Dubsado Templates for Designers: The Forms You Need for a Luxury Client Experience

If you’re a designer using Dubsado, or thinking about it, there are a handful of Dubsado templates for designers that are non-negotiable for a luxury client experience. At minimum, you need a contact form, a booking proposal, a client questionnaire, and a feedback form. These are the backbone of your process, and without them you’re either doing everything manually or letting things fall through the cracks. But there’s one form that most designers aren’t using, and it’s the one that makes Dubsado incredibly powerful for the way designers work specifically.

Designers have a phase in their process that a lot of other service providers don’t: revision rounds. Unlike photographers, for example, there’s often some back-and-forth that happens after you’ve delivered something and before it’s officially done. And if you’re managing that over email right now (which inevitably means chasing down feedback, losing track of which version got approved, wondering if that “looks good!” text actually counts as a sign-off), there’s a better way.

That’s where the Dubsado sub-agreement form comes in (and it’s arguably one of the most important Dubsado templates for designers – but we’ll talk about the rest of the templates you need to).

Before we dive in though, if we haven’t met yet, hey! I’m Colie, a Client Experience Systems Strategist and CRM expert who helps creative service providers build systems that actually work. If you’re ready to stop doing everything manually and build a client experience you’re proud of, the best way to work with me is inside Systems in Session.

Okay, back to Dubsado. 👇

First, The Foundational Dubsado Templates for Designers

Before we get to the form that makes Dubsado a game-changer specifically for designers, let’s make sure the basics are in place.

A contact/inquiry form. This is how potential clients first reach out to you, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. Keep it focused and collect what you actually need (name, email, project type, timeline, budget range) without making them fill out a novel before you’ve even had a conversation.

A proposal/booking form. This goes out once you’re ready to move forward with a lead. It should lay out your service, your pricing, and automatically link to your contract and invoice the moment they accept it. That last part is non-negotiable. The fewer steps between “yes” and signed-and-paid, the better.

A client questionnaire. Sent after they book, this is where you collect all the details you need to actually do the work. For designers, this might include brand values, design preferences, examples of work they love, file formats they need, event details (if you’re a stationery designer), site goals (if you’re a web designer)… you get the idea.

A feedback form after delivery. This is how you close the loop. Ask how the experience felt, what they loved, what could have been smoother. And yes, this is also your opportunity to invite them to leave a public review. Most happy clients won’t do it unless you make it easy and ask directly.

These are the four must-have Dubsado templates for designers. If you don’t have them yet, start there.

How Dubsado Helps Designers With Their Client Experience (Beyond The Basics)

As a client experience strategist who sees behind-the-scenes of all different types of CRMs, the one thing that makes Dubsado a standout for designers is the sub-agreement form. A sub-agreement is a form that lives under an existing project (that is separate from your main contract… think of it as a phase-specific document that can be sent multiple times throughout a project).

For designers, this is exactly what you need for proofing and client approvals.

Instead of emailing a PDF and waiting for a response, or getting a “looks great!” that doesn’t actually constitute approval, you send a sub-agreement. Your client reviews the work, gives their feedback or signs off, and it’s all documented inside the project in Dubsado. That way, you have a clear record of what was approved and when.

This matters more than people realize. When a client comes back six months later saying they don’t remember approving something, you have a paper trail. When you hit round three of revisions and need to reference round one, it’s right there.

Real Ways I See Designers Use These Forms

Inside Systems in Session, I get to see the real-life applications of how designers use these types of agreements to create a better client experience.

Some designers embed the visuals directly into the form. Mori, a stationery designer, does this with her invitation designs (so her clients can see the actual artwork inside the form and submit their feedback or approval without ever leaving Dubsado).

Others link out to the assets externally. Courtney, a website designer, links to the initial designs from inside the sub-agreement so clients can view them at full size, then come back to the form to leave their feedback or sign off on the phase.

Both ways work. The goal here is that the approval is captured formally, not floating in a text thread.

Why Dubsado Is The Best CRM for Designers

There are a lot of CRMs out there, and the right one depends on your business. But if you’re a designer who wants deep customization and forms that actually look like your brand, which is pretty important for your line of work, Dubsado is worth a serious look.

The level of design control it gives you over your forms and proposals is much better than most CRMs out there. And for designers especially, showing up with a polished, on-brand client experience isn’t just nice to have. It’s proof of concept. Your clients are hiring you because of how things look and feel. Your systems need to reflect that.

Ready to Build Out Your Dubsado Templates for Designers

If you want help designing and implementing a client experience in Dubsado that actually fits your business, including setting up your sub-agreement workflow for proofing and approvals, that’s exactly what we do inside Systems in Session.

It’s not a course you work through alone. We build your systems together so that everything gets set up, works the way it should, and actually makes sense for how you work. Sound good?

Learn more about Systems in Session here