15 Questions Every Website Brief Must Contain

The following questions are the foundation of every good website brief. Answer them honestly and thoroughly — that matters more than how beautifully the document is formatted.

Business Goal of the Website

This is the most important section of the brief — and the one most often skipped or treated superficially. “We want a modern website” is not a business goal. A business goal is a measurable outcome the website is meant to achieve.

Questions to answer:

• What is the main goal of the website? (lead generation, online sales, recruitment, brand image, customer service, a combination)
• How will we measure the website’s success? (number of enquiries/month, sales value, conversion rate, time on site)
• What are the 3 main actions we want users to take? (e.g. fill in a contact form, call, download a resource, buy a product)
• What problems does the current website have that the new one should solve?
• What is the planned return on investment? (even an estimate — “if we gain 3 more clients per month, the site pays for itself”)

Target Audience

The supplier needs to know who the website is for — because that determines the communication language, information architecture, visual style and technical requirements (e.g. mobile vs desktop, user’s level of technical sophistication).

Questions to answer:

• Who is your main client/website user? (age, gender, job title, industry)
• What problems and needs do they have?
• What device do they most commonly use? (mobile vs desktop — check in Google Analytics if you have it)
• How technically literate are they?
• Do you have user segments? (e.g. B2B vs B2C, individual vs corporate client)

Competition and Inspiration

The best way to save time in conversations about visual style is to show examples. Both of what you like and what you don’t want.

Questions to answer:

• Name 3–5 competitor websites you like or that do something well
• Name 3–5 websites (not necessarily from your industry) that you find visually appealing and why
• Give examples of sites whose style YOU WANT TO AVOID
• What are your differentiators vs the competition? (what you have that they don’t — this must be visible on the site)

Functional Scope

Here you define what the website needs to do. Be precise — every feature has a price.

Questions to answer:

• What pages will the website have? (list with brief descriptions)
• What forms and interactive features are needed? (contact, quote, calculator, booking, login)
• Do you need a blog/news section? (if yes — who will run it and how often)
• What integrations are required? (CRM, mailing system, analytics, payments, chat)
• What are the language requirements? (single language version, multilingual — if so, who translates)
• What are the security/compliance requirements? (SSL, GDPR, industry-specific requirements)

Budget and Timeline

Many companies avoid stating their budget because they fear the supplier will “eat up” the entire amount. This is a mistake — without budget parameters you will receive proposals ranging from PLN 2,000 to PLN 200,000, none of which will be useful.

Questions to answer:

• What is your implementation budget? (give a range, e.g. “PLN 15,000–25,000 net”)
• Does the budget include hosting and maintenance after launch?
• When must the website be ready? (hard date, e.g. before a trade show; or flexible)
• How is it phased? (MVP in 6 weeks, full version in 3 months)
• Who in your organisation will manage the project? (one person responsible — this is critical)

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Brief Template — Ready to Use

Below is a ready-made template you can copy into a Word or Google Docs document and complete before sending it to a supplier:

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WEBSITE BRIEF Company: _______________ Date: _______________ Client-side project lead: _______________

1. About the company

• What we do:
• Target market (B2B/B2C, industry, geography):
• Main products/services:
• Brand communication tone (formal/informal, expert/accessible):

2. Project goal

• Main goal of the new website:
• Measurable success metrics:
• 3 main user actions:
• What doesn’t work on the current site (if applicable):

3. Target audience

• Main user segment:
• Devices (mobile %/desktop %):
• Level of technical literacy:
• Customer persona (if it exists — attach):

4. Functional scope

• List of pages:
• Required features and forms:
• External integrations:
• Language requirements:
• GDPR/legal requirements:

5. Visual style

• Sites we like (with reasoning):
• Sites we want to avoid:
• Brand book/logo/colour palette exists: YES/NO (if YES — attach)
• Words describing the desired style (e.g. “minimalist,” “premium,” “trustworthy”):

6. Content

• Who provides copy: client/copywriter/agency
• Who provides photos/graphics: client/photographer/stock
• Is SEO copywriting needed:

7. Budget and schedule

• Net budget: ___ – ___ PLN
• Launch deadline:
• Project phases (if defined):
• Preferred billing model: fixed price/hourly rate

8. Technical requirements

• Preferred technology (if you have a preference):
• Hosting requirements:
• Integrations with existing systems:
• Performance requirements (e.g. PageSpeed > 80):

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How a Brief Protects You from Budget Overruns

Budget overruns in web projects have three main causes: unexpected requirements (scope creep), misunderstandings about scope, and no single person responsible on the client side. A brief addresses all three.

Scope creep — when new features and requirements emerge during the project that were “obviously” meant to be included. A good brief defines what is in scope and — equally important — what is NOT. Every change after the brief is approved is a formal scope change with a cost for additional work.

Misunderstandings — “modern website” for the client means animations and effects; for the developer it means clean HTML5 without jQuery. A brief with inspiration examples and a concrete feature description eliminates this communication gap.

Multiple voices on the client side — the owner wants one thing, marketing wants another, sales wants a third. A brief approved by all stakeholders before the start becomes the single source of truth. If the marketing director changes their mind mid-project, the brief is proof that this is a scope change — not a “tweak.”

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What Does a Supplier Do with a Brief?

A good supplier treats the website brief as a starting point, not a destination. Here is the typical process on the agency or freelancer side:

Analysis and follow-up questions. Every experienced supplier has a list of questions after reading the brief. This is a good sign — it means they read it carefully. Answers to these questions will allow the quote to be refined.

Technical proposal. Based on the brief, the supplier will propose technology, information architecture, schedule and project approach. Comparing proposals from several suppliers will show you whether they are thinking along similar lines and where they differ.

Contract based on the brief. A professional contract for a website build includes the brief as an attachment defining the scope. This is your legal protection — if the delivered website does not meet the requirements in the brief, you have grounds for a complaint.

Post-launch success measurement. A brief with measurable goals (e.g. “20 leads per month through the form”) is the reference point after launch. After 3 months you can jointly assess whether the goal was achieved.

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FAQ — Website Brief

Does a brief have to be a long document?

No — completeness matters, not length. A well-completed template with the 15 questions above is 2–4 A4 pages. What matters is that all key points are described specifically, not in generalities. “We want a website that sells” is not useful information for a supplier.

What if I know nothing about technology and don’t know which to choose?

You don’t need to. In the technical section it is enough to describe the functional requirements (e.g. “the site must load quickly, must have a blog, must be easy to edit by someone without technical knowledge”) — and the supplier will propose the appropriate technology. You can also write “I leave the decision to the supplier” and evaluate the reasoning in their proposal.

Should I send a brief to multiple suppliers at once?

Yes, this is standard practice. Send to 3–5 suppliers — this gives sufficient comparison without over-committing their time. Say upfront that you are sending an RFP to several companies — this is fair and professional.

How long does preparing a brief take?

For a small site (5–15 pages) completing the template well takes 2–4 hours. Factor in consultation with people who have input on the project (marketing director, sales, IT). Time invested in the brief pays back many times over in faster quoting and fewer revisions.

Is a brief legally binding?

The brief itself is not a contract — but it is a document that can serve as a basis for assessing whether the delivered work meets the requirements. For this reason it is worth attaching it as an appendix to the contract. The contract should also specify the change management procedure (change request) — how changes are priced and approved.

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Summary — Website Brief

A website brief is 2–4 hours of work that will save you tens of thousands of pounds and weeks of stress. It defines the scope, protects the budget, enables fair comparison of proposals and forms the foundation of effective collaboration with a supplier.

A good brief contains: a business goal with measurable KPIs, a description of the target audience, functional scope, inspiration examples, budget with a range, and a schedule. The template with 15 questions from this article can be copied and completed today.

Have a brief and looking for a supplier who knows what to do with it?

See our website services → /strony-www/ — we design and build websites based on your business goals, with a clear process, fixed price and performance guarantee.