What is a Web proposal?

[Tags: web design, new media]. There's an interesting forum going on at About.com about what you should put into a website proposal (the design of these forums isn't the best - click on the 'next' icon below the message to see replies). Reply no.4 points to Creative Latitude and their rate calculator (Excel file) - there are also plenty of other helpful documents on their Resources page, including a website briefing questionnaire.

Another useful response goes as follows:

"I'm the head web designer for an action sports ad agency, and I've been doing this for a while. When we do a web proposal, we first put together a site map of the work we propose doing. Then in the proposal itself, we list exactly what work we are doing for them, line by line, with the price for each item (based on hourly, but give a hard price-clients need that) and if there are multiple aspects to each item, list them. This is basically a simple outline and you can put it together in MS Word. Put your grand total at the bottom.

"NEVER do a design comp or mock up without getting your first payment (50% for new clients). If you don't stick hard and fast to that rule, you WILL get screwed sooner or later, especially doing freelance. People had told me that, but I learned the hard way."