Website RFP Template: How to brief a Digital Agency

A website RFP is not just a procurement document. It is the first strategic decision in the project. This guide is designed for marketing, digital, IT and leadership teams preparing for a serious website design and development project, including website rebuilds, CMS migrations, eCommerce platforms, digital experience projects and integration-heavy websites.

The best website RFPs do not prescribe every answer. They create enough clarity for a strong agency to ask better questions, identify risks and recommend the right approach.

The quality of the brief directly affects the quality of the thinking, recommendations, pricing and delivery model you receive from potential agency partners. A vague RFP usually leads to vague proposals. A well-structured RFP helps agencies understand the business problem, assess the technical risk and recommend a path that is commercially realistic.

What is a website RFP?

A website RFP, request for proposal or website brief is a document used to brief potential agency partners on a website or digital platform project.

It typically outlines the organisation's current situation, project goals, audience needs, technical requirements, expected scope, budget, timeline and selection criteria.

A good RFP helps agencies understand what needs to change and why. It gives them the information required to recommend an approach, estimate effort, identify risks and explain how they would deliver the project.

It does not need to answer every question. In fact, the strongest RFPs leave room for strategic, creative and technical thinking. They define the problem clearly, but do not over-prescribe the solution before the right digital agency partner has had the chance to investigate it properly.

Download the Website RFP Template

Planning a website rebuild, CMS migration or digital platform project? 

Use this template to brief agencies clearly, compare proposals fairly and reduce project risk before work begins. [Download the PDF template]

When should you use a website RFP?

An RFP is most useful when the project has enough scale, complexity or organisational importance to require a formal evaluation process.

You may need a website RFP if you are planning:

• A major website rebuild
• A CMS migration
• A new enterprise website
• An eCommerce website or platform upgrade
• A customer portal, member portal or digital product
• A multi-site or multi-brand platform
• A website redesign with SEO risk
• A project involving CRM, ERP, payment, booking or marketing automation integrations
• A digital platform replacement
• A project that requires input from marketing, IT, procurement, legal and senior leadership

For smaller websites or clearly defined tasks, a lighter brief may be enough. But for strategic website projects, a well-written RFP helps reduce ambiguity and gives agencies the context they need to respond properly.

What a good website RFP should achieve

A good RFP should help agencies understand the project from multiple angles, not just the list of features.

The goal is not to make every agency response identical. The goal is to give each agency the same foundation, then assess how they think.

A strong RFP should help you compare thinking, not just compare prices.

What to include in a website RFP

A strong website RFP should include enough detail for agencies to understand the opportunity, assess the risk and recommend an appropriate delivery model.

1. Organisation overview

Start with a clear summary of your organisation. Include what you do, who you serve, the markets you operate in and any important business context.

This section helps agencies understand the broader environment around the project. A website for a health provider, university, SaaS business, retailer, manufacturer or not-for-profit will have very different needs, even if the requested functionality appears similar on the surface.

Include:

• Organisation name
• Current website URL
• Industry or sector
• Locations or markets served
• Main products, services, programmes or business units
• Key audiences
• Internal stakeholders involved in the project

2. Project background

Explain why the project is happening now.

This is one of the most important sections of the RFP because it helps agencies understand the pressure behind the project. A website rebuild driven by brand repositioning is different to one driven by technical risk, poor conversion, declining SEO performance, content governance problems or a change in business strategy.

Include:

• What has changed in the organisation
• What is not working with the current website
• What risks or opportunities have triggered the project
• What has already been discussed internally
• Any prior research, strategy, analytics or user feedback

3. Project objectives

Your objectives should explain what the project needs to achieve, not just what needs to be built.

For example, “new website” is not an objective. Better objectives might include improving lead quality, supporting a new brand position, increasing self-service, improving content management, protecting organic search performance, reducing manual processes or consolidating multiple websites.

Include:

• Primary business objectives
• Marketing objectives
• User experience objectives
• Technical objectives
• Operational objectives
• How success will be measured after launch

4. Audience and user needs

A website should be designed around the people who use it. A good RFP should explain who those users are, what they need and what journeys matter most. For more complex organisations, this may include external audiences as well as internal users who manage the website day to day.

Include:

• Primary audiences
• Secondary audiences
• Key user journeys
• Common user pain points
• Conversion points or key actions
• Internal content, marketing, sales, support or operations users

5. Current website and technical environment

The current technical environment has a major impact on project cost, risk and delivery.

Agencies need to understand what platform you are using, where the site is hosted, what systems are connected and what technical constraints exist. This is especially important for CMS migrations, eCommerce projects, customer portals and websites with third-party integrations.

Include:

• Current CMS or platform
• Hosting provider
• Analytics and reporting tools
• CRM, ERP or marketing automation systems
• Search tools
• Payment systems
• Booking systems
• Third-party integrations
• Known performance, security or accessibility issues
• Known SEO issues
• Any internal technical constraints or preferences

6. Scope of work

Be clear about what you expect the agency to provide.

Some organisations need an agency to manage the full process from discovery through to design, development, launch and support. Others may already have brand strategy, content, UX research or internal technical teams in place.

Include any required services such as:

• Discovery and digital strategy
• User research
• Information architecture
• UX design
• UI design
• Website development
• CMS implementation
• eCommerce
• CRM, ERP or third-party integrations
• Content strategy
• Copywriting
• Content migration
• SEO migration
• Accessibility testing
• Hosting
• Support and maintenance
• Analytics and reporting
• Training and documentation

Also explain what is out of scope, if known. This helps avoid incorrect assumptions.

7. Functional requirements

Functional requirements describe what the website or platform needs to do.

This section does not need to specify every technical detail, but it should identify the major features, workflows and integrations that may affect the project.

Include requirements such as:

• Forms
• Advanced search
• Filtering
• Resource libraries
• Product catalogues
• eCommerce checkout
• Member login
• Customer portals
• Dashboards
• Booking systems
• Event listings
• Location finders
• API integrations
• Multi-site management
• Multilingual content
• Custom workflows
• Calculators or quoting tools

It is also useful to separate launch-critical features from future-phase features. This helps agencies recommend a practical roadmap rather than forcing everything into the first release.

8. Content requirements

Content is often one of the biggest risks in a website project.

Many projects run late not because of design or development, but because content is underestimated. A strong RFP should explain the scale of the content, who owns it and whether it needs to be rewritten, restructured or migrated.

Include:

• Approximate number of current pages
• Approximate number of expected pages
• Existing content types
• Content that needs to be migrated
• New content required
• Copywriting requirements
• Image, video or brand asset requirements
• Content approval processes
• Content governance needs
• Multi-department, multi-region or multi-brand content considerations

9. SEO and analytics requirements

If organic search is important to the organisation, SEO should be considered from the beginning of the project.

A website rebuild can improve SEO performance, but it can also damage rankings and traffic if migration is not handled properly. URL changes, content changes, redirects, metadata, structured data, site speed and information architecture all need to be considered.

Include:

• Current organic traffic importance
• Important keywords or rankings to protect
• Existing SEO reports or keyword lists
• Known SEO issues
• Redirect requirements
• URL structure changes
• Metadata requirements
• Structured data requirements
• Analytics and reporting requirements
• GA4, Google Tag Manager or dashboard setup

10. Accessibility, privacy and compliance

Accessibility, privacy and compliance should not be treated as afterthoughts.

If your organisation has specific requirements, include them in the RFP. This allows agencies to estimate properly and recommend an approach that accounts for design, development, testing and governance.

Include:

• Required WCAG level
• Accessibility testing expectations
• Privacy requirements
• Data handling requirements
• Security requirements
• Hosting or data residency requirements
• Legal, regulatory or industry-specific compliance needs
• Internal approval processes

11. Budget and commercial expectations

Many organisations hesitate to include a budget range, but doing so usually leads to better proposals. A realistic budget range helps agencies recommend the right level of solution.

Without budget guidance, agencies have to make assumptions. One agency may propose a lean rebuild, another may propose a full discovery, UX, design, development and support programme. Both may be valid, but they become difficult to compare.

Providing a budget range is not about limiting creativity. It is about helping agencies recommend a solution that is realistic for the business context.

Include:

• Indicative budget range
• Whether the budget is approved or indicative
• Whether discovery, build, hosting, support and ongoing marketing are separate budgets
• Procurement requirements
• Payment terms or commercial constraints

You do not need to disclose every commercial detail, but you should provide enough guidance to avoid proposals that are either undercooked or well beyond your expectations.

12. Timeline and key dates

Timelines should be realistic and should account for internal approvals, content preparation, stakeholder feedback, development, testing and launch planning.

Include:

• RFP issue date
• Deadline for agency questions
• Proposal due date
• Shortlist date
• Presentation or interview date
• Preferred project start date
• Desired launch date
• Fixed campaign, event or compliance deadlines
• Internal approval dependencies

If the launch date is fixed, explain why. Agencies need to know whether the timeline is flexible or immovable.

13. Proposal response requirements

Tell agencies what you want to see in their response. This makes proposals easier to compare and helps avoid responses that are overly generic.

Ask agencies to include:

• Recommended approach
• Project methodology
• Relevant experience
• Proposed team
• Timeline
• Pricing breakdown
• Assumptions
• Exclusions
• Key risks and dependencies
• Hosting and support model
• Case studies
• References, if required

You can also ask agencies to explain what they would recommend doing differently, or where they believe the brief may need further clarification. This is often where the strongest partners stand out.

14. Selection criteria

Clear selection criteria help agencies understand what matters and help your internal team make a better decision.

Common criteria include:

The weighting does not need to be exact, but it should reflect your priorities.

For a complex CMS or platform project, technical capability may carry more weight. For a brand-led website, UX, content and creative quality may be more important. For high-risk migrations, SEO, delivery process and support may need to be weighted more heavily.

Common website RFP mistakes to avoid

A good RFP creates clarity. A poor RFP creates confusion, inconsistent pricing and avoidable risk.

How to compare website proposals fairly

The best proposal is not always the one that says yes to everything. Often, the strongest agency is the one that can explain what matters, what needs further investigation and where the project needs clearer definition before committing to a final delivery path.

Summary

A strong website RFP gives agencies the right context to think clearly, price responsibly and recommend an approach that matches your business needs.

It should explain where the organisation is today, what needs to change, who the website needs to serve, what systems are involved, what risks need to be managed and how success will be measured.

The goal is not to have every answer before you speak to an agency. The goal is to create enough clarity for a meaningful conversation.

A good RFP should help you:

• Define the business problem
• Explain the current technical environment
• Clarify user and stakeholder needs
• Identify functional, content and integration requirements
• Protect SEO, accessibility and performance outcomes
• Set realistic commercial and timeline expectations
• Compare agency responses fairly

Planning a website rebuild or digital platform project?

Bright Labs helps organisations define, design, build and support high-performing digital platforms. If you are preparing an RFP, we can help you clarify the brief, identify risks and shape a practical path forward before the project begins.

Talk to Bright Labs about your next website project.