Writing proposals is a key part of running a B2B (and sometimes B2C) micro business. If you’re not from a sales background yourself and you don’t have sales pros dealing with the new business side of things for you, then it’s going to fall to you to learn proposal writing and master it.
There are lots of courses and advice pieces on the theory behind proposals and we’ve touched on that ourselves here before. But what we want to talk about today is software. While software can’t do the whole thing for you and certainly can’t sell you, it can deal with things like:
- Make your proposals look great
- Help you manage the process of dealing with queries
- Handle digital sign off
- Even handle billing and payments in some cases
I learnt how to write business proposals when working for an agency in Manchester back in 2009 and 2010. And I still write all my own in 2023 using many of those same principles learned then. But let me be honest – I have the design capabilities of a goldfish. So my personal main motivation of signing up for proposal software was about design.
I tried a few different proposal writing software options and settled in the end on Nusii. But I found 3 brilliant bits of kit in my research that it’s well worth me sharing with anyone looking for software or an online tool that can help you to write better proposals.
Best Proposal Writing Tools in Summary
We’ve detailed here three online proposal writing tools specifically:
- Nusii
- Proposify
- BidSketch
Here’s the summary of key points.
Nusii
Online proposal writing tool-
Custom domain
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Entirely online tool
-
Online client signatures
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Can be used to report
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Accept payments through tool
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PDF exports
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Multiple currencies
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Multiple users on some plans
Panda Doc
Online proposal writing tool-
Custom domain
-
Entirely online tool
-
Online client signatures
-
Can be used to report
-
Accept payments through tool
-
PDF exports
-
Multiple currencies
-
Multiple users on some plans
BidSketch
Online proposal writing tool-
Custom domain
-
Entirely online tool
-
Online client signatures
-
Can be used to report
-
Accept payments through tool
-
PDF exports
-
Multiple currencies
-
Multiple users on some plans
There’s some more specific information about each of these tools below.
Nusii
Like all of the other software we’re looking at here, Nusii is an online platform for writing sales proposals and reports.
Nusii’s key features:
- Online based
- Have your proposals show on a subdomain of your main domain (so when you send someone a link to their proposal it shows up as something like proposals.mywebsite.co.uk/dkjdjdkdj
- Easy PDF export of your proposal
- Ability to save different “blocks” that you can quickly add to proposals. So if you have a block that covers some of your own case studies and similar, you can drop this into proposals. Really helps with speeding up writing bespoke proposals, allowing you to write custom ones but drop in content that is consistent easily
- You can accept payments through Nusii
- Integrates with several platforms (more on that below)
- Invite other team members depending on which package you’re using
- Can easily be used to write reports too
- Online digital signatures and proposal acceptance
- Ability for prospective client to request clarification within the system
- Unlimited users on some of its plans
Proposal acceptance rate, for me, is a really important sales metric. I only get to the point of writing a full proposal for about 1 in 6 of my enquiries (having qualified out a number on budget, objectives or just service fit). So I look to keep my acceptance rates over 90%.
Panda Doc
Panda Doc is arguably the most well known proposal writing software offering and is incredibly feature rich.
It starts at $19 per user per month. But just be aware that this particular pricing level comes with the most basic of their offering online:
- The ability to create and send online proposals
- Track the number of times the proposal is accessed
- Collect electronic signatures
PandaDoc’s offering is capable of very much more including custom branding and a whole host of integrations.
PandaDoc also has a free e-signature offering level shown in the pricing here:
As you’d expect, the free offering from PandaDoc is limited in terms of functionality but for those who just want to collect signatures, it’s an excellent free alternative to paid proposal writing tools.
Bidsketch
BitSketch is another sales proposal tool that feels geared towards the multi person sales teams. They do have an entry level offering and actually it’s very generous in terms of allowing unlimited proposals. BidSketch is another tool that really plays on its enhanced Analytics, offering insight about view times much like Proposify.
In terms of its key features:
- Custom domains
- Unlimited proposals on all accounts
- Analytics
- Upsell features
- Some particularly slick looking templates for you to start with
- Digital signatures
- Integrations with a number of platforms including Salesforce and Basecamp:
Is it worth investing a proposal writing tool?
Sales proposal platforms will not fix fundamental issues with bad proposals. So actually, if you’re struggling with proposals overall and you feel it’s the content that’s an issue, hold off for the time being. Don’t spend on software.
Perhaps look at some basic sales proposal writing training or similar (a separate post may follow in the near future looking at options and resources for learning the fundamentals).
But if you’re actually, like me, reasonably happy with the content of your proposals and find you’re already able to close sales, then a tool could help. The main benefits of tools:
- Time saving on the design side. Design, for me, is a massive faff!! The content blocks elements are a great time saver too
- Electronic signatures which are absolutely fine in lieu of a purchase order and are much quicker than the latter
- Slicker looking proposals more easily accessible without sending files back and forth.
So in short, a proposal writing tool is a winner to just make your proposal writing process quicker and slicker. But don’t spend the money until you’re confident with what you’re actually in your proposals. They’re not a silver bullet.
- Post last updated on:
- 19th April 2023
