Client intake form

What is a client intake form?

A client intake form is how a studio, agency, or freelancer takes in new project inquiries. A prospect describes what they need, what kind of project it is, and roughly what they can spend, and you get a qualified brief you can scope, prioritize, and either book or politely pass on. It is the front door to your pipeline.

The point of an intake form is to do your qualifying before the first call. A good one tells you at a glance whether an inquiry is a fit, so you spend your calls on the projects worth having and reply to the rest with a quick, kind no. That saves the most valuable thing a small shop has: time.

When to use it

Reach for a client intake form when you take on project work and want to filter inquiries before investing in a conversation. Design studios, dev shops, marketing agencies, consultants, and independent creators all live and die by the quality of what comes through this form.

It fits the “Work with us” or “Start a project” page, the call to action at the end of a portfolio, and the link in a proposal follow-up. Anywhere a prospect might describe a project, this form captures it in a shape you can actually act on, instead of a vague email that forces three rounds of clarifying questions.

What to include

This template collects exactly what you need to scope a project. Name and email are required so you can reach the prospect; company is optional, since not every client is a business. Project type is a required select with Website, Branding, Marketing, App, and Other, so every inquiry sorts itself into a bucket you recognize. Budget is a required select too, with Under 5k, 5k to 15k, 15k to 50k, and 50k plus, which is the fastest honest signal of whether an inquiry fits your rates. A “tell us about the project” textarea gives the prospect room to explain the work in their own words.

The two dropdowns are the quiet workhorses here. Because project type and budget are selects rather than free text, you can sort a full inbox at a glance and route the good-fit inquiries fast without reading every message first. That structure is worth protecting; keep the qualifying fields as selects and let the textarea carry the nuance.

Tips for an intake form that qualifies

Let the selects do the sorting. Project type and budget as dropdowns turn a messy inbox into a filterable list, so you can pull the right-fit inquiries to the top and give them your attention first. Reading every message to triage is the slow way; the dropdowns are the fast one.

Route intake to whoever owns new business. Forward inquiries to that inbox with a webhook, and reply-to is set to the prospect, so a single reply starts the conversation and books the call. No copy-pasting email addresses.

Collect enough to scope, not enough to stall. Project type, budget, and a short brief are usually all it takes to decide whether to book a call. Resist adding a long questionnaire up front; the detailed discovery belongs on the call, not in the form that has to convert first.