What to prepare before talking to a web agency — so you don't waste the meeting
It’s 10:47 AM and the Teams call is already running late. Ana is staring at her notes, half-proud she even found time to make them, half-worried they’re all wrong. Her boss had said, “Just get us a quote for the new website. How hard can it be?” The agency’s project manager appears on the call, cheerful, asking, “So, what’s the scope?” Ana freezes. Scope? She has a rough list—“better design”, “faster”, “contact form”—but nothing that feels like an answer. The next thirty minutes are a blur of polite nods and not-so-polite confusion. She leaves the meeting with a vague promise of a proposal and a sinking feeling she’s just wasted everyone’s time. If you’ve ever been in Ana’s seat, you’ll know the script. You’re tasked with “finding a web agency”, but nobody tells you what to prepare. You book meetings, you say words like “modern” and “mobile-friendly”, and you hope the agency will magically fill in the blanks. But after working on 100+ digital projects, I can tell you: the first meeting is where most projects go sideways. Not because of bad intentions, but because both sides are guessing. And that’s how you end up with proposals that don’t match what you need—or budgets that explode three months in. Why the Brief is Everything (and Why Most Are Useless) Here’s what we see across projects: the brief you send to the agency is your one shot at getting a useful answer. If it’s vague, you’ll get a vague proposal. If it’s overly detailed but misses the essentials—actual business goals, real user needs—the agency will spend half its time guessing and the other half correcting. We’ve received briefs that are a single sentence (“We need a new website, ASAP”), and others that are 20-page PDFs with wireframes, mood boards, and three-year roadmaps—without a single mention of what the business actually does. Both extremes have the same outcome: after the kickoff call, everyone is still confused. The best briefs aren’t the longest. They’re the ones that answer a handful of practical questions—enough to let an agency give you an honest, tailored proposal. Here’s what actually helps: What’s the problem you’re solving? (“Customers can’t find our products on mobile.”) What does success look like? (“20% more online orders in six months.”) Who will use the website or app? (Be specific—“parents booking appointments”, “wholesalers”, etc.) What are the must-have features? (Not “blog”—but “integrate with our ERP”, “multi-language support”, “appointment booking with calendar sync”.) What’s your real deadline—and why? (Is there an event, a product launch, or just “as soon as possible”?) Questions to Ask Before You Sit Down With an Agency There’s a moment in almost every first meeting where someone says: “Do you have any questions for us?” This is your cue. Agencies can (and should) ask you about your business, your customers, your old site’s headaches. But you need to be ready to ask them things that matter, too. From working with 100+ clients, here are the questions that actually move the conversation forward: How do you approach projects like ours? (Listen for a real process, not buzzwords.) What’s your handover like? (Will you be able to update content yourself, or will you pay for every small change?) Who will I be working with day-to-day? (A project manager, or will you be lost in a ticketing system?) Can I see similar projects you’ve delivered? (If they hesitate, that’s a red flag.) One client put it bluntly on a call: “We’ve been live for 6 months and nobody calls. Where did we go wrong?” The answer, almost always, is in the questions that never got asked at the start. Reading Proposals: What’s Real and What’s Fluff Let’s say you survived the first meeting and the agency sends you a proposal. Most look impressive—lots of pages, fancy diagrams, estimated hours. But here’s what actually matters, and what should set off alarms: Clear deliverables — Not “modern website”, but “custom Shopify store with payment integration and product filtering”. Timeline with real milestones — If the entire project is one 12-week block, expect delays. Look for breakdowns: design, development, feedback, launch. Assumptions and exclusions — If “content provided by client” is buried in fine print, you’ll be scrambling later. Ask what’s not included. Post-launch support — Will the agency disappear after go-live, or do they offer training, bug fixes, and updates? A proposal should make you feel informed, not overwhelmed. If it’s all buzzwords and no clarity, don’t be afraid to push back. (And if the price is suspiciously low, ask which corners are being cut. In web development, you always pay for them later.) What Timelines and Budgets Look Like—For Real Here’s another pattern: clients expect a simple company website to be live in a month, and a fully-featured online store to cost less than a long weekend at the seaside. I get it—nobody wants to overspend. But after 30+ online stores and 20+ mobile apps, here’s what’s realistic for most projects: A small business website (5-10 pages, no integrations): 4-8 weeks from kickoff to launch, assuming content is ready. Budget: €3,000–€6,000. An online store (Shopify, WooCommerce, custom design, payment gateway): 8–14 weeks. Budget: €6,000–€18,000, depending on features and catalogue size. A custom web or mobile app (user accounts, dashboards, integrations): 12–24 weeks. Budget: starts at €18,000 and scales with complexity. There are always exceptions—rush jobs, or projects that get stuck in feedback loops. But if you hear, “Sure, we’ll build your store in two weeks for €1,500”—ask how many corners they’re cutting. The answer is usually “all of them”. A Real Example: When Preparation Saves the Project We once worked with a Slovenian retailer who came prepared—not with a wall of slides, but with three simple documents: a list of business goals, a spreadsheet of products (with messy data, but at least it existed), and a clear timeline driven by a planned marketing push. The project ran smoother than most—not because
