Website brief template

Long enough to be specific and short enough that someone reads it. Two to four pages is usually right for a business website. A brief that runs to twenty pages tends to describe features rather than outcomes, and the important constraints get lost in it.

Yes, or at least a range. Withholding it does not get you a better price; it gets you a proposal scoped against a guess. A stated range lets a studio tell you honestly what is achievable within it, and to say so early if your expectations and budget do not meet.

That is a normal and workable starting point. Describe the problem rather than the solution — what is not working now, what a visitor should be able to do, and what success would look like. A good partner will help shape scope from that; one that needs a finished specification before engaging is not doing discovery.

No, and supplying them can narrow the outcome prematurely. Examples of sites you find effective, and a note on what specifically works about each, are more useful than layouts. That tells a designer about your judgement rather than constraining theirs.

Three is usually enough to compare approaches without the process becoming a full-time job. Send the same brief to each so the responses are genuinely comparable, and ask each what they would exclude — the answers reveal more about scope than the prices do.