Free template · CC0
Project kickoff questionnaire
Fifteen questions that between them prevent most revision rounds. Send it with the kickoff invitation, not after the call — a client who has answered question 12 in writing is a different client on the call.
How to use it. Paste it into your intake form, your portal’s requirements form, or a shared document. Keep the question numbers: they make it easy to say "you answered 6 as X" in a later conversation. Questions 12 to 14 are the ones agencies skip and then wish they had asked, so resist cutting them to make the form shorter.
Business
- Describe your business and what makes it different, in two or three sentences.
- Who are your ideal customers?
- Who are your main competitors? What do you like or dislike about what they do?
Project
- What problem should this project solve?
- What does success look like in 3 months and in 12? Which metrics matter?
- What are the must-haves, and what are the nice-to-haves?
- Are there hard deadlines or launch dates?
- What is the budget range, and are there constraints we should know about?
Brand and style
- Three words that describe your brand.
- Examples you like — and dislike — with the reason for each.
- Existing guidelines, assets or copy we have to use?
Process
- Who gives feedback, and who has final approval?
- Preferred channel and meeting frequency?
- Anything that went wrong with a past vendor that we should avoid?
- Anything else we should know?
Question 10 — the examples they dislike, with reasons — saves more revision rounds than any other question here. Taste is easier to read from rejections than from approvals.
Licence
Released under CC0 1.0. Change it, rebrand it, republish it, charge for the service you deliver with it. Published by the ClientOS team and deliberately tool-agnostic.
The other three templates
Client onboarding checklist
Everything that has to be true before work starts, in the order it has to be true. Most onboarding goes wrong in the gap between "they signed" and "we have what we need" — this list closes it.
Read it →Client communication SOP
One page your account managers can actually follow, so every client gets the same experience whoever is handling them. Adjust the response times to your own SLA before you publish it — the numbers here are a starting point, not a standard.
Read it →Monthly client report
Eight sections, in the order a client reads them. The summary goes first because for many clients it is the only part they read — which is also why sections 5 and 7 have to be in it.
Read it →See it working before you decide anything
The instant demo emails you a login to a live ClientOS — the full agency admin and client portal with sample data. Read-only, so you can click anything. Your login works for 3 days. No call, no card.