22 Questions to Ask Before You Quote a Build

The most expensive thing in any project is the feature nobody uses. Not the hard one, not the one that ran over. The one that got built, shipped, demoed, and then sat there while the team carried on using the spreadsheet.

Every one of those started as a line on a brief that nobody questioned. It was on the list, so it got quoted, so it got built.

This PDF is the set of questions I ask before a number goes out. Most of them are a single sentence, the whole set takes under an hour, and each one either produces a real answer or exposes that there isn't one. It is not a discovery workshop and it is not a requirements document. It is the short list that saves you the project you should not have taken.

What's inside

• Four questions that establish whether there is a project at all, starting with what the problem costs today
• The two-part sign-off question, and why the second half ("what would make you call this a failed project?") is the useful half
• How to ask for a budget before you quote, without it turning into a negotiation
• Six questions asked again for every line on the feature list, including the one that kills a feature at no cost to anyone
• The launch or phase two split, done line by line, and why deferring works when cutting doesn't
• The integration, content, data, and language questions that cost a conversation now and a rewrite later
• Two questions about what happens after you leave, which is what separates a system from a demo
• The dud answer for every question, so you know the moment a question has failed
• A printable 22-point checklist to run before any quote goes out

Who it's for

Developers, freelancers, and agency leads who quote client work. It also reads well from the other side: if you are the one paying for a build, these are the questions you should be able to answer before anyone sends you a number.

No process background needed. Every question comes with what it is for, why it matters, and how to ask it without sounding like you are reading off a form.

Get the PDF

Drop your name and email above and the checklist is yours. It is a clean, printable PDF. Keep it next to the proposal template and run it before the quote goes out.