A good onboarding questionnaire gets you everything you need to start a project without a dozen back-and-forth emails — brand details, goals, logistics, and expectations, all in one form. Send it right after a signed contract to kick off the working relationship on the right foot.
This is a starting point, not legal advice. Contract laws vary by state, province, and country. Have a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction review this template — and adjust the bracketed terms — before you send it to a client or rely on it to protect your business.
Business/brand name:
Website and social media handles:
How would you describe your brand in three words?
Who is your ideal customer/audience?
What are you hoping to achieve with this project?
Is there a specific event, launch date, or deadline this is tied to?
Do you have existing brand assets (logo, colors, fonts, past work) to share?
Are there any examples of work you love — from us or elsewhere — that you'd like us to reference?
Best contact method and preferred response time:
Who is the primary decision-maker for approvals?
Are there other vendors or team members we'll be coordinating with?
Any locations, access requirements, or scheduling constraints we should know about?
What does success look like for this project?
Is there anything from past experiences with other providers you'd like us to do differently?
Any questions or concerns before we get started?
Treat it as a starting point, not a finished legal document. Contract law varies by state, province, and country, and this template cannot account for every situation. Fill in the bracketed terms, then have a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction review it before you send it to a client or rely on it to protect your business.
Immediately after the contract is signed and deposit is paid — sending it before signing can feel presumptuous, and sending it too late delays your ability to start planning the actual work.
Long enough to gather what you actually need to start, short enough that clients finish it in one sitting — 10-15 questions across a few categories (business context, project goals, logistics) is a good target for most creative service businesses.
The core structure (business context, goals, logistics, expectations) works broadly, but you should swap in service-specific questions — a photographer might ask about shot lists, while a social media manager asks about existing content pillars.
Load this template into SupaBook and send it from the same place as this client's contracts, proposals, and invoices — one client record instead of scattered files. Plans start at $15/mo.
Canonical page: Client Onboarding Questionnaire Template (Free) canonical page