What to Have Ready Before You Hire a Web Designer (The Checklist That Lowers Your Quote)

What should you have ready before hiring a web designer?

Eight things. Preparing them takes about an evening, and it does two useful jobs: it lowers the number you get quoted, and it removes the three things that stall most website projects.

The mechanism is simple. Suppliers price uncertainty. Every unknown in your request gets padded, because someone has to carry the risk that it turns out to be bigger than it sounded. Remove the unknowns and the price comes down without anyone doing you a favour.

The eight things

1. Your one sentence

[Business name] is a [what you are] for [who you serve] in [where].

Boring on purpose. This sentence ends up on the site, the Google listing, every directory, and in whatever an AI assistant says about you. If you cannot write it, the website cannot fix that, and neither can a designer.

2. The one action you want visitors to take

Call, book, buy, enquire, download. One. Not four.

This is the most important item on the list and the one most often skipped. A site with four equal calls to action cannot be judged on whether it works, only on whether people like the look of it. That is how a site gets rebuilt twice in three years without ever being asked to do a job.

3. A page list

Home, services, about, contact is a real answer. So is “one page”. Most small businesses need four to six pages. More is not better: every page has to earn its place and then be kept current, and a stale page does more damage than a missing one.

4. Real photographs

Of your work, your team, your premises, your products. Stock photography is the fastest available way to look like everybody else, and buyers have learned to discount it.

If you have nothing usable, say so up front. It is a real line item with a real cost, and discovering it halfway through is what turns a four-week project into a ten-week one.

5. Whatever copy exists

Even rough notes. Even a list of bullet points you would say on the phone.

Then decide explicitly: are you writing the copy, or paying someone to? Say which in your first message. If a quote does not mention copywriting, assume it is excluded and ask.

6. Three sites you like, with a reason each

Not “I like this”. Try:

• “This one feels expensive without shouting.”
• “You know what they do in three seconds.”
• “The booking step is obvious on a phone.”

The reason is the useful part. Without it a designer is reverse-engineering your taste from three screenshots, and will usually guess wrong.

Add the opposite too: one or two things it must never look like. Exclusions narrow the space faster than inspiration does.

7. Your budget, stated

Say the number. Designers are not hunting for your ceiling; they are working out how many hours the job can carry.

A stated budget gets you a considered answer inside it, often with a suggestion about what to cut. A hidden budget gets you the safest, fastest thing they can produce, because nobody will invest thinking time in a quote that might be aiming at the wrong target entirely.

8. A deadline tied to something real

A trade show, a lease start, a seasonal peak, a funding milestone. “Soon” is not a deadline and will be treated accordingly.

What this changes on the supplier’s side

Send that list and three things happen:

The quote gets tighter. There is less to pad.

You find out who is any good. A supplier who reads a clear brief and comes back with questions and one thing you should cut is worth more than one who says yes to everything. The second kind has not read it closely enough to find a problem.

Comparison becomes possible. Two quotes against the same brief are comparable. Two quotes against different conversations are not, and the cheapest is usually cheapest because it understood the least.

What to also settle before money moves

Alongside the brief, get these into writing:

• What is NOT included. Content, copy, images, third-party licences, data migration, training and post-launch fixes are the usual six.
• Who owns the code, the accounts and the designs. The only good answer is you. See who owns your website for the full list and why it matters most for the domain.
• What a change costs next year, and whether you can do it yourself. The build price happens once. This one repeats for as long as you own the site.

The honest summary

Almost every bad website outcome traces back to something that was obvious to one side and never written down. The eight items above exist to move things out of assumed and into stated, while it still costs you nothing to do it.

What to do next

With the brief ready, how to get a website made for your business covers the four routes, what each realistically costs, and the six questions to ask on the first call.

If you are still deciding whether you need a site or a store, do I need Shopify or just a website answers it. For where the website sits in the wider sequence, see what you actually need to start a business online.

If you want to test how much a clear brief is worth, send this exact list to DappaSol: the quote comes back fixed, against your brief, from $399.