Most briefs we receive describe a website. The useful ones describe a business problem. The difference decides whether the quotes you get back are comparable, and whether the project finishes near its estimate.
1. What the site has to achieve
Not "a modern website". A number or an outcome: more qualified enquiries, fewer support calls, the ability to publish without a developer, a store that handles a seasonal peak.
Everything else follows from this. An agency that knows what success looks like will argue with parts of your brief, which is the most valuable thing you can get from the process. An agency working from "make it modern" will quote for pages.
2. Who it is for, specifically
One or two real audiences, described as people. What they already know, what they are worried about, what would make them choose someone else.
"Everyone" is not an audience and it produces a site that speaks to nobody. If you genuinely have two very different buyers, say so — it changes the structure and it changes the cost.
3. What already exists
The current platform, who hosts it, who has access, what integrations are live, and whether anything about it must survive.
This is the section that most affects the quote and is most often omitted. A rebuild that has to preserve URLs, migrate a thousand posts and keep a CRM connected is a different project from a fresh start, and finding that out mid-build is where overruns come from.
4. Your budget range
The most common objection is that naming a budget invites being charged all of it. In practice withholding it wastes everyone's time: you get proposals for projects you cannot afford, or a scope stripped to hit a number nobody told us about.
A range is enough. It lets us tell you honestly what is achievable within it, and to say plainly if it is not enough for what you are describing — which is more useful than a proposal you have to reject.
5. Timeline and what is driving it
A date, and the reason behind it. "Before the trade show in March" is a real constraint that shapes decisions. "As soon as possible" is not information.
Also worth stating: who approves work, and how quickly. A project with three approvers and a fortnight of review cycles takes longer than one with a single decision-maker, and it is fairer to everyone if that is priced in from the start.
What you do not need to write
A page-by-page specification, unless you are certain of it. You are paying for the structure to be worked out, and a fixed sitemap written before the strategy locks in decisions that may be wrong.
Technical requirements, unless you have a real constraint like an existing system or an internal standard. Specifying the technology before the problem narrows the options for no benefit.
A long list of sites you like. Two or three, with a sentence on what specifically works about each, is far more useful than ten with no explanation.
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Common Questions
What the site has to achieve, who it is for, what already exists, your budget range, and your deadline with the reason behind it. Five short sections beat a twenty-page specification.
Yes. Withholding it wastes everyone’s time: you get proposals you cannot afford, or a scope quietly stripped to hit a number nobody told us about. A range is enough.
Only if you have a real constraint, like an existing system or an internal standard. Naming the technology before the problem narrows the options for no benefit.
Got A Question About Your Own Site?
If "How To Brief A Web Agency (And Get A Better Quote)" raised a question about your own setup, send it over. We answer these properly whether or not it turns into work — and if this is not actually your bottleneck, we will say so.