TLDR: Stop guessing what to ask new clients. Here are 50 intake questions organized by category — contact info, business background, project scope, expectations, and logistics. You do not need all 50; pick the 10-15 that matter for your service, add a few industry-specific ones, and you will have a questionnaire that feels thorough without scaring clients off.

You know you need to ask new clients questions before starting work. The problem is knowing which questions.

Ask too few and you’re chasing information for weeks. Ask too many and your client ghosts the form entirely. The goal is a questionnaire that feels thorough without feeling like a burden.

Here are 50 intake questions organized by category. You don’t need all 50. Pick the ones that matter for your business and leave the rest behind.

Contact and Basic Information

1. What is your full name?
2. What is your company or organization name?
3. What is your job title or role?
4. What is the best email address to reach you?
5. What is your phone number?
6. What is your preferred method of communication (email, phone, Slack, text)?
7. What time zone are you in?
8. What is your company website URL?

These are table stakes. The one people skip most often is preferred communication method, and it’s the one that prevents the most friction later.

Business Background

9. What industry or niche does your business operate in?
10. How long has your company been in business?
11. How many employees do you have?
12. What is your approximate annual revenue range?
13. What are your primary products or services?
14. Who is your target audience or ideal customer?
15. Who are your top 3 competitors?
16. What makes your business different from competitors?
17. What is your company’s mission or core values statement?

Questions 15 and 16 are underrated. Knowing who your client competes with tells you more about their expectations than almost anything else they’ll share.

Project Scope and Goals

18. What specific service are you hiring us for?
19. What problem are you trying to solve with this engagement?
20. What does a successful outcome look like to you?
21. What specific deliverables do you expect?
22. Are there any examples of work you admire that we should reference?
23. What is your ideal timeline for this project?
24. Is there a hard deadline we need to know about? If so, what is it?
25. What is your budget range for this project?
26. Have you worked with a similar service provider before?
27. If yes, what worked well and what didn’t in that previous engagement?

Question 27 is the most valuable question on this entire list. Clients will tell you exactly how to succeed with them if you ask what failed before. Don’t skip it.

Expectations and Communication

28. Who is the primary point of contact for this project?
29. Are there other stakeholders or decision-makers involved?
30. What is the approval process for deliverables?
31. How often would you like progress updates (daily, weekly, biweekly)?
32. What format do you prefer for updates (email, call, shared dashboard)?
33. Are there any topics or approaches that are off-limits?
34. What does your internal review process look like?
35. What is your preferred turnaround time for feedback?

Question 30 matters more than you think. If you don’t know who has final approval, you’ll end up redoing work after the “real” decision-maker finally weighs in.

Access, Assets, and Logistics

36. Do you have existing brand guidelines we should follow?
37. Can you provide your logo files in vector format (SVG, AI, or EPS)?
38. What fonts and color codes does your brand use?
39. Are there existing accounts, tools, or platforms we’ll need access to?
40. What is your preferred method for sharing passwords and credentials?
41. Do you have existing content, templates, or assets we should review?
42. Is there a shared drive or file system we should use?
43. Do you have any existing analytics or data we should review before starting?

Question 40 is a professionalism signal. Clients notice when you ask for credentials securely instead of requesting them over email. Use a password manager or encrypted sharing tool.

Wrap-Up and Open-Ended

44. What is your preferred start date?
45. Is there anything happening in your business in the next 90 days that could affect this project (launches, holidays, funding rounds)?
46. What would make this engagement a 10 out of 10 for you?
47. Is there anything you’re nervous or uncertain about?
48. How did you hear about us?
49. Is there anything we haven’t asked that you think we should know?
50. Would you like to schedule a kickoff call, or do you prefer to start via email?

Question 47 is uncommon but powerful. Clients rarely volunteer their concerns, but they’ll share them when directly asked. This question surfaces anxieties early so you can address them before they become problems.

How to Use This List

Don’t paste all 50 questions into a Google Form and send it to your next client. Instead:

1. Pick 10-15 questions that are essential for your specific service.
2. Add 3-5 industry-specific questions that aren’t on this list.
3. Organize them into sections so the form flows logically.
4. Test it yourself. Fill it out as if you were the client. If it takes more than 12 minutes, trim it.

Need a pre-built structure to drop these questions into? Grab our client intake form template and customize it with the questions that fit.

If you’re an agency, some of these questions need to be adjusted for multi-stakeholder projects. Our agency intake guide covers what to add and what to cut.

The Right Questions Change Everything

The difference between a smooth project and a painful one often comes down to what you asked on day one. Bad intake leads to bad assumptions, and bad assumptions lead to scope creep, rework, and frustrated clients.

A good questionnaire takes 30 minutes to build and saves you dozens of hours per client. For a full walkthrough of building the process around your questions, read our guide on how to build a client intake process.

OnboardMap lets you build smart intake questionnaires with conditional logic, so each client only sees the questions that apply to them. No more one-size-fits-all forms. Check out our templates and see how it works.