Why Web Designers Should Offer Paid Discovery, and How to Do It
If you’ve never considered offering paid discovery before, I hope by the end of this issue to convince you.
What is Paid Discovery?
In the beginning of a web design project, there is a LOT of information that needs to be gathered to ensure a successful project. We naturally assume this work is done for free as part of normal due diligence.
This work then results in a quote sent to the client. If the client accepts the quote, then and only then do we recoup the time investment spent during the discovery phase.
Perhaps you’ve never considered this before, but you don’t have to accept this reality. Clients don’t even have this expectation unless you give it to them.
Paid discovery simply formalizes the process of discovery that leads to a quote. It treats discovery like a true phase of the project that should fall under paid work.
Yes, Discovery Can (Should?) Be Paid
I would argue that in most cases, “free” discovery is more like “inadequate” discovery. We know the risks of doing discovery for free. Sometimes potential clients drag out the discovery and vendor selection process for months. We wait, wait, and wait some more, hoping we’ll be the eventual pick.
What tends to happen, then, is we do the “minimal viable” discovery. We do the bare minimum needed to give a reasonable quote for the work so we can move into a paid relationship as quickly as possible. This, in turn, leads to scoping issues, client expectation issues, and in severe cases can even foster resentment from one side or the other.
Paid discovery can actually eliminate all these concerns and more.
Why Paid Discovery is the Better Way
With paid discovery, we can flip this entire process on its head. Let’s look at an industry that already uses a form of paid discovery and has normalized the expectation: Auto care.
When you take your vehicle to the dealership (or most mechanics these days), you have no expectation that a free service is going to be performed on your vehicle. Instead, you fully expected to pay a Diagnostic Fee. This fee allows the shop to perform extensive diagnostics on your car, with the goal of not only finding “anything” wrong with the car, but what specifically is wrong with the car and causing the issues you’re experiencing.
Now you may say, “Yeah! And I HATE paying those fees!” But let’s look at the real-world consequences of not paying that fee. The shop can’t spend all day looking at cars for free. Most of the expertise you’re paying for is not simply knowing how to turn a wrench, it’s knowing where to look for that knock, shake, or rattle.
Similarly, clients are not only paying you to design a great website, but to know how you can help get results for their business in an area currently failing them.
Should that expertise be given away for free? Or should it be compensated? I hope the answer is obvious.
Now, the dealer knows you don’t like having to pay this fee. So they have a workaround. The diagnostic is not merely a service performed, it’s a deliverable. There is a tangible asset associated with the service that will allow you to take your findings to any other shop and compare quotes. Yes, there is risk there, but they mitigate this risk with a clever move: If you get the work done at the dealer, this fee disappears. It will be applied to the overall service charge for the work done.
If you take your quote to another shop, you will not get that money refunded, and you will have to pay another shop for the work too.
There is another reason why this works: buyer psychology and the concept of “agreement.” Most decisions happen emotionally and then are justified using logic. The one thing you must avoid is giving any logical reasons to make the client doubt they should do business with you. Getting to a place of agreement is crucial. Simply put, you need an easier “yes” in place. Chances are, if the first thing you are trying to sell costs thousands of dollars and/or requires months of commitment, it’s going to be difficult for someone with no direct prior experience to say yes.
If there is relatively low risk in the initial ask though—say, just a few hundred dollars—they will have a much easier time saying yes. Furthermore, getting a “yes” here automatically makes them more likely to say “yes” down the line.
A 2024 survey indicates that, “Without paid discovery, only 12% average $5,000+ per project; with it, 68% do.” The newest edition of that same survey indicates that agencies who offer paid discovery have an annual revenue 60% higher than those don’t! On average, those agencies made $100,000 more per year.
Finally, there is another hidden benefit to offering paid discovery. It allows you to answer the most annoying (yet entirely reasonable) question that clients ask: “How much does it cost?”
The client wants a price. But you would rather not give them one because you know how much is involved in quoting projects, AND you know that if you state a price right now, you’ve not been given a chance to justify the value.
Paid discovery solves both problems! You can tell them a price right now. And guess what? It’s the only price they are committed to. No gymnastics required. Just state the price and get agreement right there on the call.
By the way, if they say no to paid discovery, they are probably a bad fit client and you’ve saved yourself a ton of headache. Paid discovery is a natural “fit check” filter. The benefits are endless.
Starting to get the itch, yet? Paid discovery seems like such a small thing. And yet, clearly the agencies who offer it are onto something. I think it shows a more professional presentation and commitment to process.
Currently, we use paid discovery for some projects and not others, but I am strongly considering making it a required piece of our process—at least for new web design and marketing projects.
How to Start Offering Paid Discovery in Your Agency
Ok, so I’ve convinced you to take a closer look at this, and you’re wondering how to get started. Go you! Let’s start making you more money and winning you more projects.