CMS RFP Template: WordPress VIP, AEM, Sitecore, Contentful Evaluation (2026)
A content management system RFP that surfaces content-model fit and the real authoring experience, not the platform that demos best. Section-by-section requirements covering content modelling, editorial workflow, delivery architecture, integrations, migration, and the pricing line items vendors will try to bundle past you.
Section 1: Company and content context
Give respondents the context to write a relevant response. The sharper this section, the more comparable the responses you get back.
- Company description in two sentences. Industry, size, geographies.
- Current CMS (if any), why you are replatforming, what is broken.
- Content footprint: number of sites, pages, distinct content types, total assets, languages/locales.
- Author population: how many editors, how technical, which teams (marketing, product, support, legal).
- Delivery targets: website only, or website plus apps, kiosks, email, and other channels.
- Timeline: when you need go-live, who the executive sponsor is, any hard deadlines (rebrand, campaign, contract expiry).
Section 2: Required CMS capabilities
2.1 Content modelling and structure
- Structured content types with typed fields (not just a WYSIWYG blob per page).
- Reusable content blocks / components referenced across multiple pages.
- Relationships and references between content items (article to author, product to category).
- Content types we need: [list each, with the fields it must carry]
- Versioning and rollback on every content item, with a visible edit history.
- Scheduled publish and unpublish, and embargoed content.
2.2 Authoring and editorial workflow
- In-context or visual preview of content before publish.
- Multi-step editorial workflow (draft, review, approve, publish) with role-based transitions.
- Role and permission model: who can create, edit, approve, publish, and manage users.
- Concurrent editing behaviour: locking or merge, so two editors do not overwrite each other.
- Localisation and translation workflow, including translation-memory or connector support.
- Accessibility support for authored content (alt-text enforcement, heading structure, WCAG 2.2 AA).
2.3 Delivery architecture
- State your outcome (single website / multi-channel) and require the vendor to propose coupled, headless, or hybrid.
- Content delivery API (REST and/or GraphQL) with documented rate limits.
- Preview API or environment matching the production render.
- Hosting model: SaaS, PaaS, or self-hosted; where data is stored (region/residency).
- Performance: CDN, caching model, and typical time-to-first-byte at your traffic profile.
- Uptime SLA and the credit structure when it is missed.
2.4 Integrations required (mandatory in response)
- Digital asset manager: [native / your DAM]
- Analytics: [GA4 / Adobe Analytics]
- Marketing automation or CDP: [your tool]
- Site search: [native / Algolia / Elastic]
- Identity provider for author SSO: [Okta / Microsoft Entra ID / Google Workspace]
- Commerce, if applicable: [your platform]
- For each: require evidence of a recent production customer using the same combination.
2.5 Migration and cutover
- Assumed automation ratio: percentage of content migrated by script versus by hand.
- Redirect-mapping plan to preserve existing URLs and SEO equity.
- Content-freeze window and cutover approach (big-bang or phased).
- Rollback plan if cutover fails.
Section 3: Pricing format required in the response
Mandate this format so quotes are comparable. Marketing pricing pages are not. Ask for the line items; do not accept a single bundled figure.
- Licensing or subscription: by what axis (authors/seats, environments, API calls, bandwidth, records).
- Included limits at the proposed tier (records, locales, environments, API rate) and overage pricing.
- Hosting cost, stated separately if not bundled into the licence.
- Implementation services (or partner cost, if implementation is partner-led), broken out by phase.
- Migration as a separate line item, scoped against the content inventory in Section 1.
- Year-2 and year-3 renewal escalators in contract language.
- Annual TCO at year 1, 3, and 5, including ongoing developer maintenance.
Section 4: Evaluation criteria and scoring
Publish the weights so vendors can prioritise their response. Adjust for whether you are content-led or developer-led.
- Content-model fit and authoring experience: 30%
- Delivery architecture and integration depth with our stack: 20%
- Total cost of ownership year 1-5: 20%
- Migration approach and risk: 15%
- Vendor health (financials, references, platform roadmap): 10%
- Accessibility and localisation support: 5%