Avoid website RFP Mistakes: proposal guide for 2026

Whether you’re building a new website or redesigning an existing one, your RFP process is probably broken.

I’ve reviewed hundreds of website RFPs over the years. You know what most of them say?

“We need a modern, user-friendly website that improves user engagement and provides a better user experience.”

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫
Brilliant.
Absolutely bloody brilliant.

What does “better user experience” mean? What does “improve user engagement” mean? How will we know if we’ve achieved it? What are the actual functional requirements? What integrations are needed? What’s the content migration scope?

Your RFP doesn’t answer these questions because you don’t know the answers yet.

And that’s not a criticism, it’s just reality. How could you know the answers when you haven’t done discovery research?

So what happens? You send this wishy-washy RFP to 5-10 agencies. Each agency:

• Interprets your vague requirements through their own lens
• Proposes their preferred technology stack (because that’s what they’re good at)
• Makes completely different assumptions about scope
• Quotes based on their own methodology and process

Then you sit in a room trying to compare these proposals like you’re comparing apples to apples. You’re not. You’re comparing apples to bitten doughnuts.

Agency A quoted $20K because they assumed a template-based approach with minimal custom development. Agency B quoted $150K because they assumed complex integrations and custom functionality. Agency C quoted $80K but their “strategy phase” is actually just design concepting, not real discovery.

And the worse part is that you have no idea what’s what and which agency actually is the best fit for your needs.

So you pick one. Maybe the middle price point, maybe the agency with the prettiest pitch deck – and the project starts. Then, three months in:

“Oh, you need integration with your student information system? That wasn’t in the RFP, so that’s a change request. Add $15K.”

“Oh, you have 2,000 pages of content to migrate, not 200? That changes the timeline and budget significantly.”

“Oh, you need WCAG 2.2 AA compliance with full manual testing? We quoted for automated testing only.”

Scope creep. Budget blowouts. Timeline delays. Finger-pointing about what was “included” in the original scope.

Stop sending website RFP based on guesswork

The fundamental problem is that you’re asking agencies to quote on work that hasn’t been scoped properly.

You wouldn’t ask a builder to quote on building a house without architectural plans. You wouldn’t ask a surgeon to quote on an operation before diagnostic tests. So why are you asking agencies to quote on a website redesign before you actually understand what needs to be built?

The answer is usually: “Because we don’t have budget for discovery work before we know the total project cost.”

I get it. That feels like a chicken-and-egg problem. But it’s actually a false economy.

What you’re doing now:

1. Spend 40+ hours internally writing an RFP based on assumptions
2. Send to 5-10 agencies, who each spend 20+ hours responding
3. Spend another 20 hours reviewing proposals and making a decision
4. Pick an agency, start project
5. Discover actual requirements during the project
6. Spend $20K-$40K on change requests because the original scope was wrong
7. End up with a website that kind of addresses your needs but not really

Total internal time wasted: 60+ hours
Total agency time wasted: 100+ hours across all respondents
Extra cost due to poor scoping: $20K-$40K
Outcome: Mediocre website that doesn’t fully solve your problems

A Digital Discovery Workshop provides RFP clarity

Pay an expert to run proper discovery before you go to RFP.

I know this feels counterintuitive. “Why would I pay for discovery if I’m not sure I’ll work with that agency for the full project?”

Because discovery work has value in itself, regardless of who builds the final website.

Proper discovery gives you:

• Clear functional requirements based on user research, not assumptions
• Accurate scope of work that agencies can quote against consistently
• Prioritised feature list so you can make informed budget trade-offs
• Technical requirements documented by someone who understands the implications
• Content strategy and migration plan with realistic effort estimates
• Success metrics that everyone agrees on before work begins

With this in hand, you can then go to agencies and say: “Here’s exactly what we need. Quote on this specific scope.”

Now you’re comparing apples to apples. You can evaluate based on approach, team capability, and cultural fit, not trying to decode what their vague proposal actually includes.

Digital Discovery Workshop: why we made this a standalone product

This is exactly why we created our Discovery Workshop as a productised service separate from project delivery.

It’s a structured, 2 weeks engagement where we work with your team to:

• Conduct deep analysis of your current data (analytics, focus groups, etc)
• Audit your current website and content
• Define measurable success metrics
• Document functional and technical requirements
• Create prioritised scope of work
• Develop project brief that agencies can quote against accurately

Fixed scope. Fixed timeline. Fixed price.

At the end, you get a comprehensive project brief that you own. You can use it to:

• Run a proper RFP process with 10 agencies if you want
• Negotiate with your preferred agency from a position of knowledge
• Scope the work internally if you have development resources
• Phase the project based on budget constraints with clear priorities

And yes, you can work with us for the full project, or you can work with someone else. The discovery work has value regardless.

(In practice, about 85% of organisations who do discovery with us continue into project delivery, but that’s because by the end of discovery, we all know if we’re a good fit or not. No surprises. No misaligned expectations.)

“But We Don’t Have Budget for a Digital Discovery Workshop”

If you don’t have budget for 2 weeks of discovery work, you probably don’t have budget for a proper website design or redesign ($30K-$150K+).

What you should do:

1. Get budget approval for discovery work specifically
2. Run discovery to understand actual requirements and costs
3. Use discovery outputs to secure budget for full project

This is how large organisations actually approach major projects. They don’t guess at requirements and hope they got the budget right. They invest in understanding the problem before they invest in solving it.

What a website proposal template should look like?

Look, I’ve spent the last 2,000 words telling you why RFPs are fundamentally broken. But I’m realistic, sometimes you have to write one anyway.

Procurement requirements. Board mandates. Organisational policy. I get it.

If you must write an RFP before doing proper discovery, here’s what it must include to get comparable quotes:

1. Defined Success Metrics

Not “improve user engagement”. Actual metrics: “Reduce time to find a publication from 3 minutes to 30 seconds” or “Increase research collaboration enquiries by 40%”.

And you need to make sure it’s clear how users currently reach those metrics. Which channel they come in from? What’s their user personas? What are they currently doing instead of what you want them to do?

If you can’t define metrics, you’re not ready for an RFP.

2. Content migration scope

Not “migrate all content”. Actual scope: “2,847 pages requiring audit, 1,200 to be migrated, 800 to be consolidated, 847 to be archived. Content types include: research publications with custom metadata, staff profiles with publication integration, project pages with data visualisation.”

Include a content inventory spreadsheet. Divide it by content type. Make agencies download it and give agencies context.

3. Integration requirements

Not “CRM integration”. Actual requirements: “Salesforce integration for form submissions (API available, 5,000 monthly form submissions), integration with DSpace repository for publication display (READ only, ~500 publications), integration with university events calendar (iCal feed).”

List every system. Include API documentation links. If you don’t have this information, you need discovery first.

4. Accessibility compliance level

Not “accessible website“. Actual requirement: “WCAG 2.2 AA compliance across all user-facing pages”. If mandatory, specify “manual testing with screen readers required” or “ongoing accessibility monitoring plan required.”

Specify the standard. Specify the testing approach. Specify the acceptance criteria.

5. Technical constraints

Not “modern, fast website”. Actual constraints: “Core Web Vitals: LCP < 2.5s, FID < 100ms, CLS < 0.1 on 4G mobile connection. Hosting on university infrastructure (constraints: X, Y, Z). Browser support: last 2 versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge.”

Include your constraints. Include your hosting environment. Include performance budgets.

6. Timeline & resource allocation

Not “ASAP”. Actual timeline: “Project start: March 2026. Stakeholder availability: 5 hours/week (Communications Director), 10 hours/week (Content team), 3 hours/week (IT). Internal approval process: 2 weeks for design, 1 week for content. Launch target: September, flexible by 4 weeks.”

Be honest about internal capacity. Agencies need this to quote accurately as project will span over several months.

7. Include a budget range

• Filter out agencies who can’t deliver in your range (saves everyone time)
• Get proposals that fit your budget constraints
• Avoid the “this is 3x our budget” conversation after 3 rounds of meetings

Example: “Budget: $80K-$120K, flexible for scope adjustments based on discovery findings.”

We don’t respond to RFPs at all unless a budget have been disclosed.

Related content: Why do you need a budget for your web project?

8. Meet with agencies who request it

Agencies are investing 20+ hours into your proposal, that’s easily $4,500+ of their time at standard rates. The least you can do is give them 30 minutes to ask clarifying questions and understand your requirements properly.

Here’s our policy: we don’t respond to RFPs unless we’ve met with the team at least once beforehand.

Why? Because without that conversation, we’re just guessing at what you actually need. And guessing leads to inaccurate quotes, which leads to the exact problems this entire article is warning you about.

If an agency asks for a brief meeting before submitting their proposal, that’s a good sign, they’re trying to quote accurately, not just throw numbers at a wall and hope they stick.

9. Proposal requirements

Tell agencies exactly what you want to see:

• Proposed approach and methodology
• Team members and their roles (not just “we have designers”, actual people)
• Timeline with key milestones
• Detailed pricing breakdown (not just a total, line items)
• Examples of similar projects (similar complexity, not just similar industry)
• References from clients of similar organisation size

If your RFP doesn’t include all of this, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

And even if it does include all of this, you still should have done discovery first to validate that you’ve defined requirements correctly.

Red flags in agency responses

No you’ve sent out your RFP (despite my advice). Proposals are coming back. Here’s how to spot agencies who didn’t actually read your requirements or are planning to upsell you later:

🚩 No questions during scoping

If an agency doesn’t ask clarifying questions before submitting their proposal, they’re guessing. Good agencies ask 10-20 questions minimum.

Questions like: “You mentioned integration with your CRM: which platform specifically, and what data needs to flow in which direction?” or “Your content inventory shows 2,800 pages: have you determined which are staying vs being consolidated?”

No questions = they didn’t read it properly or they’re just plugging numbers into a template hoping for the best

🚩 Vague “strategy phase” with no deliverables

“Phase 1: Strategy & Discovery (4 weeks, $10K)” with no defined outputs = budget padding.

Ask: What specific deliverables come out of this phase? What decisions will be made? What happens if strategy reveals the project needs to change direction?

Good agencies specify: “Strategy phase delivers: user research synthesis report (12-15 interviews), content strategy document with migration plan, technical requirements specification, project roadmap with prioritised features.”

🚩 Template proposal that could apply to anyone

If the proposal could apply to any organisation (no specific references to YOUR requirements, YOUR content, YOUR users), they sent you their standard template with your organisation name swapped in.

Good proposals reference specific things from your RFP and explain HOW they’d approach YOUR specific challenges. “Your requirement for ROR integration is interesting, we’ve done similar work with Research Data Alliance. Here’s our approach…”

🚩 Pricing that’s suspiciously different from everyone else

If one agency quotes $30K and everyone else quotes $80K-$120K, they’ve either:

• Misunderstood the scope
• Are lowballing to win the work, planning to hit you with change requests
• Are planning a template approach when you need custom development

Don’t automatically pick the cheapest. Ask: “Your quote is significantly lower than others. What’s different about your approach? What’s not included that others may have included?”

🚩 Timeline promises that defy reality

“We can deliver in 12 weeks” when everyone else quotes 20-24 weeks?

Ask: What corners are you cutting? What’s not included? What assumptions are you making about content being ready? What happens if the timeline slips?

Unrealistic timelines are a sign of either inexperience or intentional under-promising to win the work.

🚩 Team members without names or faces

“Our team includes a senior designer, two developers, and a project manager.”

Who are they specifically? What’s their experience? Can I see their portfolios? Can I meet them before signing?

If they won’t commit to specific people, those “senior” resources might not actually exist, or you’ll get whoever’s available when the project starts.

🚩 No risk discussion or contingency planning

Every project has risks. Good agencies identify them upfront and explain how they’ll be managed:

• What if content isn’t ready on time?
• What if stakeholders can’t agree on design direction?
• What if technical integration is more complex than assumed?
• What if user research reveals we’re solving the wrong problem?

If the proposal doesn’t mention risks or contingency plans, they’re either naive or planning to blame you when things go wrong.

🚩Everything sounds amazing with no trade-offs discussed

“We’ll deliver a beautiful, fast, accessible, feature-rich website on time and on budget with zero compromises.”

That’s dreamland.

Every project involves trade-offs. Good agencies are honest about them: “If we prioritise rapid launch, we’ll need to phase some features for post-launch. If we prioritise feature completeness, launch date will need to shift. Here are the options, let’s discuss which aligns with your priorities.”

Agencies who pretend there are no trade-offs are either lying or don’t understand the work.

Are you about to issue an RFP for a website project?

Stop. Ask yourself honestly:

• Have we conducted user research, or are we guessing what users need?
• Have we documented functional requirements in detail, or are we using vague terms like “better UX”?
• Have we scoped content migration effort, or are we hoping it’s not too complex?
• Have we defined measurable success criteria, or are we planning to “see how it goes”?
• Can we honestly compare agency proposals, or will we be comparing incompatible approaches?

If you answered “guessing” or “hoping” to any of these, you’re not ready for an RFP.

You need discovery first.

Ask us about our Digital Discovery Workshop: a fixed-scope, productised service that gives you bulletproof requirements before you commit to a full project.

Or if you’re convinced you’ve done enough internal planning and your RFP is solid, book a 30-minute RFP review call. I’ll tell you honestly if your RFP is ready, or if you’re about to waste everyone’s time. No charge, no obligation, just honest feedback from someone who’s reviewed hundreds of these.

Because watching organisations waste $50K-$100K due to poor scoping it’s frustrating. And watching agencies waste hundreds of hours responding to unfeasible RFPs is just wrong.

Let’s stop the madness.