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We’re not going to beat around the bush – Writing proposals sucks.
It is boring, tedious work that ultimately could lead to a bunch of time spent for no reason (if you don’t get the job or contract)
For years, Microsoft Word and Powerpoint were the go-to tools for writing proposals. These tools did the trick for basic standard proposal documents that featured some text, headlines, and maybe some bullet points.
Then came Photoshop and InDesign.
These tools allowed you to expand your creativity and design a proposal that actually matched your brand’s identity.
While these tools are still utilized by countless businesses and creative agencies, many have begun looking for a quicker solution to writing and sending proposals.
Ultimately, your goal should be to create something that wins you and/or your company the job, but if you’re like me, you hate sending anything to a current or potential client that looks like shit.
Being able to write up the terms of your proposal and feature it in a design you approve up is only hard enough – having the ability to do these things quickly is where things can get really difficult.
Having to worry about creating a large number of proposals is obviously a good problem to have.
But if you spend too much time on one and fall behind on the others, missing your submission date could be a shitstorm waiting to happen.
In steps in the growing market of proposal software.
While the industry is still relatively small, it is likely to double in size over the next few years.
With that said, there are still plenty of quality proposal management tools available for your testing.
Some factors we took into account during our testing of these tools are things like:
While things like design options and UI design may not matter to most, I won’t even test some tools if their software – or even website for that matter – look like shit.
For me, having a clean, user-friendly interface shows the software is being made by a modern company with the highest potential of making regular updates to their product.
We have tried and tested all of the software listed above. Additionally, we have tested countless other proposal tools, but these are our favorites.
In no particular order is the list in full detail below!
Source: Proposify
Proposify is an online tool that streamlines the proposal writing process.
With Proposify, users can:
The analytics feature allows you to always know the status of your deals.
You can see what sections of the proposal were viewed, how long they were viewed, and more.
It is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses in creative industries such as marketing, design, and advertising.
Proposify aims to break free of the complexity of InDesign, while not compromising quality.
It comes with a fully loaded, easy-to-use editor, so you can efficiently create visually appealing proposals.
Analytics / tracking: Yes
eSignatures: Yes
Invoicing and payment integration: Yes, Stripe
Free trial: Yes, 14-days
Pricing: $25 – $75 / mo
Source: PandaDoc
PandaDoc is another option that enables and enhances the creating, sending, and e-Signing of transactional documents.
It is great for sales and HR, and allows users to create, send, and sign engaging proposals and quotes.
With PandaDoc, you can:
PandaDoc also lets you set up an automated workflow to get internal approvals the right way, and fast.
Analytics / tracking: Yes
eSignatures: Yes
Invoicing and payment integration: Yes, Stripe
Free trial: Yes, 14-days
Key integrations: Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, Dropbox, Google Drive
Pricing: $19 – $39 / mo + enterprise price
Source: Qwilr
Qwilr is here to help you replace boring PDF proposals and quotes with interactive and mobile-friendly web pages.
The software is designed to makes sales and marketing collateral quick and painless.
It comes with user-friendly editing, quoting, and media embedding tools, along with a library of free stock videos and images.
You can check out how clients are interacting with your proposals with detailed analytics like views, geolocation, time tracking, and link tracking.
With Qwilr, users can:
Analytics / tracking: Yes
eSignatures: Yes
Invoicing and payment integration: Yes, Stripe
Free trial: Yes, 14-days
Key integrations: Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, Slack, Quickbooks
Pricing: $25 – $250
Source: Bonsai
Bonsai is designed for freelancers to be able to create, send, and track proposals online, and to overall win more clients.
“You focus on the work you love and we handle the rest.”
Bonsai includes an extremely clean design with an easy-to-follow interface which makes for easy proposal and invoicing management.
If you do any freelancing, whether it’s designing, developing, writing, photography, videographing, or consulting, Bonsai has just what you need.
While it does most of its targeted to freelancers, they also have agency packages.
Bonsai allows you to:
Bonsai remembers your info you input, so when a client accepts a proposal, it auto-drafts a contract.
If a client signs a contract, it auto-generates the invoices.
Analytics / tracking: Yes
eSignatures: Yes
Invoicing and payment integration: Yes, Stripe, PayPal, and Coinbase
Free trial: Yes, 14-days
Pricing: $16 – $24
Source: Proppy
Proppy is designed for freelancers, agencies, and small businesses, so basically everyone can benefit from their services.
Some of the benefits of using Proppy include:
Their template options are impressive.
There are options for mobile apps, WordPress websites, copywriting, book proposals, and Drupal websites.
Analytics / tracking: Yes
eSignatures: Yes
Invoicing and payment integration: Yes, Stripe
Free trial: Yes, 14-days
Pricing: $20 – $100
Another reliable option aimed specifically for freelancers is Prospero.
Prospero is a relatively new proposal managment tool, but they have made quite an impact in the creative industry.
Your proposal will look great on any device, and you can get it done fast, while choosing from a large selection of ready-made texts.
The strength of Prospero is its ability in helping you create a bomb proposal, rather than just letting you design blind.
It will ask you some brief questions such as type of work, personal rate, estimated project completion time, then it generates a proposal based on the information you entered.
From there, you can edit as you see fit.
The design options are limited, but the default settings are more than satisfactory.
Analytics / tracking: No
eSignatures: No
Invoicing and payment integration: No
Free trial: Yes, 21-days
Pricing: $5 – $8
Source: Nusii
Nusii is a trusted proposal creation tool and there’s good reason for it.
Professional templates, open notifications, custom domain, tracking, personal branding, automation, online signatures, you name it, Nusii has it.
There are tons of options in which you can create the most beautiful proposal ever, but you can also save your work to reuse it later.
Key Nusii features include:
Easily create and send formatted documents to clients, so not only are you in the loop, but they are too.
Nusii also has the ability to integrate over 700 online services, including popular ones such as Basecamp, Hubspot, Slack, and Trello.
If the idea of using the software makes your head spin, try their actionable 5-part email course that’ll leave you feeling like a proposal pro.
Or listen to their informative and constantly updated podcasts.
Analytics / tracking: Yes
eSignatures: Yes
Invoicing and payment integration: No
Free trial: Yes, 21-days
Pricing: $29 – $129
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