Before you ask anyone for a quote, have four things ready: the login to your domain, one plain sentence about what you sell and to whom, the photos and text you already have, and a short list of what the site must do. With those, a fixed price and a launch date can be set on day one and they hold, because nothing is left to discover halfway through.
Most website projects that run late do not run late because of the code. They stall while someone waits for a password, a photo or a decision. I would rather tell you now what I will ask for, so you can gather it in an afternoon, than send you the list three weeks in.
Why does preparation change the price and the date?
Because a fixed price is a promise about a known amount of work.
When I quote, I am counting pages, features and content. If the content is ready, the count is real. If it is not, the quote has to cover guesses: will the text need writing, will the photos need taking, does the shop have twenty products or two hundred. Guesses either make the price higher, to be safe, or they come back later as "that was not in the scope".
The same goes for the date. A launch date assumes the materials arrive when the work needs them. How long a website takes explains where the weeks actually go, and most of the slow ones are spent waiting.
Do you know where your domain is and who can log in?
This is the first thing to check, and the one that most often blocks a launch.
Your domain is the address, such as yourbusiness.com. Somebody registered it at some point, at a registrar, and that account has a login. Find out:
- Which company the domain is registered with. A lookup on the registrar's own site, or the renewal emails in your inbox, will tell you.
- Whose name the account is in. If it is in the name of a former designer, a nephew or an agency you no longer work with, sort that out now.
- Whether you can log in yourself. Not "someone can", but you, today.
If your email runs on the same domain, it matters even more. Pointing the domain at a new site touches the same settings that deliver your email, and they need to be handled with care. I check the email records before anything moves, but I can only do that once I can see them.
If you are not sure who owns what, who owns your website walks through the domain, the hosting and the code one by one.
Can you say what you sell, and to whom, in one sentence?
Try it before the first call. "Family dental clinic in the city centre, mostly check-ups and cleaning, evening appointments." "Online shop for hand-thrown ceramics, shipping across the country."
That sentence becomes the first line of your home page, the title Google shows, and the test for every decision after it. If you find you need three sentences, that is useful too: it usually means the business has two audiences, and the site may need a clear door for each.
Add two more short lists:
- Who your best customers are. Not demographics, but situations. "People who just moved here and need a dentist." "Restaurants that want plates that survive a dishwasher."
- What they ask you before they buy. The questions you answer on the phone every week are the questions the site should answer, in the order people ask them.
What content do you already have?
Gather it in one folder, even if it is messy. I would rather sort a messy folder than wait for a perfect one.
- Your logo, in the best file you can find. If all you have is a picture from a business card, say so.
- Photos of your place, your work, your team and your products. Real ones beat stock photos, even if they were taken on a phone. What photos your website needs has a shot list.
- Text that already exists: your current site, a brochure, your Google profile description, the menu, the service list, the product sheet from your supplier.
- Reviews you have permission to use, with the customer's name as they would like it shown.
Then decide who writes the rest. You can write it, I can write it from a conversation with you, or we can split it. Each choice is fine, but it has to be decided before the quote, because writing is real work. Who writes your website copy covers the trade-offs.
What does the site have to do?
Not what it should look like. What it has to do for you.
Write a short list of actions you want a visitor to take: call, book, ask for a quote, buy, find the address, read the menu, download a price list. Then put them in order of importance. The first one gets the main button on every page. The rest find their place below.
For each one, note the tool it depends on, if any:
- Bookings: which booking system you use now, or whether you need one.
- Payments: for a shop, which payment provider you already have an account with, and how you ship.
- Forms: which inbox the messages should land in, and who reads it.
- Languages: which ones, and who will check the translations.
Anything on this list that changes after the quote changes the quote, so it is worth an honest half hour now. How many pages your website needs helps turn the list into a page plan.
Which sites do you like, and which do you not?
Send two or three links, and one line on each about what you like. "The menu is easy to read on a phone." "I like that the prices are right there." "Too much movement, I got dizzy."
They do not need to be in your industry. I am not going to copy them. They tell me more about your taste in five minutes than a long conversation about colours does. A site you dislike is just as useful: it marks the edge of what you want.
Who decides, and how fast?
Name one person who approves the work. If two partners both need to say yes, tell me at the start, and we will plan the review rounds around both calendars.
Then be honest about your own time. If the busy season starts next month and you will not look at email for six weeks, the launch date has to know that. A date that ignores your calendar is not a promise, it is a hope.
What should you not worry about yet?
Some things look like homework but are not yours to solve:
- Hosting. If you have none, I set it up in your name. If you have some, I tell you whether it is worth keeping.
- Technical choices. Which platform, which tools, how it is built. You tell me what the site has to do, and I explain the options in plain words.
- Search engine settings. Titles, descriptions, redirects from your old pages and the things Google reads are part of the build, not a separate project.
- A finished design idea. You do not need a sketch. You need to know what you sell and who buys it.
What happens after you send it?
You send the folder, the one sentence and the list. I read your current site, if you have one, and come back with a fixed price, what it includes and a launch date, all in writing, before any work starts. If something on your list would push the price up a lot, I say which item and why, so you can decide whether it belongs in the first version.
The current ranges are on the pricing page, and what each type of site includes is on websites. If you are comparing offers from several people, how to compare web design quotes shows what to put side by side.
The short version
Before you ask for a quote, have:
- the domain login, in your name
- one sentence on what you sell and to whom
- one folder with your logo, photos and existing text
- a list of what the site must do, in order
- two or three sites you like, with one line on why
- the name of the person who says yes, and the weeks when you are unavailable
That is an afternoon of work, and it is the difference between a date that holds and one that slips.
If you have it ready, or even half ready, send me your site or the folder, and you will get a fixed price and a launch date the same working day.