How to write a brief a contractor gets on the first read

A good brief isn’t a thick document full of terms — it’s a clearly stated task. The contractor doesn’t need you to know technologies; they need to understand what should come out and why. Here’s a structure that’s enough to start almost any project.

The six blocks of a good brief

• Goal: what the business should gain — “take leads,” “sell online,” “take load off managers.”
• Audience: who uses it and from which device.
• Scenarios: what the person does step by step — “arrived → chose → paid.”
• Examples: 2–3 sites or products you like, with a note on exactly why.
• Constraints: deadlines, budget range, required integrations (payment, CRM).
• Content: what you already have (texts, photos, logo) and what needs to be created.

What you don’t need to do

Don’t try to describe technologies and the “how” — that’s the contractor’s job. Your zone is the “what” and the “why.” If each point above has a couple of clear sentences, you already have a better brief than 80% of incoming requests. Ready-made brief templates for a site, a bot and an app are free in our Tools section.

What this gives you in practice

A clear brief isn’t bureaucracy — it’s insurance for both sides. You get a timeline and budget estimate you can trust, because the contractor counts from specifics, not guesses. And once the project is underway, you can return to this document and check: are we building what we agreed on — or has the scope quietly doubled? Most “you built the wrong thing” conflicts are conflicts of unstated expectations, and they’re resolved right here, on dry land.

Lifehack: write the brief as if you’re explaining the task to a friend outside your field. If the friend gets it, the contractor will too. Jargon doesn’t make a brief more professional — it makes it more vulnerable to misreadings.