The quality of the quote you receive depends heavily on the quality of the brief you send. A two-line message gets a vague, padded estimate. A clear one-page brief gets a precise plan. Here is how to prepare, and how to evaluate who you hire.
What to prepare before you reach out
- The problem, in one paragraph. Who has the problem, what they do today, and why that is not good enough.
- Your users. List each type of user (customers, staff, vendors, admins) and what each one needs to do.
- The core workflow. Describe the most important thing a user does, step by step.
- Must-haves versus later. Separate what version 1 needs from what can wait.
- Examples. Links to two or three apps or websites that do something similar, and what you like or dislike about them.
- Constraints. Your budget range, your deadline and the reason for it, and any systems the product must connect to.
- Existing assets. Designs, a current website or app, brand guidelines, or data that needs to be migrated.
Sharing a budget range is not a weakness. It lets a good team propose the best version of your product for that budget instead of guessing.
Questions to ask any development team
- Can you show me something similar you have built, and what was hard about it?
- Who will actually write the code, and will I be able to talk to them directly?
- How often will I see working software? (Weekly demos are a good sign.)
- What exactly is included in the price — design, testing, deployment, app store submission, post-launch fixes?
- Who owns the source code, and where will it be hosted? You should own your code and your accounts.
- What happens after launch? How are bug fixes and changes handled and billed?
Red flags
- A fixed quote given before anyone asks you detailed questions.
- No written scope — just a total price and a deadline.
- No working demo until the very end of the project.
- Source code, hosting or app store accounts held in the agency's name with no handover plan.
- Every answer is “yes, we can do that” with no trade-offs discussed.
How we handle this at Soonlay
Our project form walks you through the questions above in a few minutes, and turns your answers into a draft brief — user roles, core modules, MVP scope and a preliminary estimate. A member of our team reviews every brief before we reply, then we agree a written scope before any build work starts.