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The honest disclaimer you won’t find elsewhere
We’re a web design agency. We respond to RFPs. That means we have a built-in bias, and you should know that upfront.
Most guides on this topic are written by agencies who want you to structure your RFP in ways that benefit them. Include your budget so we can price accordingly. Don’t send to too many agencies so we feel special. Skip the RFP entirely and just have a conversation with us.
Some of that advice is genuinely good. Some of it is self-serving dressed up as helpful.
We’re going to tell you what we’d tell a friend navigating this process. Even if it means you end up hiring someone else. Even if it means you decide you don’t need an RFP at all.
When you actually need an RFP (and when you don’t)
An RFP makes sense when you’re navigating organizational complexity. Multiple stakeholders need to weigh in. Procurement requires a formal process. You need something to hand finance or your board when they ask why you picked this agency.
An RFP is overkill when you’re a smaller team with clear authority to make decisions. If you can have three conversations, compare approaches, and make a call, the formality just adds friction.
The middle ground is where it gets interesting. You have some stakeholders to manage but not a rigid procurement process. You want structure but not bureaucracy. A lightweight RFP can help you organize your thinking and give agencies enough context to respond meaningfully. Done right, it’s a tool for clarity, not a performance for procurement.
Ask yourself: Is this RFP serving our decision-making, or is it serving someone’s need to feel like we did this “the right way”?
The scope paradox: the single biggest mistake in website RFPs
Here’s the tension that makes website RFPs uniquely difficult: If you’re too vague about what you want, agencies can’t give you comparable proposals. If you’re too specific, you’re paying for expertise you won’t let them use.
Too vague looks like: “We need a modern, user-friendly website that reflects our brand and drives conversions.” That description fits a $15,000 project and a $150,000 project. You’ll get proposals across that entire spectrum, and you’ll end up comparing based on price alone because there’s no other basis for comparison.
Too specific looks like: A 47-page document specifying exact wireframes, color codes, hover states, and content for every page. At that point, you don’t need a strategic partner. You need production hands. And the agencies who would bring the most value will either pass on the project or spend their proposal explaining why your specifications won’t achieve your goals.
The middle ground: Provide enough detail that agencies understand the scope, but frame it as context rather than requirements.
What works: “Our current website has approximately 85 pages. We anticipate the redesigned site will be similar in size, though we’re open to recommendations on consolidation. We’ll need templates for these page types: homepage, service pages (12), industry pages (8), blog posts, team bios, and standard legal pages.”
This tells agencies you’re talking about an 80-ish page website, not a 10-page site or a 500-page site. It signals that you’ve thought about the scope. But it leaves room for an agency to say “actually, you could consolidate those 12 service pages into 6 with better UX” without feeling like they’re fighting against your spec.
If you don’t have this level of clarity yet, that’s actually fine. Include a discovery or definition phase in your RFP. Ask agencies to propose how they’d work with you to define the scope before committing to execution. This is often the more honest approach, and sophisticated agencies will appreciate it.
What to include in your website redesign RFP
Every RFP guide gives you a checklist. We’ll go deeper, but we won’t beat every section to death with the same format. Some need more explanation than others.
Company background
Skip the marketing copy. Agencies don’t need to know you’re “a leading provider of innovative solutions.” They need context that shapes the project.
What actually helps: “We’re a B2B manufacturing company selling primarily to procurement teams at Fortune 500 companies. Our sales cycle is 9-18 months. Website’s role is credibility and education, not direct conversion. Our industry is traditional and our competitors’ websites are mostly outdated, but our buyers are sophisticated and have high expectations from their consumer experiences.”
That tells an agency what success looks like and what they’re working with. Your About page copy doesn’t.
Project goals and objectives
This is where misalignment causes expensive problems months later. Vague goals like “a modern website that drives growth” don’t give agencies anything to design toward.
Get specific, even if it feels aggressive: “Increase qualified demo requests by 40% within 12 months. Reduce service page bounce rate from 65% to under 40%. Stop hearing ‘your website looks outdated’ in competitive deals.”
If your goals are ambitious, that’s fine. Stating them clearly lets agencies respond honestly. They might tell you a 40% increase in demos is unlikely from a redesign alone. Better to have that conversation now.
One more thing: include the “unrealistic” goals too. If your CEO expects to rank #1 in Google within two months, put it in the RFP. Let agencies address it. Better than having an unhappy CEO later.
Current website assessment
Share what you know about what’s working and what isn’t. “Our blog drives 60% of organic traffic and we can’t lose that. Service pages have high bounce rates. Mobile conversion is 70% lower than desktop.”
You don’t need a full audit. But the more context you share, the more relevant the proposals you’ll get.
Target audience
Demographics without behavior are useless. “VP-level decision makers, ages 35-55” tells agencies nothing about how your website will actually be used.
What helps: “Our primary audience is VP of Operations at manufacturing companies, $50M-$500M revenue. They evaluate us alongside 2-3 competitors over 3-6 months before reaching out. They’re skeptical of marketing claims, want proof points, and often share our site with their CFO as part of internal selling.”
That last detail (sharing with their CFO) might change how an agency thinks about your case studies section. Context matters.
Scope and deliverables
Here’s where the scope paradox from earlier gets practical.
Don’t write: “Complete website redesign.”
Don’t write: A 20-page specification with wireframes for every page.
Do write something like:
“We anticipate needing: Homepage (1), core service pages (8-10), industry pages (6), about section (5-6 pages), resource center with migration of ~120 blog posts, and 2-3 conversion pages.
We’re open to recommendations on consolidation. If you think we need fewer pages or different page types, we want to hear that.
We’ll provide final copy, photography, and brand guidelines. We expect the agency to handle strategy, UX, design, development, QA, and launch support.
Things we’re unsure about: whether to migrate to a new CMS, how to structure the resources section, whether we need custom functionality.”
This signals scope while leaving room for agencies to add value.
Technical requirements
Current state, known constraints, and open questions. That’s it.
“We’re on WordPress with WPEngine. HubSpot for marketing automation, Salesforce for CRM (forms must sync). WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility is required (we’re a government contractor). We have 15,000 monthly organic visits and can’t afford to lose them. We expect Core Web Vitals scores in the green across mobile and desktop at launch.
Open questions: Should we stay on WordPress? Do we need a headless CMS or is that overkill?”
Don’t leave this section out (agencies will assume the worst), but don’t over-specify either.
A few things most RFPs forget
These details save everyone headaches later.
Analytics access. Will agencies see your current performance data during the proposal phase? Traffic patterns and conversion data help them propose relevant solutions.
Content realities. Be explicit about who owns writing and approvals. Drafts vs. final copy changes scope, timeline, and cost.
Stakeholder landscape. How many people approve designs? “Two aligned decision-makers” is a different project than “a committee of twelve with competing priorities.”
What happens after launch. Do you want an ongoing relationship or a clean handoff? Say so. It affects which agencies are interested.
Timeline
Give context, not demands.
“We’re targeting launch to align with our annual conference in late spring. We’d rather launch a strong site in May than a rushed site in April, and we have 4-6 weeks of flexibility if the right agency needs it.
We know this timeline is tight. We’d like your honest assessment of what’s realistic.”
If an agency says they can definitely hit an aggressive timeline without asking questions, be skeptical. The agencies who actually hit deadlines are the ones who push back on unrealistic ones.
Budget
This is where RFP advice gets most self-serving, so let’s be direct.
The case for sharing a range: Without it, you’ll get proposals from $30K to $300K and waste everyone’s time. When we ask about budget, it’s not because we want to max out your credit card. It’s because the solution for a $50K problem looks fundamentally different than the solution for a $250K problem.
The case against: Agencies will price to your budget regardless of what the work requires. You lose market feedback on what this should actually cost.
Our take: Share a real range. “$50K-$100K, open to going higher if value is clearly justified” is useful. “$75K-$80K” isn’t a range. And “budget TBD” just means agencies will guess.
If you genuinely don’t know what this should cost, say that. “We haven’t set a budget because we lack context. We’re hoping this process helps us understand what’s appropriate.” That’s honest.
Evaluation criteria
Tell agencies what you actually value. Generic criteria with no weighting (“experience, approach, price, and fit”) tells them nothing.
Something like: “Demonstrated understanding of our business (25%). Strategic approach (25%). Portfolio quality (20%). Team composition (15%). Price relative to value (15%). We’re not just picking the cheapest option.”
That tells agencies that understanding your business matters more than price. They’ll invest more in the discovery portion of their proposal.
Submission requirements
Light structure, room for approach.
“Please include: your understanding of our project (1-2 pages), recommended approach (2-4 pages), 2-3 relevant case studies, proposed team with relevant experience, timeline and milestones, investment breakdown, and three references.
PDF preferred, under 25 pages. Questions to [email] by [date].”
Don’t turn proposals into compliance exercises with 15-point format requirements. You want to see how agencies think, not how well they follow instructions.
Questions you should ask (that most RFPs don’t)
Most RFPs ask about process and experience. That’s table stakes. Here are questions that reveal how an agency actually thinks:
“What’s most likely to cause budgets to change on a project like this?”
Generic answers like “scope creep” are a red flag. Specific answers (“content delays are the #1 cause of overruns, so we build content checkpoints into our timeline”) show experience.
“What’s most likely to cause timelines to slip?”
Same principle. “We’ve never missed a deadline” is less credible than “feedback rounds taking longer than planned is the main risk, here’s how we structure around that.”
“What would make you pass on this project?”
Agencies who say “nothing, we’d love to work with you” are either desperate or not being straight with you. You want to hear what makes a project a poor fit for them. It suggests they’ll be honest about other things too.
“What do you need from us to make this successful?”
“Just your approval at key milestones” is a red flag. It either oversimplifies or signals they’ll limit your involvement in ways that cause problems. Agencies who describe specific needs (stakeholder availability, content timelines, decision-making clarity) are being realistic.
“Tell me about a project that went wrong.”
Everyone has these. Agencies who share openly without fully blaming the client show self-awareness. Watch for: Did they take responsibility? Did they change something as a result?
“How do you handle it when a client hates the first design concept?”
This reveals their creative process and their ego. Some treat pushback as failure. Others have built processes around iteration. No single right answer, but you should understand their philosophy.
“What would you do differently than what we described in the RFP?”
This gives them permission to push back. If they have nothing to suggest, they either didn’t read carefully or don’t think critically. If they challenge a few things, that’s usually a good sign.
The RFP is a filter, not a decision-maker
The RFP narrows your field to 2-3 finalists. The real evaluation happens in conversation.
Evaluating proposals
Look for understanding, not just compliance. Did they just answer your questions, or did they demonstrate that they understand your business? A proposal that challenges something in your RFP, politely, is often a good sign. It means they’re thinking, not just responding.
Be skeptical of proposals that are significantly cheaper. This doesn’t mean affordable agencies can’t do great work. But if one proposal is $60K and another is $150K for the same scope, something is different. Either the $60K agency is underestimating the work, or the $150K agency is overscoping. Dig in and understand why.
Pay attention to who’s in the proposal. Will you actually work with the people presenting the proposal? Or will it be handed off to a junior team after you sign? “Who specifically will work on our project?” is a fair question.
Finalist meetings
The proposal tells you about the agency. The meeting tells you about the relationship.
Watch how they listen. Do they ask questions or just pitch? Agencies who spend the whole meeting presenting are showing you how the project will go.
Test how they handle pushback. Disagree with something in their proposal. Defensiveness is a red flag. Curiosity is a good sign. How they handle it now predicts how they’ll handle it during the project.
Ask about the specific people. “Who’s our main point of contact? How available are they?” Watch for hesitation or corporate non-answers.
Discuss a scenario. “Three months in, the homepage concept isn’t working. How do we handle that?” Their answer tells you more than any case study.
Ask what concerns them. Good agencies will have concerns: your timeline, content dependencies, stakeholder situation. An agency with no concerns either didn’t read your RFP or is telling you what you want to hear.
Get specific about the first 30 days. Walk through what happens between contract signing and first major deliverable. This surfaces how they actually operate, not just how they sell.
Chemistry matters, but don’t over-index on it. Some of the smoothest presenters run the messiest projects.
Reference calls
Actually make the calls. Ask specific questions:
- “Did the project come in on budget and on time? If not, why?”
- “How did they handle it when something went wrong?”
- “Was there anything you wished you’d known before hiring them?”
- “Would you hire them again for a similar project?”
Listen for hesitation. A reference who says “they were great” with enthusiasm is different from one who says it with caveats.
Red flags in agency responses
These should make you ask more questions:
Vagueness about who you’ll work with. “Our team of designers and developers” is not a team. Names and bios are.
No questions for you. If their proposal doesn’t raise any questions about your RFP, they either didn’t read it carefully or they don’t think deeply about projects.
Everything is positioned as easy. Website projects are complex. If an agency says they can hit an aggressive timeline without explaining how, or treats a complex migration as “no problem,” they’re selling, not problem-solving. If they don’t identify a single risk in your RFP, they haven’t actually thought about your project yet.
The proposal reads like a template. Some boilerplate is fine. But if you can’t find evidence that they actually read your RFP and thought about your specific situation, that’s a problem.
Price is dramatically lower with no explanation. This isn’t automatically bad, but it requires investigation.
What happens after you select an agency
The RFP process ends with a selection, but the relationship is just beginning.
The proposal isn’t the contract. Make sure scope, timeline, and terms actually match what was proposed. “We’ll figure it out as we go” is not a contract term.
Kick off with alignment. Revisit goals and success criteria with the full team present. The people doing the work need to hear the goals directly, not filtered through their sales team.
Establish communication patterns. How often do you meet? What’s the escalation path? What does “urgent” mean? Set expectations before they’re tested.
Plan for change. Define how you’ll handle scope changes before they happen. A clear change order process prevents conflict later.
Define “done.” When is the project complete? What’s the warranty period? What happens after? These questions surface the transition from project to ongoing relationship.
When things go sideways
Even good projects hit rough patches.
Address issues early. A conversation at week 3 is easier than one at week 10. “We’re noticing a pattern we want to discuss” opens dialogue without escalating.
Go direct, stay constructive. “The last two deliverables felt rushed and we’re concerned about quality” opens a conversation. “Your team clearly doesn’t care” closes one.
Escalate thoughtfully. If you’ve raised issues and nothing changes, escalate. Document the pattern first.
Know when to cut losses. Sometimes the fit is wrong. Continuing a bad engagement is more expensive than ending it. If you’re considering this, have one honest conversation: “Here’s what needs to change. Is that possible?”
Frequently asked questions
How many agencies should I send my RFP to?
Typically three to six. Fewer limits your options. More becomes hard to evaluate and signals a cattle call, which affects response quality. Four to five is usually the sweet spot.
How long should I give agencies to respond?
Two to three weeks is typical for a standard RFP. Four weeks if you’re asking for detailed custom strategy. Less than two weeks signals a fire drill or a decision that’s already made, and the best agencies will often pass.
What if no proposals fit our budget?
That’s useful market feedback. Either your budget expectations need adjusting, your scope needs shrinking, or you need different types of agencies. A good RFP process surfaces this mismatch early.
What if agency questions reveal we’re not ready?
This is a gift. If their questions expose gaps in your thinking, pause and close those gaps. A delayed RFP that leads to a good project beats a rushed one that leads to misalignment.
Can we negotiate after selecting an agency?
Yes, but be reasonable. Scope adjustments and payment terms are fair game. Asking for 40% off after they’ve invested in a proposal is not. If price is a major concern, raise it during the process.
What’s a reasonable payment structure?
Common structures: 50/50 (upfront and launch), or 30/30/40 (upfront, design approval, launch), or monthly retainer against project total. Be wary of 100% upfront, and be fair to agencies who shouldn’t have to float the whole project. Milestone-based payments align incentives.
How do we avoid getting ghosted?
Give reasonable timelines. Be responsive to questions. Signal this is real with a real budget. Agencies ghost RFPs that feel like fishing expeditions. If you’re genuinely ready to hire, say so.
What if stakeholders can’t agree on requirements?
Resolve it before sending the RFP, or acknowledge it openly. “We have differing perspectives on X and would value agency input” is honest and useful. Sending contradictory requirements and hoping the agency figures it out sets everyone up for frustration.
The template
Everything in this guide is in a practical template you can customize. Each section includes guidance on what to include and why it matters.
Download:
GOOGLE DOC TEMPLATE WORD VERSION.
No email required. No gated PDF. Just a useful tool that we hope makes your process easier.
If you use it and find it helpful, we’d love to hear how it went. And if you’re evaluating agencies and want a conversation about your specific situation, we’re happy to help you think through it, even if we’re not the right fit.
