Web design client onboarding checklist: from yes to kickoff

Why onboarding matters more than the kickoff call

The projects that go wrong rarely go wrong in design. They go wrong because the content arrived six weeks late, nobody could find the domain login, the client’s business partner saw the site for the first time on launch day, or “a few small changes” turned into a second site. A consistent onboarding routine catches those problems while they’re still cheap.

Use the checklist below as a template. Copy it into your project notes and tick it off for every new client.

1. Agreement and payment

Before any work starts:

• A written agreement or proposal the client has accepted, covering scope, timeline, price and what’s not included.
• The number of revision rounds included, and what happens after.
• Who owns the finished site and files once it’s paid for.
• Who pays for ongoing costs: domain, hosting, paid fonts, plugins or services.
• What happens after launch: a support period, a maintenance plan, or a clean handoff. See website maintenance cost for how to think about pricing that.
• A deposit paid, and the payment schedule agreed.

2. Discovery questionnaire

Send a short questionnaire before the kickoff call so the call is spent on decisions, not data entry. Useful questions:

• What does the business do, and who are its customers?
• What should a visitor do on the site? Call, book, buy, enquire, visit?
• What’s wrong with the current site, if there is one?
• Three sites they like, and what they like about each.
• Three competitors, and how they want to be different.
• Which pages they think they need.
• Any deadline that matters, such as a launch event or a season.
• Who makes the final decision, and who else will have opinions.

That last question is the one that saves the most time. Find out early whether there’s a partner, manager or board who needs to approve the work.

3. Kickoff call

On the call:

• Walk through the questionnaire and fill gaps.
• Agree the list of pages and the main goal of each.
• Agree the timeline, with dates for content, first design, revisions and launch.
• Name one person on the client side who gives consolidated feedback.
• Explain how approvals will work (see step 7).

Send a short written summary afterwards. It becomes the reference when questions come up later.

4. Accounts and access

This is where projects most often stall. For each account, find out whether it exists, who owns it, and how you’ll get access:

• Domain registrar: where the domain is registered, and whose name it’s in.
• DNS: where the domain’s settings are managed, if that’s somewhere different.
• Hosting: the current host, or whether a new one is needed.
• The current site: builder, CMS or files, and how to get a copy.
• Email: whether the client’s email uses the same domain, so you don’t break it when changing settings.
• Business listings, social accounts and any booking, shop or form services that need to be linked.
• Analytics or search console accounts, if they have them.

Two rules make this safer for everyone:

• Accounts stay in the client’s name. The domain and hosting should belong to the business, not to you. It protects them, and it protects you from being the person who holds their website hostage by accident.
• Ask to be added as a user, not for passwords. Most services let the owner invite another person. If a password has to be shared temporarily, use a password manager’s sharing feature, not email, and ask them to change it afterwards.

5. Content and brand files

Agree who provides what, and by when:

• Logo files, ideally in a vector format, plus any brand colours and fonts.
• Photos, with permission to use them, or a plan and budget for new ones.
• Text for each page, or whether you’re writing it.
• Testimonials, team bios, service lists, prices, opening hours, addresses.
• Legal pages such as a privacy policy, if they’ll provide them.

Set a content deadline and put it in the timeline. Make clear what happens to the launch date if content is late. A shared folder with one subfolder per page keeps files from scattering across email threads.

6. Communication

• One main channel (email, or a shared project space) so decisions aren’t lost in text messages.
• Your working hours and expected reply times.
• A regular update, such as a short weekly note on what’s done and what’s next.
• How to raise something urgent.

7. Reviews and approvals

Decide now how the client will see and approve work:

• Designs and pages shown at a private link, not as screenshots in an email, so they can see them on their own phone.
• Feedback gathered in one place, from the one named person.
• A clear “approved” step for each stage, written down.
• The live site is only changed after approval.

A staging link is ideal for this: the client sees the real site, and nothing is public until they say yes. More in why check a staging version before you publish.

8. Plan the handoff now

Decide at the start what happens at the end:

• Will the client edit the site themselves? If so, what should they be able to change, and should they be able to publish?
• Will you keep looking after it? Then agree a maintenance routine.
• How will you give them access without sharing your own logins?

Our article on handing off a website without giving away your accounts covers this in detail.

How Devdwell fits into onboarding

If the project moves into Devdwell, two onboarding steps get simpler. Approvals: publish to a private staging link and send it to the client, while the live site stays as it is. Access: share that one site with the client by typing their email, as “Can edit” or “Can edit and publish”; they sign in with their own email and password, so no passwords change hands. See sharing and Devdwell for freelancers.

The checklist

Before kickoff:

• Agreement accepted, with scope, revisions and exclusions.
• Ownership and ongoing costs agreed.
• Deposit paid.
• Discovery questionnaire returned.
• Decision-maker named.

At kickoff:

• Pages and goals agreed.
• Timeline with content, design, revision and launch dates.
• One person for consolidated feedback.
• Approval process explained.

Access:

• Domain, DNS and hosting located, in the client’s name.
• Added as a user to each account, no passwords by email.
• Copy of the current site, if there is one.
• Email setup noted before touching domain settings.

Content:

• Logo, colours and fonts received.
• Photos and permissions sorted.
• Page text owner and deadline agreed.
• Shared folder set up.

Ongoing:

• Communication channel and reply times agreed.
• Staging link for reviews.
• Handoff or maintenance plan decided.

Questions