How long should answers to a website RFP be?
Most questions need a hard limit between 250 and 500 words. The agencies that fit a 500-word answer into 200 are usually the ones who know the answer.
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The RFP is the work
Specific questions with hard word limits, and the firm's own discovery attached. A good RFP has forty to fifty questions across company, account management, technical, SEO, accessibility, security, costs and timeline, most limited to between 250 and 500 words. It carries an appendix of personas, journeys and the content matrix, a confidentiality clause with teeth, dated deliverables, and a cost structure broken into licence, hosting, build and maintenance. It filters for agencies that read the brief and can show the work.
Why is the RFP more than the final step?
Because it is the centrepiece of discovery. Most marketing leads I meet treat it as the formality after discovery is done. It is the document that proves the firm knows what it wants: the audit, personas, journeys and CMS evaluation all feed into it, and the pitches, selection and contract all depend on how well it is written. A good RFP changes who responds, and a great one changes how they respond.
What goes in a good RFP?
Forty to fifty questions in sections, each with a hard word limit, most between 250 and 500 words, with the hardest questions allowed more. Make them specific: "describe your project management approach" is a sales question, while "describe how you would manage our internal team and their external suppliers to meet the deadlines, with examples from past projects of similar scale" is a delivery question. Attach the firm's discovery work, personas, journeys, content matrix, site map, measurement framework and, if you are willing, the competitor audit. Add a confidentiality clause that requires written confirmation of deletion when an agency withdraws. Set dates rather than seasons: specific weeks and deliverables, not "Q3 2025" or "summer". And break the price into licence, hosting, build, maintenance, training, documentation and travel, because agencies that lump them together are hoping you will not look.
Which agencies does a good RFP filter out?
The ones that will not deliver. A surprising number of responses reference a different firm or sector, or are a generic capabilities pitch, which shows the brief was not read. Good agencies answer in fewer words than the limit, and the ones that fit a 500-word answer into 200 usually know the answer. They push back on the parts of the brief that genuinely contradict each other. And they demonstrate the work with three case studies of similar scale, named clients, outcomes and limitations; agencies that say every case study is under NDA usually do not have them in the form described.
What does not predict delivery?
The cheapest price, the newest CMS, the flashiest deck, or the managing director flying up for the introductory call. What does correlate with delivery is a clear, well-written response, an honest answer on the timeline, a named project manager from week one, and references you can pick up the phone to. A thin RFP gets thin responses, and a sharp one gets sharp responses.
Related evidence: Six months. One defendable brief. A website worth pricing properly.. Earlier in this journey: Why your CMS choice matters less than your agency choice.
Questions people ask
Why include the firm's own discovery in an RFP?
Because agencies that respond well to the personas, journeys and content matrix tend to deliver well, while those that ignore it tend to want to redo discovery on your budget.
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