Table of Contents
Prospero
Prospero allows you to create professional proposals easily, offering a variety of templates to help you craft beautiful documents quickly and efficiently.
Jotform
Jotform offers reliable and customizable forms that you can use to create proposals. These forms can be tailored quickly to suit your clients’ needs, making your process smoother and faster.
HoneyBook
HoneyBook helps you create proposals easily and keeps track of their status until decisions are made. This streamlines your workflow by monitoring acceptance or rejection efficiently.
Better Proposals
Better Proposals is perfect for businesses aiming to receive payments faster without compromising on the quality of their proposals.
Bonsai
Bonsai assists you throughout the entire process of creating, sending, and monitoring proposals that reflect your company’s unique style.
Have you ever missed out on winning a bid simply because your proposal wasn’t as compelling as the others? A well-designed proposal can be what tips the scales in your favor. This is where proposal software becomes invaluable. While tools like payroll, invoicing, and CRM software are essential for managing various aspects of your business, proposal software ranks among the most important tools you can own. In fact, more than half of proposal managers, around 57%, say their main goal is to enhance how they handle proposals over time. When combined with a robust contract management system, proposal software can give your business the competitive edge it needs to secure more contracts. Let’s dive into the top proposal software options available today.
What Are The Top Proposal Software Options?
Here is a list of the leading proposal software designed to help you close more deals efficiently.
1. Prospero
Best Overall Proposal Software
Expert’s Advice
Prospero stands out as the best overall proposal software due to its user-friendly interface and extensive library of proposal templates suitable for various industries. It’s highly recommended for small businesses and startups aiming to create impressive proposals with ease.
Best For
Overall
Pricing
$10 per month
Discount Offer
Get a 20% discount when you pay annually
Special Offer
If you’re looking to create professional proposals, Prospero is the perfect tool for you. It offers a variety of templates and makes it easy to design attractive proposals in no time.
<strong>With the ability to generate proposals up to three times faster than other platforms, along with numerous templates to choose from, Prospero is a powerful solution to help you close more deals.
Impress your clients by designing sleek, professional proposals that showcase your branding, including your logo and color palette, ensuring your documents stand out. You can also add your electronic signature, specify multiple signers, and include contact details for a comprehensive and polished presentation.
Prospero smoothly integrates with popular software such as your CRM, accounting, and invoicing tools, keeping all your important data organized in one place.
Key Features:
- A wide selection of templates for various industries and project types, maintaining a professional look across your proposals.
- Streamlined process for creating proposals rapidly with standardized workflows.
- Pre-built content sections to guide you through each step, ensuring nothing is overlooked.
- Easy customization options, including adding your logo, brand colors, e-signatures, and multiple signers with just a few clicks.
Pricing:
You can try Prospero free for 14 days. After the trial, the subscription costs $10 per month or $8 if billed annually.
2. Jotform
Best for Customizable Proposal Forms
Expert Advice
Jotform can help streamline your proposal process by automating tasks and providing access to a variety of templates, making proposal creation faster and easier.
Jotform offers reliable and powerful forms that help you create professional proposals. You can easily customize these forms to meet your clients’ specific needs. Jotform believes that a well-crafted sales proposal makes a significant difference, which is why they provide numerous templates to choose from. Their intuitive drag-and-drop form builder streamlines the process, enabling you to move swiftly from assembling to delivering high-quality proposals. Plus, they make it simple to monitor submissions and adjust your forms on the fly, with real-time notifications that keep you responsive to client inputs.
Key Features:
- Automate the collection of subscription fees and donations.
- Integrate with other apps and services for a smoother workflow, saving you both time and money.
- Receive instant alerts whenever someone submits a form, allowing prompt actions.
- Create forms quickly using a drag-and-drop interface.
- Develop custom apps without coding to automate tasks and improve efficiency.
Pricing:
There are four main pricing plans:
- Starter: Free
- Bronze: $24 per month
- Silver: $29 per month
- Gold: $79 per month
- Enterprise: Contact their support team for custom enterprise solutions
All plans are billed annually.
3. HoneyBook
Best For Tracking Proposal Progress
Expert’s Advice
HoneyBook helps you track the status of each proposal, making follow-up easy. You’ll know whether a proposal has been viewed and at what stage it is, so you can confidently move forward with new opportunities. This feature allows you to manage your leads efficiently and never miss an important follow-up.
Best For
Tracking
Price
$39/month or $390/year
Annual Discount
Save two months’ worth of payments by subscribing annually — that’s a significant saving for your business.
Promotion
HoneyBook provides all the essential tools your business needs to send professional proposals to clients effectively.
End-to-end proposal software from HoneyBook simplifies creating and managing proposals, allowing you to easily track their status until a decision is made—whether they are accepted or declined. With ready-made templates available, you can quickly get started and customize proposals to match your company’s style and branding. You’ll also have an organized system to keep all client information in one place, ensuring you always have the latest data at your fingertips.
Key features include centralized management of accounting, invoicing, contracts, and payments, making it easy to stay on top of transactions. Secure digital payment options enable fast payouts, while automated payment reminders ensure you don’t miss any due dates. Detailed reports provide valuable insights into your business performance, and professional invoicing helps you secure fair payment. Additionally, automated contract generation saves you time and effort.
Pricing details show that plans start at $39 per month or $390 annually. Paying yearly grants a discount, giving you two extra months free. You can also try HoneyBook risk-free with their 7-day trial, available through their website.
There are three pricing options available: two monthly plans and one yearly plan. The details are as follows:
- Unlimited: $39 per month
- Unlimited Annual: $390 per year
4. Better Proposals
Best For Team Collaboration
Expert’s Advice
I suggest Better Proposals for companies seeking high-quality proposal creation without sacrificing speed, especially when it comes to sending persuasive proposals that close deals effectively.
Better Proposals is suitable for companies looking to speed up their proposal process while maintaining professionalism and quality.
They provide proposal software designed for quick and effortless creation of professional proposals, helping you close deals faster without sacrificing quality. Their wide array of customizable templates ensures you’ll always look like a seasoned professional, impressing clients every time.
Using Better Proposals makes it easier to win more deals and grow your customer base efficiently.Using AI and automated suggestions to identify industry best practices.
If you want your entire team to stay aligned, Better Proposals offers a feature for team collaboration that simplifies proposal management.
Key Features:
- Beyond proposals, you can handle contracts, invoices, and quotes all within a single platform.
- Contract creation is streamlined through an automated form builder.
- Secure digital payments make receiving payments faster and more convenient than ever.
- Keep track of your customer data effortlessly, ensuring you always have up-to-date information.
- Reports provide valuable insights into your company’s performance metrics.
Pricing Options:
There are three plans available:
- Starter: $13 per user
- Premium: $21 per user
- Enterprise: $42 per user
Bonsai: Managing Multiple Products Effectively
For handling numerous products, Bonsai is an excellent choice. If you want your proposals to look highly professional, Bonsai offers numerous templates or the option to customize proposals from scratch to match your brand identity.
Expert Advice:
If creating a polished, professional appearance for your proposals is a priority, Bonsai can help. You can select from pre-designed templates or craft your own proposals, ensuring they align perfectly with your branding.
Additionally, Bonsai provides features that support management, pricing, discounts, and promotional offers, making it a comprehensive tool for managing multiple products efficiently. Pricing for Bonsai ranges from $17 to $52 per month, with two months free when paid annually.Start Free
Bonsai simplifies the entire process of creating, sending, and tracking proposals.
With customizable templates and branding options, you can craft proposals that truly reflect your company’s style and personality.
Create your unique branding and showcase your services using flexible proposal templates that can be tailored to meet all your needs. You can also include multiple products in a single proposal and keep track of your inventory. Clients can view and accept proposals from any device, anytime, making the process more seamless. Additionally, you’ll get notifications when your proposals are viewed and accepted, helping you stay on top of your deals.
Key Features:
- Design professional proposals using a variety of templates.
- Quickly assemble proposals by dragging and dropping products into your layout.
- Offer additional services and packages to increase sales and better serve your clients.
- Simplify the approval process to secure quick sign-offs and close deals faster.
Pricing:
Bonsai offers three subscription plans, billed annually:
- Starter: $17/month
- Professional: $32/month
- Business: $52/month
6. Qwilr
Ideal for Scaling Proposal Work.
Qwilr streamlines the proposal process by making it quick and visually appealing, helping you close more deals efficiently.
Strong branding options and customizable templates allow your business to present professional, on-brand proposals. Save time by creating proposals with drag-and-drop tools instead of starting from scratch. As your team grows, you can easily add more users to manage increased workload. If you’re looking to speed up deal closures, Qwilr is an excellent choice.
Key Features:
- Maintain brand consistency across multiple salespeople with Qwilr’s provided templates and themes.
- Create visually stunning proposals with intuitive drag-and-drop design tools.
- Impress clients with professional PDFs generated by the platform.
- Utilize the ROI calculator to estimate potential earnings from each proposal.
- Quick access to personalized proposals with a single click.
Pricing:
Qwilr offers two plans, billed annually:
- Business: $35/month
- Enterprise: $590/month
7. QuoteWerks
Best for Gaining Business Insights.
QuoteWerks is proposal software designed to help you quickly generate quotes for your products and services. Integrating into your CPQ and quote-to-cash sales processes, QuoteWerks can boost your success rate and help you close deals faster. Sales representatives can utilize this template-based software to streamline the quoting process, reducing the time needed to produce proposals. Additionally, using QuoteWerks automates critical steps, minimizing errors and inaccuracies. Its management reports offer valuable insights into business performance.
Key Features:
- Streamlines customer relations and improves accounting accuracy by automating the quoting workflow.
- Seamlessly integrates with popular customer relationship management (CRM) platforms to maximize your CRM investment.
- Includes electronic signing capabilities, which can reduce the overall quote-to-cash cycle and ensure faster transaction completion.
- Enables customers to make secure online payments via credit card or ACH.
- Supports deposit and partial payments through integration with over 80 different payment gateways.
Pricing:
QuoteWerks offers flexible monthly billing options to accommodate companies of all sizes, including:
- Standard Edition: $15.00 per user
- Professional Edition: $20.00 per user
- Corporate Edition: $29.00 per user
In addition to QuoteWerks, other online proposal solutions include Proposify, Pandadoc, Salesforce, Nusii, Zapier, and Hubspot, which are not discussed here.
What Is Proposal Software?
A business proposal is a document that presents a product or service to a potential client. It typically includes details about the company, offered products or services, pricing, and contact information. Proposal software, often called proposal management software, helps freelancers, sales teams, and businesses create, organize, and monitor proposals. Creating proposals manually can be time-consuming and complex, but proposal software automates much of this process, making it quicker and easier. It also provides tools for tracking proposal status, measuring success, and increasing your overall win rates. The best proposal management tools ensure your proposals look professional, are accurate, user-friendly, and visually appealing. They help you stay consistent with your branding and keep customer contact information organized. For businesses aiming to boost their success rate and close more deals, adopting proposal software is highly recommended. The best tool for a small business depends on its unique needs, but selecting the right features can make a significant difference.
Features to Consider When Choosing Proposal Software
Here are some essential features to look for when selecting proposal software.
Project Management
Many proposal tools include project management capabilities, which help oversee various parts of your business process. These features allow you to track the progress of proposals, meet deadlines, assign tasks to team members, and ensure timely completion. This can help you deliver proposals on schedule and within budget.
Brand Consistency
Maintaining a consistent brand across all your proposals and marketing materials is vital. Proposal software can support this by offering customizable templates and design tools that help produce professional-looking documents. Additionally, it enables you to compile branding assets like logos, fonts, and color schemes for consistent application in every proposal.
Proposal Writing Automation
Effective proposal software can automate much of the writing process. This includes pulling in company details, product descriptions, pricing, and contact info to quickly generate proposals. Creating templates that reflect your brand allows you to produce customized, well-formatted proposals efficiently, saving time and reducing errors.
Content Library
A comprehensive content library within your proposal software can store all necessary assets—templates, logos, fonts, images—making it easy to access and reuse materials. This streamlines the proposal creation process and ensures consistency across your documents. Building a good relationship with customers is crucial for sales success. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software plays a key role by helping you track interactions, manage contacts, and nurture client relationships, ultimately supporting your proposal efforts.
Customer Data and Information
Storing details like customer contact info, previous purchases, and other essential data helps streamline your sales process and enhances customer relationships.
Pricing Options for Proposal Software
Prices for proposal tools can vary significantly depending on the features offered and their complexity. Selecting a tool that fits your budget while fulfilling your specific business requirements is crucial for effective implementation.
Customizing Proposal or Sale Documents
Creating sales documents isn’t a one-size-fits-all task. Customization plays a vital role in ensuring your final proposal aligns with your company’s branding and tone. Most leading proposal software provides extensive options for personalization so your proposals maintain a unique, professional appearance and don’t look like generic templates. Many tools are also interactive, allowing you to modify formatting details to suit your preferences precisely.
Frequently Asked Questions About Proposal Software
What does it mean to e-sign proposal documents?
Proposal software enables you to craft digital versions of your proposals that can be sent electronically, including your electronic signature. This process reduces costs and time by removing the need for printing and mailing physical copies. Additionally, it allows you to monitor the status of your proposals and gather feedback from clients efficiently.
What is a Request for Proposal in a business context?
A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a document issued by companies when soliciting bids or proposals from potential vendors. It typically outlines the product or service needed along with specific vendor requirements. Proposal software can aid in crafting proposals that meet these detailed criteria effectively.
What permissions are necessary for proposal documents?
Most proposal tools allow you to save documents in secure, locked formats that require a password for access. This feature helps protect sensitive information and prevents unauthorized viewing, keeping your company’s confidential data secure.
Essential metrics for following up on proposals?
Many proposal platforms include reporting functions that let you track proposal activity such as how many have been sent, reviewed, approved, or declined. This data helps identify your top clients and highlights areas that need more effort to convert prospects into customers. It also provides insights into improving your sales process overall.
Standard payment methods accepted in proposal software?
Most providers support popular payment channels, such as credit cards, PayPal, Stripe, and Amazon Pay, making transactions convenient and secure for your clients and your business.
Summary and Final Thoughts
If your goal is to close more deals efficiently, integrating proposal software into your business is a smart move. This software automates many parts of the proposal creation process, helping produce polished, on-brand documents with a professional look. The top options include Prospero—recognized as the best overall, Jotform for highly customizable proposals, and HoneyBook, which excels at tracking proposal progress. When choosing a tool, consider the features that matter most to you, ensure it fits your budget, and aligns with your business needs.
Have you ever tried using proposal software? Share your experiences and thoughts in the comments below.
Further resources available at StepThroughThePortal.com: Curious about purchasing an existing successful business? Check out my guide on the best business brokers. Additionally, find out about the best places to buy and sell online businesses.