Client intake form template

An intake form has two jobs at once: collect enough to prepare for a first call, and tell you whether that call is worth an hour. Most studio intake forms do the first and skip the second, which is how you end up with a calendar full of conversations that were never going to close.

Ask the easy facts first, the judgment calls later

Name, email, company and website are typed from memory in under twenty seconds. Answering four questions quickly builds momentum, so the two that take real thought (the project description and the budget) sit at six and seven, once somebody has already invested a little. The same ordering logic runs through our form design best practices.

Why the budget question belongs on the form

Budget is the single field that decides whether a lead is a lead. Leaving it for the call means you learn the number after you have spent an hour, sometimes two with prep, and you learn it from someone who now feels awkward saying it out loud. On a form it costs one tap. It also changes how you read everything else: the same brief is a different project at $4,000 and at $40,000, and asking up front is what lets you write a proposal instead of a guess.

The objection is always the same: people will lie, or leave. Some do. But a prospect who will not name a band on an anonymous form was rarely going to name one on a call either, and the ones who answer honestly are the ones worth your afternoon. Watch your completion rate for two weeks before you take the question out on a hunch.

Word it so people can answer it

Never ask for an exact figure. Bands let someone tell the truth without feeling committed, and four is the right number: any more and the choice turns into arithmetic. Start the lowest band at your real minimum rather than at zero, so the answer is useful instead of flattering. Then soften the ask with one line of help text (“a range is fine, it tells us what we can realistically propose”), which reframes the question as something you need in order to help, not a credit check. Say what the bands mean if your pricing is unusual, and never mark the question required if you would rather have a partial brief than none.

What to do with the answers

Sort the responses table by budget band and read the top of the pile first. A brief in your top two bands deserves a reply the same day, with a specific question about the project in it. Bands in the middle get a short qualifying email before you offer a call. The band below your minimum has already been handled by the form, which ends politely and keeps the contact on file. Once a month, export the table as CSV and look at the shape of the demand: if two thirds of the inquiries name the same service and the same band, that is your next productized offer, not a coincidence. More on turning this into a routine in lead capture forms.

Make the upload optional and the timeline soft

The last two content questions should never block a submission. The file upload question takes a brief, a deck or reference images, but plenty of good prospects have nothing to attach yet. A date field for the go-live is a prompt, not a contract. Most people answer it approximately, and that is still enough to tell an urgent project from a someday one.