Quoting a website when the scope is vague and undecided

1 day ago
3 min read

Updated: 18 hours ago

Introduction

A client asks what a website will cost and cannot say how many pages, what it must do, who will write the content, or what happens if the third supplier they mention needs integrating. Quote a figure anyway and one of two things follows: you priced high enough to be uncompetitive, or you priced for a site simpler than the one you will end up building.

The instinct is to guess more carefully. It does not work, because the problem is not estimating skill — it is that the project does not yet exist in a definable form. No amount of care fixes that.

The way through is to sell the definition as its own piece of work. Clients pay for it more readily than most agencies expect.

1. Quoting a website when the scope is vague means selling discovery first

Make the definition a paid deliverable.

Quote a discovery stage, fixed and short

A week or two, at a fixed fee that a client can approve without a committee,, producing a specification, a sitemap, a content plan and a build estimate. Price it so it is an easy decision.

Deliver something the client owns

They can take the specification and tender it elsewhere if they wish. Being willing to say that is what makes it credible. Most clients stay anyway.

2. Refuse to quote the build before discovery

This is the discipline that makes it work.

Give a range, not a figure

A broad band based on similar projects, clearly labelled as indicative. Enough for the client to know whether to continue. Say what the range is based on.

Say why you cannot be precise

Because the answer depends on decisions nobody has made. Clients accept this when it is explained rather than hedged. Hedging reads as evasion.

3. Identify the questions that move the price most

A few unknowns dominate the estimate.

Content: who writes it

The commonest cause of overrun and delay in web projects. Establish it before anything else. Somebody has to write it, and it is rarely the client.

Integrations and data

Anything talking to another system is where the hours disappear. Ask what must connect to what. Get the list in writing.

Approvals: who decides

A project with three approvers and no owner costs twice as much to deliver. Ask who signs the invoice.

4. Price the build in stages once defined

Even a defined project benefits from stages.

Quote design and build separately

With a sign-off between them. It limits the exposure on both sides. Neither of you is committed to a shape nobody has seen.

Cap revisions explicitly

Two rounds per stage, further ones charged. Unlimited revisions are how a fixed price becomes a loss. State the rate for further rounds.

5. Handle the change requests properly

Scope grows in every project.

Price changes before building them

However small. Work done on a verbal request is work you may not be paid for. A message with a figure is enough.

Keep a shared running list

Client changes, agreed and priced. Nobody disputes a total they have watched accumulate. Update it weekly.

Conclusion

You cannot estimate a project that does not yet exist in definable form, so stop trying to guess more carefully and sell the definition instead: a short fixed-fee discovery producing a specification, sitemap, content plan and build estimate that the client owns outright.

Give only an indicative range for the build beforehand and explain plainly why precision is impossible. Settle the three questions that dominate every estimate — who writes the content, what must integrate with what, and who actually decides. Then quote design and build as separate stages with sign-off between them, cap revisions at two rounds, price every change before building it, and keep a shared running list the client watches grow.