How to write a project brief that gets you good offers
The quality of the freelancers who reply to you is set almost entirely by the brief you wrote. Here is what to include, what to leave out, and the four sentences that do most of the work.
A vague brief does not produce vague offers. It produces offers from people who did not read it carefully, because the ones who would have read it carefully could not tell whether the project was serious.
You do not need a specification document. You need four things stated plainly.
1. What the thing is, in one sentence
Not "I need a website." That describes a category, not a job.
"I need a five-page site for a dental clinic, with an appointment request form that emails the receptionist." That is a project. Someone can picture it, price it, and tell you honestly whether they are the right person.
2. What "finished" looks like
This is the single most valuable sentence in any brief, and most briefs do not contain it.
Write down what you expect to receive. Files? Access to a live site? A design in Figma? Source code? Say it. Disputes almost never happen because the work was bad; they happen because two people had different pictures of the finish line.
3. What you already have
Logo, brand colours, copy, photos, an existing site, a domain, hosting, a reference example you like. Each of these changes the price and the timeline, sometimes by a lot. Withholding them does not get you a cheaper quote; it gets you a quote that has to be revised later.
If you have nothing yet, say that too. It is useful information, not an embarrassment.
4. Your constraint
Budget, deadline, or both. People avoid stating a budget because they think it invites being charged the maximum. In practice the opposite happens: without a number, experienced freelancers assume the project is not funded and skip it, and you are left choosing among whoever is least busy.
A range is fine. "Around $400 to $600, needed within three weeks" tells everyone reading whether to reply.
What to leave out
- Long company history. Nobody is choosing whether to work with you based on your founding story.
- Detailed instructions on how to do the work. Say what you want, not which framework to use, unless you genuinely have a technical constraint.
- "Simple", "quick", "should be easy". These words do not lower a price. They signal that the scope has not been thought about, which raises it.
A worked example
I run a small accounting firm in Amman. I need a bilingual site, Arabic and English, five pages, with a contact form and a page listing our services. I have a logo and the text in both languages; I have no photos. I want to be able to edit the text myself afterwards. Budget around $500, and I would like it live within a month.
That is 70 words. It contains the project, the finish line, the assets, and the constraint. A freelancer can quote it accurately without a single clarifying question, which is exactly the point.
If you would rather not write it
Describe the project in your own words on the AI matching page and let the system read it. It will pull out the category, the skills involved and the shape of the work, and put the brief in front of the people who actually match it. You can then refine it with them in the messages.