By Mehdi HassanWhat should you get from a free web design consultation?
From a free web design consultation you should get a scope, a price and a next step. A good studio uses the 30 minutes to understand what your site has to do for the business, then tells you what it would build, what it would cost and whether it's the right team for the job. If the answer is no, you should still leave knowing more than when you joined.
Many web design consultation calls fail that test. They become a portfolio tour followed by "we'll send a proposal." The difference matters because the first call is your best preview of how the agency thinks. If you're comparing several teams, use the call as the first filter, and treat a paid trial week with a design agency as the deeper test for your shortlist.
What happens on our free 30-minute call?
Our free 30-minute call follows a simple structure, so you know what to expect before you book. It's a working session, not a pitch. We're a small in-house team where one group owns words, design and code, so the call is with people who know how the work gets done.
Minutes | What we cover | What you leave with |
|---|---|---|
0–5 | Your company, your buyer and what the site has to do | A shared one-line goal |
5–15 | Your current site, what's broken, your numbers if you have them | The two or three real problems to fix |
15–22 | Pages, copy, CMS, integrations, platform | A rough scope in pages and features |
22–27 | Which offer fits, and the price | A fixed price or an honest no |
27–30 | Timeline, risks and next step | One clear next step |
Our prices are already public: $8,000 for a website of up to six pages (+$500 per extra page), $6,000 for a landing page, $3,000 for a brand and design sprint, $6,000 a month for a retainer and $1,000 for a trial week. So the call isn't about discovering a number. It's about whether the scope fits one of them and what the timeline looks like, since timelines are scoped on the call.
How should you prepare for a website consultation?
You prepare for a website consultation by bringing your goal, your numbers and your references. A few minutes of prep makes the call far more useful, because the time goes into your problems instead of background questions.
Write the goal in one sentence
For example: "We need the site to turn paid traffic into demo requests" or "Investors should understand the product in 30 seconds."
Pull a few numbers
Monthly visitors, conversion rate on your main action, and leads per month. Rough is fine. No numbers is fine too, just say so.
List the pages you think you need
Home, pricing, product, about, blog. The studio may suggest fewer or more, but it's a starting point.
Collect two or three reference sites
Note what you like about each, in words: the clarity of the pricing page, the tone of the copy, the way the product is shown.
Know your constraints
Budget range, launch date, platform preferences and who approves the decision.
If you want a fuller document, our web design brief template lists everything worth sending before the first call. It's optional, but agencies give sharper answers when they read it in advance.
Free consultation vs paid discovery: which do you need?
A free consultation is enough for most marketing websites and landing pages, where scope can be read from your goals and your current site. Paid discovery makes sense when the project has real unknowns: complex integrations, a large content migration, a product with many user types, or positioning that hasn't been decided yet.
Free consultation | Paid discovery | |
|---|---|---|
Length | About 30 minutes | Days to weeks |
Output | Scope, price range, next step | Written strategy, sitemap, requirements, sometimes wireframes |
Best for | Marketing sites, landing pages, redesigns | Complex builds, migrations, unclear positioning |
Risk | Scope may shift once work starts | You pay before you know if the team fits |
There's a middle option. A paid trial week gives you real work, not just a plan, and tells you whether the team fits. Our post on paid trials vs free spec work explains why good studios charge for tests instead of designing for free.
What are the red flags on an agency discovery call?
The biggest red flag on an agency discovery call is a team that talks more than it asks. If they don't ask about your buyer, your numbers or your sales process, they can't design a site that serves them.
- No price, even a range. Experienced teams can give a range after 30 minutes on a standard marketing site.
- Pressure to sign on the call. A discount that expires tonight protects their pipeline, not your project.
- Nobody who'll do the work. If only sales joins, ask who writes, designs and builds, and whether you can meet them.
- No questions about copy. Copy is where most quotes differ. If nobody asks who writes the words, assume you will.
- Vague next step. "We'll be in touch" means you'll be chasing them.
Questions to ask the agency before the call ends
Who will actually work on my project, and what does each person do? Is copywriting included, or do I need to supply it? Which platform would you build on, and why that one for us? What's not included in the price? How do you handle changes after the design is approved? What happens after launch, and who fixes bugs? Can I see a live site you built, and the design file behind it?
Write the answers down. When you compare agencies later, the differences are usually in these answers, not in the portfolios.
What should happen after the consultation?
After the consultation you should have enough to decide on the next step within a few days. That might be a written proposal confirming the scope and price, a trial week, a decision to wait, or a referral to someone better suited.
If you need sign-off, turn the call notes into a one-page case using our template for how to justify a website budget. If you're still comparing teams, our guide to web design agencies for startups gives you a shortlist by budget, and the website design process shows what each stage should look like once you start.
