A project intake form exists so the kickoff call can start at the second question instead of the first. It takes the scope, the budget band, the deadline and the people involved from the client before anyone has spoken, and it does that well only if it is built as three short steps rather than one long page. This page is the project intake form for an agency, a designer or a freelancer working from their own site: which fields belong on which step, which ones are required, how conditional logic keeps a small project's form short, and how the free request a quote form sheet prints the fields a client sees and the work the form carries a month at your own win rate.
Step one: the client and the project in one line
Name, email, company, and a one-line description of the project, with only the email and the description required. The description is the field the rest of the form branches on, so it is a dropdown of project types with an other option rather than a text box: a website, a brand, a campaign, a retainer. Five fields on the request a quote form sheet's worked example is the base every branch shares, and it is the whole of step one.
Step two: scope, budget band and deadline, by project type
Each project type reveals its own three questions: for a website, the page count, the content's state and the launch date; for a brand, the deliverables, the audience and the deadline. A budget band as a dropdown, not a figure, is asked on every branch, because a band is answered and a figure is skipped. On the sheet that is 8 fields seen of 17 built for four project types, 72 seconds, about 3 a step, which is the shape that gets finished on a phone.
Step three: files, people and what the request is worth
Uploads for the brief and the brand files, the names of the people who will sign off, and a notes box. Then the confirmation, which names who will reply and when. On the sheet 30 requests a month at a $650 average project and a 30% win rate is $19,500 quoted and $5,850 won, or $195 per request, which is the price of a request that arrived and was answered late. Each request is an entry with a status in Shortcodo Pro, from new to proposal sent to won.
Questions people ask about project intake form
Should a project intake form ask for the budget?
As a band, yes. A dropdown of ranges is answered; a blank figure field is skipped or filled with a guess, and the band is enough to route the request.
How is the project intake form different from a quote request form?
In the third step. A quote request ends with the job's details; a project intake adds the files and the people, because the work is longer and the sign-off matters.
Can the kickoff call be booked from the form?
Yes, as a preferred time field on step three and a link on the confirmation. The entry's status moves to call booked when it is.