Top 11 Proposal Software Tools for Agencies and Freelancers
By Sometimes the only thing standing between you and an exciting new client is your own proposal process. When your proposal workflow is off (or your team/messaging/terms are out of sync), even getting one proposal out the door can become an absolute nightmare.
Ultimately, the tools you use to create proposals and answer requests for proposal (RFPs) should be your friend—not your glitchy, time-sucking, sloppy enemy.
If you’re in full-on “pulling-my-hair-out” mode, then this blog was written just for you. In this post, we’ll compare 11+ proposal software tools for creating the smooth client proposal process of your dreams. (Cut to jumbotron: “Yes, I accept!”)
Here are the tools we’ll cover:
- Agiled
- Better Proposals
- PandaDoc
- Quoters
- Nusii
- Loopio
- Quotient
- Propfire
- Qwilr
- Proposify
- DIY Solutions
Without further ado, let’s jump in.
1. Agiled
Agiled is an Appsumo partner and teams use Agiled for managing all of their business in one place. Agiled can be used to create professional proposals with an easy to use drag and drop builder. It comes with a lot of ready made proposal templates.
Agiled’s proposal builder comes with more than 400 ready-made blocks, making it easy to quickly create a professional proposal. You can also create your own proposal templates on Agiled without any limitation.
Best For: Teams of all sizes looking to increase their sales.
Cons: No version control features
Templates: Yes
Integrations: Yes (Stripe, Paypal, Mollie, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, Moosend, Zapier, Integromat and many others)
Pricing: The starter plan starts at $15/ month. Or you can get Agiled Premium Plan Annual on Appsumo for $249.
2. Better Proposals
Source: Better Proposals
Better Proposals, a former AppSumo partner, is the software our team uses to win new AppSumo partner deals. In short, we love it. With a simple and elegant proposal editor, 160+ templates, plug-and-play content library, you can build a repeatable proposal process into your business—and send proposals in 22+ languages.
This is a mature sales proposal automation software tool for modern agencies and sales teams. Look no further than features like intelligent pricing with optional upsell (the “Bolt-On” feature) and live chat. Plus, clients can e-sign and pay through your preferred payment integration right in the proposal.
Best for: Mid- to large agencies and sales teams looking for functionality, elegance, and integrations
Integrations: Yes (Stripe, PayPal, many major CRMs including Salesforce, Pipedrive, and HubSpot; most major live chats like Drift and Intercom; plus Zapier connects it to 2K+ apps)
Templates: Yes
Cons: No audit trail or version control features; Zapier only integrated with bigger plans
Pricing: Starts at $19 per user per month
3. PandaDoc
Source: PandaDoc
PandaDoc is an undeniably established player in the proposal and CPQ software space. As such, it’s an option for everyone from individuals to enterprise-level sales teams. (Yes, I just did that double-take, too.) With Pandadoc, teams can build visually impressive proposals with a seamless doc-based drag-and-drop proposal editor.
Collaborate, negotiate, and adjust terms in real-time with your clients. Plus, collect legally binding e-signatures, live chat with clients, set highly-nuanced pricing terms, and track customer engagement.
Best for: A wide array of companies from individuals to enterprise teams
Integrations: Yes (Stripe, PayPal, Square, Quickbooks Payments, Authorize.net; most major CRMs including Salesforce, Pipedrive, and HubSpot; storage apps like Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive; plus Zapier connects it to 2K+ apps)
Templates: Yes
Cons: Some users report trouble pulling data from CRMs or having proposals pushed to Spam folders
Pricing: The e-sign functionality is free. Plans start at $9 per user per month
4. Quoters
Source: AppSumo
With Quoters, you can quickly create, track, and e-sign high-converting proposals and contracts. Andrés, their CEO, has worked hard to include all the essential features to help you move fast and prevent common errors with other proposal software.
First, Quoters has an easy proposal editor, version control, reusable sections, and fully adjustable white-label branding. Next, it allows you to create custom URLs as well as a rate library to simplify pricing tables. Last but not least, this tool works across devices – you can upload photos from Unsplash and Google Drive as well as videos from YouTube.
Best for: Freelancers, agencies, and sales teams who want fast, repeatable proposal software
Integrations: Yes (Zapier connects it to many different apps)
Templates: Yes
Cons: Newer product, fewer analytics capabilities (but that’s on their roadmap)
Pricing: Quoters starts at $49 for a lifetime deal in the AppSumo store for a limited time
5. Nusii
Source: Nusii
Another former AppSumo partner, Nusii, was built for creative teams that need to build proposals, save content, and send impressive proposals quickly. To start, Nusii’s easy proposal editor lets you customize and make proposals your own. With proposal notifications, you can see when clients open proposals, plus generate and send client reports for ongoing customers.
One of the biggest strengths of Nusii is the incredible story-like content they include in each of their templates. In other words, Nusii does a great job of letting creatives tell the whole story of who they are and why they’re perfect for the project, and then get down to business with e-signatures.
Best for: Creative agencies and freelancers
Integrations: Yes (Drift, Highrise, Stripe, plus Zapier connects it to 2K+ apps)
Templates: Yes (including free downloadable templates!)
Cons: Some users say its overly simple or struggle with the pricing configurations
Pricing: Starts at $29 per month
6. Loopio
Source: Loopio
Loopio focuses on automating the laborious RFP response process for large teams. People rave about Loopio’s customer support, UI, and ease of use. To begin, you’ll get automated answer suggestions from your content library. Loopio ensures that content in your library stays current with automated content freshness scores and close loop answer updates.
Additionally, you can save attachments in a library and work in multiple languages. Plus, the tool’s got a Chrome Extension to access and deliver saved content wherever it’s working. Best of all, Loopio helps you work quickly and collaboratively to get RPFs out the door faster.
Best for: Large companies and agencies focused on responding to RFPs, RFIs, DDQs, & Security Questionnaires
Integrations: Yes (Salesforce, Slack, Okta, Centrify, Microsoft, Auth0, and more)
Templates: Not provided
Cons: No e-signature feature, some users report difficulty formatting images in proposals
Pricing: Not provided
7. Quotient
Source: Quotient
As a quoting software, Quotient is a bit different from other tools on this list, but worth a mention. This software is as straightforward as it comes: add your offerings, generate a link, share it, chat with your customers on each proposal, and allow them to accept terms. Personally, I find it really refreshing.
Customers can select from optional or multiple-choice line items. Plus, the feature-packed dashboard comes with advanced open-rate tracking and analytics.
Best for: Service businesses, freelancers, small agencies, boutique/niche businesses
Integrations: Yes (Xero, Quickbooks, Mailchimp, Zapier, Capsule, Insightly, Highrise, and Webhooks API)
Templates: Yes
Cons: No e-sign, lacks deposit capability
Pricing: Starts at $25 per user per month
8. Propfire
Source: Propfire
Propfire is worth considering if you’re looking to create straightforward template proposals and embed them like landing pages directly onto your website—i.e., if you’ve productized your services and want to cut the back and forth correspondence with potential clients.
It’s accessible on all devices for both proposal creation and viewing. As a result, Propfire might be just the right fit for your agency or freelance business.
Best for: Small to mid-sized agencies, freelancers, or web specialists (or anyone who wants to directly embed proposals on their website)
Integrations: Unclear
Templates: Yes (takes a bit of work)
Cons: Not intended for multi-user use, limited integrations
Pricing: Starts at $8 per month
9. Qwilr
Source: Qwilr
Imagine if all your sales and marketing docs (e.g. presentations, decks, proposals, etc.) were interactive web “pages” instead of PDFs. That’s Qwilr for ya. Essentially, you’ll be able to build awesome-looking proposals from easy to use “blocks.” Plus, interactive pricing allows clients to change the amount and selection for quotes you provide. After that, they can select options, e-sign, and pay.
Qwilr lets you collaborate in real-time on the same doc, while admins maintain control of who can edit. Even after you share a doc, you can update it at any time to avoid any typo angst. Get notified when clients open proposals via email or Slack. Then use the audit trail to track in-depth metrics about your sales team.
Best for: Teams seeking web-like proposal flexibility and broader functionality beyond traditional proposal software
Integrations: Yes
Templates: Yes
Cons: Some users dislike the limited mobile functionality and find the block editor limiting at times
Pricing: Qwilr starts at $66 per month for 3 users
10. Proposify
Source: Proposify
Of all the proposal software out there, Proposify has the best branding by far. This proposal software tool helps you create modern proposals, quotes, contracts, and agreements with e-signatures. That way, you can stay organized and compliant. Moreover, Proposify has a strong focus on automating workflows with tons of integrations to help you move faster.
Stay up to date with in-depth notifications about proposal metrics (down to how long a client viewed a particular section of your proposal). Add interactive fee tables and build a content library of pre-approved descriptions and sections for each proposal.
Best for: Sales teams, larger agencies, enterprise
Integrations: Yes
Templates: Yes
Cons: Quarterly pricing model for the middle tier plan; some users complain that the proposal editor is somewhat slow or inflexible
Pricing: Starts at $19 per user per month
11. DIY Proposals with Free Templates
Of course, you can always create proposals from scratch. Just jump into Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Notion, Canva, Apple Pages, Adobe Spark, InDesign, or other design tools/text doc software. Then find a template and upload it to your software of choice. All that’s left is exporting to PDF and sending it off to your client.
While this may be a less glamourous, automated, or feature-packed option, I can confirm: it gets the job done. That said, Notion, Adobe Spark, and Apple Pages have some fairly visually-compelling offerings for drafting proposals. I mean, just check out the templates Canva has. Not too shabby.
Most of these templates are free, but you may want to purchase a template or license the right software depending on your needs. (Several of these tools like Notion and Canva have freemium and paid plans/licenses.) To track proposals, you can use a free CRM like HubSpot to monitor if and when clients open emails. Plus, add-ons like SmartDocs for Word will give you some plug-and-play content library functionality.
Best for: Agencies on a tight budget, beginners, and anyone who just needs to send a proposal ASAP
Integrations: Sort of?
Templates: See above
Cons: Lacks auto-accept feature, payment integrations, analytics, or live chat; generally not as visually impressive (but that depends on both the eye of the beholder and the software)
Pricing: Depends; Free, licensed, or subscription-based software
Looking for invoicing software? Check out What’s the Best Invoice App for Your Business? We Reviewed 10 of Them.
Which Proposal Software Will You Pick?
Perhaps it goes without saying, but if you get your proposal workflow right, you’re setting your business up for success. When your next big potential client shows up, your team should be ready to knock them off their socks.
After all, scrambling around without a plan or structure can be one of the worst feelings in the world.
Don’t let important clients slip through your fingers. If you’ve been overwhelmed with the sheer number of proposal software options out there, we hope this list can narrow down your options. Just define your goals, figure out your budget and use cases, and get that dream proposal process you deserve.
Plus, check out the lifetime deal on Quoters, available for a limited time in the AppSumo store.
Good luck with your next big proposal!