The quote should define the result and scope
- Objective: the problem, audience and intended outcome.
- Deliverables: the pages, workflows, platforms, functionality and outputs included.
- Assumptions: volumes, users, data, integrations and conditions used to estimate.
- Exclusions: work, services and costs outside the figure.
- Acceptance: how both parties decide that an agreed deliverable is complete.
Feature names alone are weak scope. “CRM integration”, for example, should identify the systems, direction, fields, trigger and responsibility for failures.
It should allocate responsibilities
| Area | What the quote should clarify |
|---|---|
| Discovery and decisions | Who provides subject knowledge, attends reviews and has authority to approve. |
| Content and assets | Who researches, writes, supplies, enters and approves copy, data, photography and legal information. |
| Design | What is bespoke or templated, which states and devices are covered, and how revisions work. |
| Development | Included platforms, functionality, administration, integrations and technical assumptions. |
| Testing | Supplier checks, customer acceptance, test data, browsers, devices and issue handling. |
| Migration and launch | Data preparation, redirects, accounts, deployment, training, rollback and post-launch checks. |
It should explain price, change and timing
- Total price and whether VAT applies.
- Payment milestones, deposits and invoice terms.
- Whether work is fixed-price, time-based, retained or a mixture.
- How revisions and change requests are assessed and approved.
- Delivery stages, dependencies and customer review time.
- What can change the estimate or target date.
- How long the quotation remains valid.
A fixed price can be useful where scope is sufficiently clear. It cannot make unknown requirements disappear; the quote should show how discovery and change are handled.
It should cover ownership, data and third parties
- Ownership or licence for design, source code, content and commissioned assets.
- Repository, domain, hosting, app-store and service-account control.
- Data ownership, location, export, retention and deletion arrangements.
- Named plugins, APIs, licences and external providers.
- Recurring, per-user, transaction and usage charges.
- Exit assistance and what can transfer to another capable supplier.
Ownership does not mean the supplier must assign every reusable library. It means the agreement clearly states what you receive, what is licensed and what remains dependent on another provider.
It should state what happens after launch
- Defect or warranty arrangements and their duration.
- Hosting, backups, monitoring and maintenance responsibilities.
- Support channels, hours, priorities and charging model.
- Documentation, training and operational handover.
- Future development and change process.
Use the guide to ongoing digital-project costs to find charges outside the build. For supplier-specific questions, see questions to ask an app developer and questions to ask a website developer.
Compare figures with the existing guides to app development cost and business website cost, then review Probeck’s Pricing approach where relevant.