When does a website redesign need an RFP?
A request for proposal (RFP) is a written document that describes your current website, what the new one must do, and how you will choose a supplier. Every agency answers the same questions, so you can compare their bids line by line instead of comparing sales pitches.
You need one when the choice has to be defended: a company with a procurement policy, a school board, an association committee, or a subsidiary reporting to a head office. For a small shop owner hiring directly, a short brief and two or three conversations are usually enough. For everyone else, the template below gives seven sections to copy into your own document, plus the Thailand-specific items that generic procurement templates leave out.
The RFP is only the buying step. If you have not yet decided what the redesign should change, read our website redesign guide first, and if the project also involves a new name or logo, the checklist for rebranding your website covers what shifts on the site.
Background and goals
Section 1: background and current site
Describe who you are and what exists today. Bidders price risk, so the more they know, the less they pad.
- Organisation, audiences and the languages they read in (Thai, English, sometimes Chinese or Japanese).
- Current website address, platform (for example WordPress, Wix or a custom system) and who hosts it.
- Approximate page count and which pages bring most visits and enquiries, from your analytics or Search Console.
- Connected tools: booking engine, CRM, LINE Official Account, payment gateway, e-Tax invoice software.
- What is wrong now, in plain words: slow on phones, hard to update, Thai version outdated, forms that lose leads.
Section 2: goals and success measures
List three to five goals and how you will measure each one six months after launch. Good goals are specific: more booking requests from the English site, fewer phone calls asking for opening hours, staff able to publish news without help. Avoid goals that are really designs, such as "modern look", unless you explain the business problem behind them.
Also state what must not change. A hotel may need its booking engine kept; a school may need its admissions page address to stay the same because it is printed on brochures.
Scope, content and SEO
Section 3: scope
This is where bids diverge most, so be exact.
- Pages: a draft sitemap with page types (home, service, article, contact) and an estimated count; our guide to planning a website structure helps you draft it.
- Languages: which pages exist in Thai and English, and who writes each language. "Bilingual" alone means different things to different agencies.
- Features: enquiry forms, booking requests, blog, search, member area, online payments with PromptPay or cards.
- Integrations: anything the site must send data to or read from.
- Migration: how many old pages, posts, products and files move across, and whether the agency or your team moves them.
- Design deliverables: whether you expect wireframes, mockups and prototypes before build, and how many revision rounds.
Section 4: content and SEO protection
A redesign can wipe out years of search traffic if old addresses stop working. Require bidders to explain their method for keeping rankings through a redesign: a full list of current URLs, a redirect map using permanent (301) redirects, keeping titles and useful content on important pages, and checks in Search Console after launch. Google's own guidance on site moves with URL changes describes the redirect step.
Say who supplies new copy and photos. If the agency writes content, ask them to price it separately so bids stay comparable.
Technical, compliance, budget and timeline
Section 5: technical and compliance
- Hosting: whether you keep your current host, want a recommendation, or have a policy on where data is stored. Some groups require servers in a particular country or an approved provider; say so now.
- Security: HTTPS, admin access rules, backups, update responsibility after launch.
- PDPA: Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2562 has been fully in force since 1 June 2022. Ask for cookie consent, a privacy notice and consent wording on forms, and ask who will maintain them.
- Accessibility: if you serve the public or government, name a target such as WCAG 2.2 level AA.
- Tax documents: for online stores, whether orders must produce e-Tax invoices or receipts, and which system issues them.
- Handover: admin accounts in your name, staff training and documentation.
Section 6: budget range and timeline
Give a range. Without one, you receive proposals at wildly different price levels that describe completely different projects. A range lets agencies propose the best work that fits, and tells them where to cut. For reference, our Business package for a site of up to 15 pages in English and Thai starts from THB 30,000, with the final price set in a written quote.
State your ideal launch date and any fixed dates behind it, such as an intake period or a product launch. A typical build with us takes about 15 days from the agreed brief to launch, with content ready at the start; content and approvals set the real pace, so ask each bidder what they need from you and when.
How should you score proposals?
Score every proposal against weights you publish in the RFP itself, so bidders know what matters and your committee keeps a fair record. Ask for prices in a table you supply, broken into design, build, content migration and extras, then weigh approach, team, timeline and support after launch alongside cost, never price alone.
Section 7: proposal format and evaluation
Tell bidders exactly what to send: a short approach, a sitemap response, a fixed-scope price broken into design, build, content migration and extras, a timeline, who will do the work, examples of similar sites, and what support after launch costs. Ask for the price in a table you supply, so no one hides items in paragraphs.
Then publish your scoring weights. Bidders write better proposals when they know what matters, and your committee has a fair record of the decision. The grid below is an example you can adapt; change the weights to suit your priorities.
| Criterion | Example weight | What a strong answer shows |
|---|---|---|
| Understanding of goals | 20% | Restates your goals in its own words and links features to them |
| Scope fit and approach | 20% | Covers every page, language and feature in section 3, with no gaps |
| SEO and migration method | 15% | A redirect map, URL inventory and post-launch checks |
| Relevant examples | 15% | Live sites of a similar type, ideally bilingual |
| Price and value | 20% | Clear line items, stated exclusions, support costs |
| Timeline and team | 10% | Realistic dates tied to your content deadlines |
What mistakes should an RFP avoid?
Most RFPs that produce bids you cannot compare fail in the same few ways.
- Vague scope. "About 20 pages, bilingual" invites one agency to quote Thai copywriting and another to assume you supply it.
- No budget signal. You get a spread of prices for different projects and learn little.
- Asking for free designs. Spec work rewards whoever guesses your taste, not whoever plans the site well. Ask for examples and an approach instead.
- Ignoring the old site. Leaving migration and redirects out of scope is the most expensive omission, because the cost appears after launch as lost traffic.
- Too many recipients. Sending it to fifteen agencies means weaker, generic replies. Four to six serious bidders is a workable number.
- Weighting price alone. The cheapest bid often excludes the work that matters most to you. Our guide on how to choose a web design partner covers what else to weigh.
Before you finalise the document, it is worth reading our small business website tips to sense-check the goals, and our page on web design to see how we would approach the design stage. If you would like us to respond, send your RFP by email or WhatsApp, or ask for a price for your project through the quote form.
Keep reading
Sources
- Google Search Central: Site moves with URL changes
- W3C: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
- PDPC Thailand: Personal Data Protection Committee (PDPA B.E. 2562)
Builds and ranks the websites: the systems behind the 17 client sites whose Search Console numbers we publish. This guide was written by the Website Development Bangkok team. More about us