Website Design RFP Templatefor SaaS Companies (2026)

A website design RFP (request for proposal) is the document a company sends to three or more agencies so their proposals come back in the same shape and can be compared line by line.

You need one when procurement is involved or when someone above you has to approve the budget. If you're a founder talking to one or two studios, a design brief does the job with less paperwork.

Most RFP guides you'll find were written for nonprofits and city governments. This one is for SaaS companies redesigning around a raise or a product that has outgrown its site, and it's written from the agency side of the table.

We're a design studio that receives these documents, and our State of UI/UX Design Agencies 2026 report looked at them from the buyer's side.

The report compares how 57 design agencies quoted one website scope: a 5-page website, copywriting, and a Webflow or Framer build. The agencies were spread across Europe, the Americas and Asia.

That scope was an RFP in everything but name, and the 57 answers show where a loose RFP lets quotes drift.

TL;DR

• Send an RFP when three or more agencies are pitching. For one or two studios, a design brief is enough.
• Use the 13-section template below (or copy it as a Google Doc), and make agencies price design, build, copy, migration and support as separate lines.
• State a budget. The median quote for a 5-page site was $25,000.
• Score proposals against weights you publish in the RFP, and ask to see real conversion work.

What should a website design RFP include?

A website design RFP should cover who you are, why you're redesigning now, what the site has to achieve, what's in and out of scope, the platform, copy, integrations, migration, timeline, budget, and how you'll pick the winner.

In practice that's thirteen sections:

• Company and product: stage, category, who buys.
• Why now: the trigger behind the redesign.
• Goals: each one tied to a metric.
• Audiences: buyer, evaluator and user.
• Pages in scope: and what's explicitly out.
• Platform: and who edits the site after launch.
• Copy: who writes it.
• Integrations: CRM, analytics, scheduling, product data.
• SEO and migration: URL inventory, redirects, metadata.
• Timeline: with any dates that can't move.
• Budget: a range.
• Evaluation criteria: with weights.
• Submission details: format, questions deadline, decision date.

If you're still deciding whether the site needs a full redesign or a refresh, settle that first with our guide to planning a website redesign, because the answer changes almost every section above.

Website redesign RFP template

Prefer to build your own? Copy this table into a doc, fill in the right-hand column, and delete any row that doesn't apply. Put four dates at the top: issued, questions due, proposals due and decision. Filled in, it runs to about three pages.

#	Section	What to write
1	Company and product	What you sell in one sentence, stage and funding, the title of the person who buys, and the current site's URL, platform and page count
2	Why now	The trigger (raise, new segment, pricing change, rebrand, new product) and what the current site gets wrong because of it
3	Goals and metrics	Each goal with the metric it moves, today's number and where that number comes from
4	Audiences	The economic buyer, the technical evaluator and the end user, with what each one needs to see
5	Pages in scope	What's in (homepage, product, pricing, about, industry pages, blog template) and what's out (docs, changelog, help center, the app)
6	Platform and ownership	Webflow, Framer, custom or open to a recommendation, and whether marketing or engineering edits the site after launch
7	Copy	Who writes it, and what exists today (messaging doc, positioning, nothing)
8	Integrations	CRM, analytics, scheduling, forms, product data or embeds
9	SEO and migration	Pages that rank or bring leads today, plus a required URL inventory, 301 map and metadata carried across
10	Timeline	Target launch and any date that can't move (raise announcement, event, launch)
11	Budget	A range, and whether it covers design, build, copy and migration
12	Evaluation	Your criteria and their weights (see the scoring table below)
13	What to send back	An itemized price, the named team, two or three relevant projects, a timeline by phase and the post-launch support model

Once it's filled in, send your RFP to Bricx for a proposal from a studio that designs and builds websites for SaaS companies.

Weak and strong answers to the hardest fields

These five fields decide whether agencies quote the same project. Each strong answer below is modelled on a website we've shipped for a software company, and you can see the finished site in the linked case study.

Field	Weak answer	Strong answer
Why now	"Our site feels dated."	Name the trigger and what it changes. For an AI product creating a new category, like Hobbes, that means a site that explains the category in seconds
Pages in scope	"About ten pages."	List page types: homepage, a page per product module, an about page with a founder note and company film, one page per industry, as on Digit. An information architecture audit of the current site makes this list easier to write
Scope beyond the site	Left out	Anything that carries the brand outside the site, such as a product widget embedded on customers' sites that needs its own design system (Hobbes)
Brand	Unclear	Say whether identity work is in scope, as it was for Billdr and Camb AI, because it changes the timeline more than page count does
Goals	"A site that converts."	One metric per goal, such as visitor-to-lead rate, with today's number as the baseline

What to make agencies price line by line

Ask for an itemized quote with design, build, copy, migration and post-launch support each on its own line, because agencies bundle these differently and a single total hides the difference.

Across the 57 agencies in the report, these were the gaps that made identical briefs come back as different projects:

• Who builds it. 20% of agencies are design-only and won't build anything. Ask "who builds the site?" in the RFP itself.
• In-house or partnered development. 55% of agencies have in-house developers and 45% hand development to an external partner. If it's a partner, ask who owns bugs after the handoff, since you'll be the one managing two companies when something breaks. Our recommendation in the report was an agency that builds in-house.
• Copy. It's a clean 50/50 split between agencies that write copy and agencies that expect you to. Ask whether it's in the price. Most agencies we spoke to had no qualified copywriter on staff, so a freelance copywriter with direct-response experience is often the better hire either way.
• Platform. Webflow led at 65% of agencies, WordPress at 25% and Framer at 10%. State your preference, or ask for a recommendation based on who edits the site after launch. If you're leaning one way, see what a Webflow build or a Framer build involves.
• Post-launch support. 40% default to a monthly retainer or subscription, 35% to time and materials, and 25% to a prepaid bank of hours. Settle this before you sign.

Paste this table into section 13 of the RFP template so every proposal fills in the same rows:

Line item	Included?	Price	Who does it
Design (all pages, all states)
Build on [platform]			In-house / partner
Copywriting
SEO migration and redirects
Post-launch support			Retainer, hourly or hours bank

What budget and timeline should the RFP state?

For a 5-page site with copy and a Webflow or Framer build, the median quote across 57 agencies was $25,000, so a range around that figure is a realistic starting point for a small SaaS marketing site.

Budget

The full spread for that same scope:

Quote range	Share of agencies
Under $10,000	25%
$15,000 to $50,000	58%
Over $50,000	17%

The lowest quote was $1,500 and the highest $120,000, for the same documented scope. Most of that spread was geography: US teams averaged around $150 an hour, European teams around $60 and Asian teams around $35, and nothing on the calls suggested the work improved as the rate climbed. Without a budget in the RFP, agencies guess at the project you want, and you end up comparing proposals for different websites.

Keep in mind these quotes were for five pages. A SaaS site with product, pricing and industry pages is a bigger job, so expect quotes above that median.

Timeline

Timelines spread out too. 21.7% of agencies quoted 1 to 4 weeks, 43.5% quoted 5 to 9 weeks and 34.8% quoted 10 weeks or more. In most cases a long timeline came from the agency's internal process and showed up nowhere in the final work, so ask each one to break its timeline into phases.

Start dates

Start dates matter if you have a fixed launch. 45% of agencies could start within one to two weeks of signing, another 45% needed two to four weeks, and 10% needed a month or more. Build that lead time into your decision date. For a deeper look at what drives the number, see our breakdown of website redesign cost.

How to score website design proposals

Score every proposal against the same weighted criteria, and write them into the RFP before any proposal arrives so the most polished pitch doesn't win by default.

A scoring table you can copy (the weights are a suggestion, adjust them to what matters most to you):

Criterion	Weight	What to look for
Relevant work	25%	Sites for software companies at your stage. Compare them against SaaS websites that convert
The actual team	20%	Named people who will do the work, and how senior they are
Build model	15%	In-house or partnered, and who fixes bugs after launch
Timeline	15%	Phased plan that holds up against the ranges above
Itemized price	15%	Every line in the pricing table filled in
Post-launch model	10%	Support terms you can live with for a year

Every one of the 57 agencies described its sites as "conversion-focused", and most of them meant SEO when they said it. About 80% said they offer conversion rate optimization, so the claim on its own tells you little. Ask each agency to show the conversion work on a past project: what changed, and how they measured it. Our playbook on SaaS conversion rates covers what good evidence looks like.

Payment terms vary as well. About 50% of agencies take an upfront deposit followed by milestone payments. On pricing models, 45% offer time and materials, 35% fixed price and 20% a retainer or subscription. Our advice in the report was to pick fixed price when you know exactly what you want and a retainer when you're still exploring directions.

RFP mistakes that cost you the best agencies

The agencies you most want to hire are the ones with the least time to answer a vague or one-sided RFP, so the biggest mistakes are the ones that make your project look like hard work to win.

Leaving out a budget is the most common one, and it pushes good agencies to either guess or decline. Asking for free spec designs comes a close second, because studios with a full pipeline won't do unpaid work to compete.

When the scope has no success metric, agencies read it as a project where the goalposts will move. A three-day response window suggests the decision is already made, and a forty-page requirements document for a six-page site tells an agency that approvals will take longer than the design.

What happens after you send the RFP

After the RFP goes out, run a short questions window, answer every question to all agencies at once, shortlist about three proposals, hold a call with each team, and decide on the date you published. To see what the work looks like once a contract is signed, here is our own website design process, phase by phase.

Plan for your own time too. Most agencies in the report wouldn't put a hard number on the client's workload, but the most specific estimate was about five hours a week from the main point of contact, more at the start. Every agency named timely feedback as the thing that keeps a project on schedule.

Expect the work to run in Slack and Figma, since 100% of the agencies used both, and over 90% mix daily async updates with one or two scheduled calls a week. If your team works differently, say so in the RFP.

Conclusion

A good website design RFP does one job: it makes every agency quote the same project. It does that by closing the scope lines that each agency would otherwise fill in its own way. Who builds the site, who writes the copy, how migration is handled and what happens after launch are the lines that decide whether proposals can be compared at all.

Fill in the template, attach the pricing table and state a budget. If you'd like a proposal from a studio that designs and builds sites for software companies, send your website design RFP to Bricx. Redesigns start at $25,000, and most marketing sites take five to six weeks.

FAQ

How long should a website RFP be?

Two to five pages is enough for most SaaS redesigns, and the template above fits on about three. Anything longer usually means requirements for features the site doesn't need yet.

How many agencies should get the RFP?

Send it to enough agencies to compare real options but few enough that you can read every proposal properly. If a freelancer is also on the table, read UX agency vs freelancer before you narrow the list. A shortlist of about three for calls is a good target, so start with a handful more than that.

Should you include a budget in a website RFP?

Yes. The same 5-page scope drew quotes from $1,500 to $120,000 across 57 agencies, with a median of $25,000. A stated range is the only way to get proposals for the same project.

What's the difference between an RFP and a design brief?

An RFP is built for comparing three or more agencies formally, with evaluation criteria and deadlines. A design brief describes the project for one team you've already chosen or are close to choosing. Our list of questions to ask a UX design agency covers the calls that come after either one.

Is there a free website RFP template?

Yes. You can copy the website design RFP template in Google Docs for free. It includes all 13 sections, the weighted scoring table and the itemized pricing table, so every agency answers in the same format.

Can I download the RFP template as a PDF or Word file?

Yes. Make your own copy of the Google Doc, then use File > Download and pick PDF or Microsoft Word. Fill it in before you export it, since a blank form gives agencies nothing to quote against.

What is the difference between an RFP and an RFQ?

An RFP (request for proposal) asks agencies how they would approach the project, who would do it and what it would cost. An RFQ (request for quotation) asks only for a price on a scope that's already fixed. A website redesign involves judgement on design, build and migration, so an RFP is the better fit.

Should you send an RFQ or an RFP first?

Send the RFP first. A website scope usually isn't fixed until you've seen how agencies would approach it, and an RFQ only works once it is. If two finalists come back with different scopes, you can ask both to quote the same final scope before you decide.

Is an RFP a contract?

No. An RFP is a request, and nothing in it binds you or the agency. The contract comes after you pick a proposal, usually as a statement of work that fixes the scope, timeline, price and payment terms.

What should an agency's response to a website RFP include?

An itemized price with design, build, copy, migration and support on separate lines, the named team and their roles, two or three relevant projects, a timeline broken into phases and the post-launch support model. Section 13 of the template asks for exactly this, so you can compare responses side by side.

How much does a website RFP cost?

Writing the RFP costs only your team's time, and the template keeps that to a few hours. The project it describes is a different matter: for a 5-page site with copy and a Webflow or Framer build, the median agency quote in our research was $25,000.