Most briefs are too thin or too thick.
Briefs that say "we need compliance training" are too thin — the vendor has to ask twenty questions before they can even estimate. Briefs that include the full content draft, three rounds of stakeholder commentary, and a 40-page corporate style guide are too thick — the vendor has to wade through the noise to find what actually shapes the project. The brief that gets a fast, accurate quote sits in the middle: enough to scope, not so much that the signal is buried.
The seven items below are what we genuinely need from you to quote a project — and what most experienced vendors will need too. Answer them, and you've done the hard part. The rest is conversation.
The seven things
What to include.
01 — The audience.
Who is taking this course, and how many of them? "All staff" tells us less than "around 800 customer service reps, mostly working from contact centres, with a wide age range and varying tech confidence." Audience shape changes everything — tone, depth, examples, accessibility considerations, even the choice of authoring tool. Two sentences here saves five questions later.
02 — The learning outcome.
Finish this sentence: "After this course, the learner can confidently…" That's the outcome. Not "understand", not "be familiar with" — what action does the learner take differently? "After this course, the learner can identify three signs of phishing in an email and report them through the right channel" is a useful outcome. "After this course, learners will have a strong understanding of cyber security" is not. See choosing the right level of detail for more.
03 — The content you have (or don't).
This is the single biggest driver of cost and timeline. There are three honest states:
- You have a script. Sign-off-ready content, written in the voice you want. Cheapest and fastest.
- You have materials. Slide decks, policies, SME interviews, internal documents. We can structure them into a course.
- You have a topic. A subject we need to develop from the ground up, usually with SME interviews and original writing.
Whichever state you're in, say so honestly. "We have a half-finished script and three deck-based modules" is more useful than "we have content" — that one phrase changes the brief from one state to another. See our pricing for how these three states map to our tiers.
04 — The timeline.
When does the course need to be live? Be specific. "Mid-March" is useful; "ASAP" is not. If there's a regulatory deadline, a leadership commitment, or a fixed go-live date, name it. If the timeline is flexible, say that too — flexibility is information. Most eLearning vendors quote differently for rushed work than for projects with breathing room.
05 — The budget (or range).
Most clients are reluctant to share budget, fearing they'll be quoted to it. We disagree. A budget range tells the vendor what's possible and prevents both sides wasting time on misaligned proposals. If you genuinely don't know, say "we don't have a fixed budget — what would something like this typically cost?" That's an honest opener that gets a useful answer. If you do know, share the range. We're transparent about pricing on our own site — we expect the same honesty from clients we quote for.
06 — Technical environment.
Three details, and they're often the things vendors forget to ask: which LMS will host the course (Cornerstone, Moodle, Workday, etc.), what SCORM version you need (1.2, 2004, or xAPI), and any accessibility requirements beyond standard WCAG 2.1 AA. If you don't know the answers, that's also useful — we can advise.
07 — The constraints we won't otherwise see.
Anything that shapes the project but isn't obvious from the topic. Examples: a legal team that must review every word. A brand guideline that prescribes specific fonts. A change in regulation mid-project that we need to plan for. A previous course we're replacing (and what didn't work about it). One paragraph here saves three discovery calls later.
Format
Email or document — both work.
Don't overthink the format. A clear email with seven short sections is fine. A one-page Word document or PDF is fine. A long, formal procurement-style brief works too but doesn't earn you a faster quote. The signal isn't the format — it's the answers to the seven questions.
What we don't need (yet).
Skip these in the initial brief — they slow things down and can usually wait for the kickoff call:
- Full content drafts — useful once we're working together, not for quoting.
- Detailed competitor analyses — interesting context, not project-shaping.
- Long stakeholder commentary — summarise the consensus, skip the disagreements.
- Mood boards or design references — useful at kickoff, not at brief stage.
A good brief is short, specific, and honest. Audience, outcome, content state, timeline, budget, technical environment, hidden constraints. Seven sections, none of them long. Done well, you'll get a fixed-price quote back in 24 hours and we'll start that week. Done badly, you'll spend two weeks in discovery calls before you see a number.