Website quotes: making them comparable before you choose

Comparing replies is part of the Organisation area: we write the brief sent to suppliers, then compare what each quote covers and what it leaves out.

Why three quotes never look alike

Without a written brief, each supplier answers their own idea of the site. One counts the writing of the content, another assumes you will supply it; one includes hosting, another will bill it every month. Comparing the totals then means comparing different sites.

The approach that works is the other way round: first write a requirements document from your needs, send it to several professionals, look at their work, talk to one or two of their clients in your sector, then compare the proposals.

The law also expects something of the supplier. France’s Court of Cassation restated it on 20 June 2018: in any contract to supply IT, the supplier must find out what its client needs and say whether what it offers meets those needs. A quote written without a single question about your needs should worry you.

What a quote must spell out

A complete quote details the services, the timescales, the costs, the payment terms and the guarantees. For a website, also check that it states:

• the scope: the pages, the features, the tools to connect, and who writes the content;
• the deliverables and the timetable, with a launch date;
• what will be in your name: the domain name, the hosting, the accounts for the services used;
• the assignment of rights in the site, and the handover of the code and documentation;
• what will be billed afterwards: hosting, domain name, maintenance, changes.

The UK government has made this a rule for its own purchasing: its technology contracts must say explicitly who owns the data and the intellectual property, code included.

Assigning the rights needs a line of its own. Under French law, commissioning a creative work does not transfer the copyright in it (Article L111-1 of the Intellectual Property Code), and every right assigned must be listed separately in the contract (Article L131-3). A quote that is silent on this leaves you with a site you can only use as the contract allows.

If the site collects personal data, through a form or customer accounts, whoever hosts or maintains it acts as a processor under the GDPR. The guide published on the subject by the CNIL, France’s data protection authority, sets out what the contract must then define, including the subject and duration of the service, and the nature and purpose of the processing.

On payment, plan a deposit at signature and the balance after launch, once you have checked that every feature works. Between businesses in France, the payment term is in principle 30 days after the service, and it must appear on the invoice as well as in the general terms of sale. Service-public.fr, the French administration’s official site, also points out that a quote binds whoever issued it as soon as you accept it, and only binds you once you sign it.

The items that come back as extras

A vague quote can hide costs nobody announced. First come the ones the brief didn’t name, so no supplier priced them, then everything billed every month once the site is live. The guide on website cost gives the orders of magnitude for those recurring charges.

The problem goes well beyond websites. In the Project Management Institute’s 2018 survey, 52% of the projects completed in the previous twelve months had suffered scope creep, up from 43% five years earlier. US federal procurement applies a simple rule: a firm fixed price suits work whose specifications are reasonably precise. When the extent of the work can’t be estimated in advance, the government may pay for time spent, with a ceiling the contractor exceeds at its own risk.

Questions to ask every supplier

How precise the answers are, how readable the quote is and the questions the supplier asks you already tell you a lot. Ask your own as well, and ask everyone the same ones:

• Who will do the work, and is it the person you are talking to?
• In whose name will the domain name, the hosting and the accounts be registered?
• What do you get back if you stop working together, how fast and at what cost? That’s what a reversibility clause is for.
• What does maintenance include, and can you cancel it?
• Can the price change during the project, and in which cases?
• What are their general terms of sale? The Paris Île-de-France Chamber of Commerce points out that, under French law, a business must send them to any business customer who asks.

Having the quotes reviewed

To judge a quote, you need to know how much work each line stands for. When we compare replies for you, you get a written analysis: what each quote covers, what it leaves out, and a recommendation. We don’t resell licences and we’re not affiliated with any software vendor, so nothing pushes us towards one solution rather than another.

Our own quotes cover deliverables, not days, and they don’t move along the way unless you change the scope.