Writing proposals for clients are a pain in the ass for most of entrepreneurs. Yes, you can use any software packed into your computer to create proposals or, better, start creating your business templates.
Microsoft Word or PowerPoint as well as Apple Pages or Keynote are good options if you want to design a cool proposal that you can send using your email. However, when it comes to management it can be really difficult. Who changed that content? How do you manage contracts? Is it possible to save time and money creating them faster? How do you work with your team?
And, of course, the risk of information loss is also there. What happens if you get your computer stolen with all your documents in it? No. There is always a better solution. And here in Quoters we are going to show you some of them.
Which features may the perfect proposal software have?
First of all, unlimited proposals. Period. But if this is not possible, a good starting limit is 30. Active or monthly? We may say active, as this means you are talking to your clients and convincing them to pick you as the best option.
Of course, integrations with other software is a must. Can your proposal management tool be aside of your sales workflow? No. It has to share data with your CRM, your sales pipeline solution if any. Native integration is cool, but if it is standarized using a tool like Zapier, that is ok too.
Reusing content is a superb and cool feature too. It’s hard to create a proposal from scratch, so templates or block saving for later use is something you may ask for your proposal software. And if you can use variables (or placeholders) to not get worried about names or texts reused from other proposals, that is great. You can create quickly more proposals. And if you can add pictures or videos to make them more beautiful, maybe it is not 100% perfect, but remenber we are humans, so nothing will be as perfect as 100%.
Google Drive
Google’s platform can be a good start for proposal management. Interface is fast, easy and there are some tools available for sales automation. Also, autosave is a cool thing as you don’t have to worry about last changes being saved. Also, it is a good starting point for teamwork, as several people can collaborate on proposals and you can keep track of the changes and who made them.
Proposify
One of the leading tools to create any sales document. It features some good characteristics but it limits the number of active proposals on the starting tier of its pricing and does not pack variables or placeholders. If you need something more advanced as electronic signatures, integrations or using your custom domain, you have to pay a higher fee per user. If you want to learn more,
we have a table comparing Proposify to Quoters.
Qwilr
Anoher tool that you can use for creating proposals. But Qwilr goes beyond that. They define themselves as a tool that creates documents that get results. Packed with a huge template archive, you can use it even to create a landing page to feature your work. Pricing is somehow affordable for a tool like this, with its content library and integrations, as well as the chance to create small teams with its starter package with 3 users included. Can it be considered a proposal software as such? Well, maybe not. We would say it is a Google Drive on steroids. If you want to compare it to Quoters, take a look at our comparison table.
AND.CO
Freemium is here. Yes, you can use it for free, but this tool is hard to use even for an individual. You can only have one active client as well as only one active proposal. No automation included, either, so you need to upgrade to its paid plan which offers features as invoicing, payments and many more things. Consider it more than a proposal management software, they give you access to a complete business management tool.
Bidsketch
A good choice for sales teams. Packed without limits nor on clients or active proposals, you also can have your custom domain, electronic signatures to transform your proposals into legally binding contracts and even you can upgrade your business using some proposal automation. And if you want to go a step further on automation, you can integrate your propopals with Salesforce or Zapier and even with FreshBooks to control your accounting online.
Better Proposals
Good pricing? It could be. And it has a bunch of features that make it unique such as payment integrations, a live chat on proposals and data export to CRM. However, you get limits on proposal creation as you can create 10 or 50 proposals per month, which could be enough for some businesses, but is clearly not enough for some other like retail companies or travel agencies.
Quoters
Well, we are not 100% perfect but we are perfect enough. You can include videos and photos in your proposals, create your library of content and templates, connect to any automation software using Zapier, boosting your sales with responsive views and a feature that no other competitors have: an advanced quotation tool to control all the costs of your proposals. And you can either choose using our packed solution for e-signatures or connect a 3rd party service if you need to use a certificate. Quoters is easy to tailor connecting all the solutions you use on a daily basis.
Because that is what proposal management software is. A solution to boost sales and make your business grow.