Most people read a quote from the number upwards. That is natural, but the number is the last thing you should look at. Two quotes with different scopes cannot be compared at all, so choosing the cheaper of two documents only works if both describe the same job.
So reverse the order: scope, then exclusions, then what happens afterwards, then the price. Once the first three are clear, comparing prices takes thirty seconds.
1. Scope — what is being built
Scope should read as a list of deliverables. “Website build” is not a scope. How many pages, what each page does, which screen widths the responsive work covers, and who supplies the copy and images — that is a scope.
Quantities matter especially. A line that says “detail pages” might mean three to you and thirty to them. Any item without a number should be queried until it has one.
2. Exclusions — what is not being built
This is the heart of the matter. A quote that lists exclusions is a quote you can trust. Writing exclusions means the supplier has already thought about where this job ends, and it removes the later conversation that begins “I assumed that was included”.
The items people forget are fairly predictable. Take this list into the conversation and ask about each one.
Licences go wrong most often. If nobody has written down who pays the annual renewal on a theme or plugin, you find out in year two when updates have quietly stopped. Licences should be bought under the client’s own account as a matter of course — the next part deals with that at length.
3. Afterwards — what happens once it is delivered
A website is not an object that ends at delivery. WordPress core, themes and plugins keep moving, and a site that stops following them sits exposed to publicly documented issues. Not because WordPress is fragile — it is a well-proven tool — but because any software left unattended ends up there.
So the quote should describe what comes after: how long the defect-fixing period runs, what is and is not covered inside it, and on what terms ongoing maintenance would be available. Part six breaks a maintenance agreement down clause by clause.
Now compare the prices
With those three settled, look at the money — not the headline total but the total normalised to the same scope. If quote A is cheaper but excludes copywriting and data migration, add what those cost you elsewhere before you compare.
Finally, check the payment milestones. What event releases the final payment matters enormously, and a quote whose final milestone reads “on completion” has no definition of completion at all. That is the subject of part four.
For an example of scope and exclusions written out in public, the pricing section of our own optimization program page gives both equal weight. Broader articles on working practice live in the development workflow archive.
Next part
Before you sign anything, there is one thing to settle. It is the item founders regret most often in this entire series: who owns the accounts.