10 Important Things to Include in Your Web Design RFP (+Template)
Written by Mate Tagaj
15 min read
Published on Nov 19, 2024
Updated on Nov 19, 2024
Creating a new website or web application is a big investment, especially for an organisation where every euro cent counts. However, it is a massive undertaking that has the potential to supercharge your impact. It can help you reach, engage with and mobilise your supporters. Consequently, it is crucial to not only select an agency or partner who can develop your new website or web application but also to find one who you can trust and build a long-term relationship with. After all, you will most likely need their support further down the road. This is where a well-prepared web design RFP might come in handy.
What is a Web Design RFP or Request for Proposal?
Oftentimes organisations funded by the EU are required to launch a tender or call for proposals to allow fair competition. When it comes to tenders, drafting up accurate, detailed Request for Proposal (RFP) or Terms of Reference (TOR) is essential to articulate what you want to achieve, what exactly needs to be designed and developed, and when it needs to be ready.
This document should include everything that your prospective partner will need to know. Before we review the top 10 most important things to consider for your web design RFP and provide you with a web design RFP template, let’s take a look at the potential scenarios when you might need to launch such a project and how much those can potentially cost.
When is It Time For a Website Redesign?
Your organisation’s website is your main way to make a long-lasting impression, be more visible and deliver more impact. But websites need a refresh from time to time to keep up with the evolving technological developments.
Here are the top 10 reasons your organisation might need a new website:
1. The current site looks old-fashioned or unappealing, failing to reflect your organisation’s professionalism.
2. Your organisation’s brand identity is not accurately reflected in your current site’s design and messaging
3. The user experience is poor due to confusing navigation, slow loading times, or non-responsive layouts.
4. The website isn’t fully optimised for mobile devices, losing engagement from smartphone users.
5. You’ve undergone a rebrand and need the website to match your updated visual identity.
6. You need to add new features. For example, you might want your website to seamlessly integrate with your new CRM or you might want to make your website multilingual.
7. You don’t trust your previous web provider anymore and need a new partner. In such a scenario, your organisation might also consider a facelift for your website.
8. The technology your website is relying on is outdated, leaving you vulnerable to security breaches.
9. Your website might be relying on an outdated Content Management System or an old custom backend which gives you and your team a headache while updating content.
10. You want to improve visibility on search engines by optimising your website’s content and structure for SEO.
When Would Your Organisation Need a Web Application?
In today’s fast-paced digital world, websites aren’t the only thing you may need to develop in collaboration with an agency. Many organisations need functional tools to streamline operations, engage stakeholders, and deliver on complex projects. This is where web (or even mobile) applications come into play. They offer tailored solutions that can significantly enhance both internal processes and external engagement.
Here are the top 5 reasons your organisation might need to develop a web application:
1. You’re leading a new EU-funded project where your communications deliverable includes building a project-specific website or a web app with complex features to visualise complex data on the web or host another type of interactive content.
2. Your team needs to simplify internal workflows, such as automating invoice submissions, and approvals more efficiently.
3. You need a secure members’ portal with custom functionalities such as personalised dashboards, custom news feed, exclusive document access, event registration, and tailored communication tools for your diverse, international member base.
4. You want to level up your annual report with an interactive tool that hosts the content in an engaging digital format.
5. You would like to build a custom e-learning or online capacity-building tool to deliver specialised digital training programs with features like multilingual support, interactive learning modules, certification tracking, gamification or community-building components.
How Much Does a New Website/App or Website Redesign Cost?
That’s a good question, and new website, app or website redesign costs vary greatly depending on your needs.
When developing a new website or web application for your organisation, several key factors can influence the overall cost. These include the complexity of the project, whether it uses a custom design or a pre-built template, the number of pages or features, and the specific functionality required, such as integration with CRM systems or multilingual capabilities. Hosting, maintenance, security, and ongoing updates are also important cost factors.
Additionally, custom functionalities like member portals, or complex web applications often drive up development expenses. Especially if built from scratch to meet specific needs.
Moreover, the technology used (e.g., simple CMS-based sites versus custom-built applications using advanced frameworks), the project timeline, and the need for custom hand-drawn or 3D illustrations, or cutting-edge animations also impact the cost. For international organisations multilingual requirements can also increase complexity. Consider each of these factors carefully when budgeting for a website or web application project.
Cost Breakdown
However, to make it more tangible, refer to the following cost breakdown when you’re planning a new web project:
1. Template-Based Websites (€2,000 – €10,000): This covers websites built on basic templates, showcasing basic information, news, events, documents and maybe some more advanced custom features. These sites have limited customisation and probably use standard CMS platforms like WordPress. They offer easy management but lack more advanced design or functionality.
2. Custom-Built Brand Websites (€10,000 – €20,000+): Custom websites with advanced design, animations, and some complex features are more expensive. These sites may include functionalities such as integrations with CRM systems, dynamic content visualisation, offering greater flexibility and brand customisation.
3. Custom Web Apps Using Advanced Technologies like React, Vue, Laravel, etc. (€20,000 – €80,000+): Complex custom web applications built with frameworks like React, Vue, Angular, or Laravel involve more intricate programming, and are tailored to specific custom functionalities or sophisticated automation systems. While cheaper than native mobile applications and can still be adapted for any device, web apps still require extensive development and a massive investment.
4. Mobile Apps (€30,000 – €100,000+): Developing custom mobile applications for iOS and Android involves a higher investment due to the need for platform-specific development, user interface design, and potentially back-end integration. Mobile apps can include features like push notifications, user authentication, and other advanced capabilities, which enhance user engagement but require more comprehensive planning and execution.
If you’re wondering how much it would cost to design and build your next project, get in touch with us today and we’ll be happy to provide you with a free proposal.
What to Include in Your Web Design RFP?
When organisations launch web design RFPs, it’s often to comply with strict funding rules. We believe that while this process may seem like it levels the playing field, it often falls short of fostering true collaboration. Web design RFPs typically outline the requirements for a project but often miss crucial details or strategic thinking that requires deeper exploration and expertise that a rigid document can’t uncover. A successful partnership thrives on open dialogue, co-creation, and chemistry between teams—none of which are fully captured in a standardised web design RFP.
In fact, the most effective outcomes arise from discovery-driven engagements, where both parties work together to define the problem and solution in real-time. This allows for flexibility, a better understanding of organisational culture, and ensures that the end result aligns with true needs. However, we also understand that some organisations have no choice but to use tendering processes. That’s why we’ve decided to share the top ten key elements to include in your web design RFP to maximise the chances of success.
Your web design RFP should be an extremely detailed document that any agency can pick up to understand your goals and expectations. Here are the top 10 most important sections to include:
1. Organisational details
Start with a brief description of your organisation, who you are, what you do, your vision, mission, values and the difference you hope to make.
2. Project details
Include an introduction about your project or campaign, what you are trying to achieve with it and why you need the website or web application.
Clearly formulate what it is that you need your new website or web application to do. Are you trying to raise awareness, publish project outcomes, visualise complex data or create a unique online tool?
Is there any existing content or previous version to be revamped or do you need your provider to create something new from scratch?
If you already have something online, share how you feel about what you already have. What do you think already works and what do you want to improve or remove?
3. Target audiences & competitors
You should have a good idea about who your target audience is – is it policymakers, researchers, a specific industry or the general public? Who are we creating the new website or web application for?
Answer: who? what? where? when? why do they do what they do? what do they believe in? what motivates them?
Understand what kinds of people they are by gathering demographic and psychographic data, and shape your website’s or web application’s goals around their digital habits and pain points.
Think about also your competitors. Is there anything out there that does what you want your new website or web app to do? Is there anything similar out there that you like? Don’t hesitate to share links to those too.
4. Functionalities & features
Determine a list of features or functionalities for your new website or web app. Do you need blogging or event capabilities? Do you have a preference for a certain CMS (Content Management System) like WordPress or would you need a site custom developed from scratch? Are there any special functionalities that you need to develop, like interactive tools, maps, animated charts & graphs, dynamic features or advanced animations?
Try to think about compatibility requirements or any integrations you might need. Decide on whether you need your new website or web application to be multilingual and think about the components that you want to make customisable in the backend.
Lastly, don’t forget to highlight any areas where you need automation. A clear list of deliverables will allow you to avoid unexpected costs and any unpleasant surprises.
5. Technical requirements
Although you are not expected to get deeply technical here, describe any technical requirements you need.
Think about what are you seeking in terms of hosting, programming languages & frameworks or specific tools you’d like to integrate.
6. Sitemap
We also highly recommend that you outline the structure of your new website or web application with a simple and free tool like Octopus.do. Octopus allows you to easily create a comprehensive sitemap, where you can already lay down a navigation, and all the pages you want your new partner to design and develop for the new platform.
Typically, this will help your new partner define the number of unique page templates to be created, which ultimately determines the cost and timeline of a web design RFP. The more page templates there are, the more time and effort are required to design and develop the website. Defining the exact number of unique page templates helps to ensure that the project stays within scope and budget and that you have a realistic understanding of how long it will take to complete the website.
7. Design & branding
Create a brief written summary of what your brand is about, with details such as your logo, colour palette, typography, iconography, imagery and practical use cases of your brand identity. If you have a comprehensive brand guideline, this is the time to use it. This will help your partner to know a lot about your desired look and feel, what you want your design to achieve and how to stay consistent with your branding in general.
If you don’t have a brand identity manual, it’s fine. You can also just send all this information to your partner separately and they’ll manage to figure things out.
But what if your branding is outdated and you’re considering rebranding? Well, in such a case we highly recommend launching a branding project first or integrating one into the beginning of your web project.
Additionally, don’t forget to also think about the creative assets to be used on this new site or app.
Do you need new imagery or are you picking up existing ones? If you decide to create a new one, who? what? why? and where should be shooting?
Would you like to have custom illustrations or icons designed for your new website? Think about where, what type and approximately how many of those you might need.
Lastly, try to look for examples out there of designs you like. You need to put your ideas onto paper in order to find a partner who can truly understand them.
All these considerations may greatly affect the price and final outcome of your project, so don’t skip your homework here because you can easily run into some serious headaches.
8. Project timeline & budget
Give developers a realistic timescale for when you’d like the project finished, and at least a budget range to inform their proposals and contingency planning.
Make sure you give a realistic deadline and leave some time for edits and troubleshooting. If you propose a timeline which is too tight, you might either
- get quotes which will be too expensive (because delivery within short timeframes is possible but costly), or
- scare potentially great candidates away who cannot or do not want to commit to unreasonable timelines.
Think about milestones and try to find deadlines for both a soft launch and a hard launch. Your hard launch should be your final deadline when everything should be ready (maybe a conference or campaign launch). Your soft launch could be something like a webinar where you’d like to present your new website or web app internally. Planning a soft launch will automatically push you to create a contingency plan and will allow you to still implement some final fixes before your big real lunch date.
At last, keeping your available budget a secret will not help you get cheaper offers. On the contrary, it can lead to misunderstandings about your expectations and result in proposals that either far exceed your budget or undershoot it, compromising on quality or missing key features. By being transparent about your budget, you give agencies the opportunity to propose the best possible solution within your financial constraints, ensuring that both parties are aligned from the start.
9. Evaluation criteria
Explain how you’ll evaluate proposals. Some key factors include:
- Does the proposal demonstrate a clear grasp of your goals, requirements and target audience?
- Does the agency or freelancer have a proven track record of creating successful websites/web applications for organisations like yours?
- How will the developer approach the project? Do they present a clear and organised scope of work and timeline?
- Does the proposed cost align with your budget and do they clearly demonstrate the value they’ll bring to your project?
- How will the provider communicate with you throughout the project and what will your collaboration look like?
10. Contact Details
This final section is where you can list your team members who will be involved in the project together with their contact details. If you’re not ready to share that yet, ensure at least that you assign a main point of contact to whom web design RFP applicants can reach out with questions and to whom they should send their offers.
If you want to dig deeper, you can also include the names and contact details of your colleagues to whom the providers will need to report and who will approve certain stages of the project.
Conclusion (+Free RFP Template)
Creating a new website or web application takes a lot of time and money, so it’s important that you partner with the right agency or freelancers. Your web design RFP is a crucial part of this process.
Make sure the web design RFP document is as clear and concise as possible so that any vendor can understand what you hope to achieve.
If you need more help, copy and adjust our Web Design RFP Template.
If you have any questions or need any support in the process, feel free to get in touch with our team.