Two companies quote for your website and the numbers are thousands apart. Both describe the work in a paragraph, both sound competent, and there is no obvious way to tell which is the better deal. This guide is about the document. The questions to ask about the company behind it are in how to choose who builds your website.

Comparing the numbers will not settle it, because a quote is not really a price. It is a description of how a project will be run, and the price is one line of it. What separates two quotes is what each of them covers, who does which part, and what happens when something changes.

Those three questions are what to read for. To show what each looks like written down, the examples come from our own Web Site Development Agreement, which is published in full on this site so you can check anything below against the source.

First question: what exactly is being built

Look for a written description of the thing itself: which pages, what each one does, and what the website has to be able to do when it is finished.

Ours puts that in two named attachments: a project scope carrying the fees and the schedule, and a specification of the website. What matters is not where it is filed but that it exists somewhere you can hold up when there is a disagreement about what was promised.

Ask: where is the list of what I am buying, and can I read it before I pay anything?

Second question: who does which part

Knowing what is being built raises the next question immediately, which is who is building each piece of it. Projects stall here, and it is easy to leave unwritten.

The words and the pictures. Ours is explicit that the client supplies the content, meaning the text, photographs, video and graphics. If you were expecting somebody else to write the copy or take the photographs, settle that before you sign rather than discovering it in week three.

The schedule, and what it assumes about you. If the client is supplying the content, the date depends on the client. Ours says exactly that: because the schedule depends on the client providing content, feedback and approvals on time, a delay by the client extends the deadline by the same amount.

The approvals. Somebody has to say yes to each piece, and you should know how long you get. Ours gives the client seven days to review each deliverable against the specification, and if it does not meet it, three named options: give us time to revise it, change the specification and adjust the fee, or end the agreement.

Ask: am I writing this, or are you? What about photographs? How long do I have to look at each piece?

Third question: what happens with money and change

The first two questions describe the project as planned. This one covers what it costs as it goes, what a change costs on top, and the point at which the finished website becomes yours.

When you change your mind. Ours handles it through a written change order describing the change, what it does to the schedule and the deliverables, and what it adds to the fee. It is binding only when both parties sign, and it is charged at our current rates, which cannot go above the hourly rate written into the original scope.

That ceiling is the part worth finding in any quote. It caps the hourly rate rather than the size of the job, so a bigger change still costs more. Where extra work is described only as billed at a standard rate, ask what that rate is and whether it is written down anywhere.

When money changes hands. A quote should answer three separate questions here. The first is what is due before work starts, which for us is a 50% deposit, and we are not obliged to begin until it arrives. The second is what is due at each stage after that. The third is what happens if the project ends early, which for us means all fees including the deposit are non-refundable. Read a term like that before signing rather than meeting it during a disagreement.

When the website becomes yours. Ownership comes with a condition attached, and finding what yours is attached to is the job. Ours is attached to payment. Until the website is paid for in full it lives on our own machines and we hold it, so you can see it but not take it. On payment in full you own the website as delivered and can move it anywhere, including away from us. Ownership covers more ground than that one sentence suggests, and what you actually own when your website is finished takes it apart.

Ask: how do changes get priced, what have I paid for at each stage, and at what point does this become mine?

What a quote leaves out

Everything above is about what a quote includes. What it excludes is just as useful, and it is usually further down the page.

Ours names its limits directly. We do not promise the website will work correctly on every device, browser and operating system, and we are not responsible for the results you get from it. What we could owe you if something went badly wrong is capped at the fees you paid, with two carve-outs where that cap does not apply, one for breaking confidentiality and one where either side has agreed to cover the other’s costs.

You do have to know what yours are, and a quote that names no limits has not told you where they are.

Ask: what is explicitly not covered here, and where is that written?

One thing a quote will not tell you is what the website costs to run once it is built, which is covered separately in what it costs to keep a website running.

What you are really comparing

You started with two quotes and a large gap between them. If one answers the questions above and the other gives you a number and a date, you are not comparing two prices for the same thing. You are comparing one project that has been described to you and one that has not.

The second might still be the better deal. You cannot tell yet, and the person who wrote it is the one who can tell you.

If you have a quote in front of you and you are not sure what it covers, e-mail sales@allydrez.com.