10 Best Online Proposal Management Software
Are you looking for an online proposal management software that you could use to create online proposals for clients? Proposals have a vital role to play in the growth of every small business. These are persuasive sales documents that you use to pitch your business to your clients. Proposals demonstrate the value you will bring to the job, set you apart from your competitors, and ultimately help you win new business.
A few years back, preparing appealing business proposals involved the awful task of putting together multiple documents, printing them and sending them to the clients.
There wasn’t just a time lag but also a productivity lag. Most people struggled to create good proposals, leading to disappointing numbers and sales.
However, the advent of online proposal management software has turned this experience into a simple, comfortable, and straightforward process. These software have streamlined the entire procedure and led to the generation of more revenue than ever before.
However, a plethora of proposal management software in the market makes it challenging to choose the right tool for you.
This article lists my picks for the 10 best online proposal management software presently available in the market. But, before I hop onto that, let us first understand what exactly a proposal software is.
What exactly is proposal management software?
Proposal management software is any app or platform designed to help salespeople create proposals and automation to guide prospects to their destination while keeping all the related documents well-organized. As a result, it significantly reduces the time and frustration typically involved in developing effective proposals.
It provides a more efficient way for creating, storing, and managing the entire proposal creation process with superior insight into the sales pipeline and performance. In addition, it often comes with proposal templates, which are nearly-completed proposals that just require the final touches from your side. With the software addressing all these requirements, you will likely be able to reduce the non-billable time spent drafting content for sales proposals and more effective communication with potential clients.
Proposal management software allows you to brand your proposals with your company’s logo, making them look more professional and helping you win your prospects’ trust. As a result, you will be able to make more money in less time and significantly boost your company’s profits. After all, the ultimate goal of every freelancer, sales rep, and entrepreneur is to generate revenue without sacrificing too much time.
Proposal software tends to be cloud-based and accessible for a fee. That, however, is quite reasonable as long as it serves you well. To select the right app for your requirements, you need to look at certain aspects as shown below:
- User-friendliness – The software you choose must be easy to use with a short learning curve.
- Business fit – You must choose a proposal management app that has all the necessary features you require to be successful. For this purpose, ask yourself which features are non-negotiable and then ensure they are present.
- Cost of service – Keep your budget in mind and go for a proposal software that you can comfortably afford. Fortunately, most apps in this category are not too expensive.
Contemporary proposal management software allows you to send links to a completed proposal instead of Word or PDF files. As a result, your proposals will be optimized for various devices – they will look fantastic, and users can conveniently open them anywhere and anytime. Also, you needn’t fret about the legalities – once your clients sign your proposal digitally, the signature is just as legally binding as it would be on physical paper.
Top 10 online proposal management software
Now that we’re familiar with the significance of proposal management software let’s go through my list of the ten best online proposal management software presently available.
Proposa
Proposa is one of the finest online proposal management software. With it, you can build cool-looking digital proposals and get real-time notifications once the proposals are opened by your prospective clients.
It comes with several readymade templates that you can use to get started in no time. You can also use the tool to create your own layout to match your own branding ethics.
Proposa is ideal for small business owners, digital agencies, and other brands that need well-designed proposals. It starts from $25 per month but at the moment it is available on AppSumo at just $49 one time. The plan that you get on AppSumo would cost you around $75 per month once the deal is over. So if you need it, now is the best time to grab it. (This AppSumo purchase also comes with 60-days refund policy.)
Learn more about Proposa / Get AppSumo Deal
Better Proposals
Better Proposals is arguably the best overall proposal management software in existence today. It is an online proposal builder that lets users produce professional-quality proposals effectively and speedily. Its program is based on user-friendly services that help it deliver top-notch proposals for clients. The software comes with a massive library of premade templates and drag-and-drop tools that help you produce excellent proposals in an instant. You also can purchase additional templates at its marketplace if you so wish.
Better Proposals optimizes the time it usually takes to finalize a business deal by directly emailing proposals and simultaneously providing extensive analytics on your progress. In addition, by virtue of its integrated signature and payment features, your prospect can easily sign your terms and conditions page and pay a deposit within minutes.
Learn more about Better Proposals
PandaDoc
PandaDoc is a cloud-based document management software that you can use to create proposals, human resources documents, contracts, quotes, and much more. It is commonly used by company leadership and sales and marketing teams. Using its tools, you can do everything from creating custom proposals to editing any of their premade templates. In addition, it allows you to write proposals, save them in a cloud-based library, send them to clients, and monitor your progress simultaneously.
This app is an excellent choice for various businesses and intends to streamline the proposal process while optimizing marketing tasks and sales at the same time. It readily integrates with numerous CRMs and features an extensive content library to ensure that your new business team is well-equipped to address the prospects’ questions and concerns. You can also use PandaDoc for contract renewals and the HR solution to simplify and streamline recruiting and onboarding. It will help you make your entire agency more organized and efficient.
Proposify
Proposify is an excellent choice for enterprises and sales teams comprising ten or more members. The developers have optimized it for the creation of business proposals for business using several tools and templates. It comes with a large content library and a drag-and-drop feature that allows you to choose between fees, sections, and case studies. You can also track your proposals’ progress and get details of the users who have been viewing your documents.
Proposify is an excellent option for startups and web design companies in particular. Designed initially for creative firms, it features a drag-and-drop interface that lets users conveniently add different sections to their documents. In addition, you can use an InDesign-like editor to customize a proposal by adding text, videos, and images. Also, it comes with powerful analytics, including the ability to see the top-viewed sections of your proposal, the number of times it was viewed, and much more.
Prospero
If you are a solo entrepreneur, freelancer or project manager, then you can go for Prospero. It comes with eSignature capabilities and is notable for allowing users to send their proposals directly to clients. It also integrates readily with various third-party apps to streamline the sales process better. Moreover, it includes numerous customizable and highly responsive templates that you can edit and populate with your own branding material.
Prospero also offers an easy signature method that allows your clients to smoothly sign your proposal from any device without leaving the tab. You may also integrate your proposals with Prospero’s integrations such as Integromat, Freshbooks, and Zapier to experience speedier and more accurate invoicing, payments, and lead generation. Using the inbuilt analytics features, you can monitor your proposal’s performance by tracking click and open rates, conversion rates, customer engagement, etc.
RFPIO
This is a response management platform that simplifies the process of organizing and responding to RFPs with the help of artificial intelligence. For example, it allows businesses to import a draft proposal into RFPIO and export a final document in their format of choice while simultaneously collaborating with several employees directly in the software. RFPIO is especially well-known for its intelligent recommendation engine.
With the help of artificial intelligence, the tool suggests content from your library of responses that serves as the best answer for the requirements of a given RFP. In turn, you can loop appropriate people into your project and swiftly put together a proposal that satisfies the concerned RFP. In addition, RFPIO integrates readily with various commonly used tools in businesses’ tech stacks, such as Slack, Google Drive, and Okta.
RFP360
RFP360, a part of RFPIO, offers great features such as intuitive knowledge management, answer intelligence, proposal automation, collaboration, workflow, dashboard, and reporting features that streamline the entire response management process. For example, using this tool, you can centralize request for proposal (RFP) answers in a knowledge library, greatly accelerating access to expert responses and making your job easier by importing RFPs and using AI to suggest responses.
RFP360 also lets you assign tasks, communicate with SMEs, manage deadlines, and approve responses in one place. In real-time, you can evaluate the time spent and saved while working on proposals and analyze other important metrics as well. Moreover, people across your organization can use integrated extensions to gain access to content from your knowledge library in online questionnaires, Microsoft Office files, and forms without leaving those applications.
Qwilr
Using Qwilr, you can easily create clean and visually attractive web-based proposals without depending on a programmer. Its editor closely resembles a document editor, complete with features such as the ability to embed interactive content like maps, videos, Google Sheets, and interactive dashboards. In addition, it regularly tracks and reports on what users have been viewing and clicking, enabling you to measure engagement. It also comes with a quote and accept tool for accurate and straightforward pricing.
Keep in mind that Qwilr will NOT help you create fantastic PDF proposals. Instead, you can use the proposals you create using this tool as visually stunning, interactive, and mobile responsive web pages. It supports eSignatures and readily connects to payment systems such as Xero and Stripe. It also integrates with various CRM solutions and lets users automatically pull prospect information into their proposals. Today, it is being used by leading brands such as DropBox, HP, and Zendesk.
Bidsketch
Using Bidsketch, you can conveniently produce proposals by combining previously used sections or the company’s sample proposal language. It also includes designed proposal templates for you to use. You will also come across a separate section where you can indicate optional fees to take advantage of cross-selling and upselling opportunities. When the concerned person views the proposal and exports it in PDF format, the software automatically sends you a notification.
Loopio
Loopio has something that sets it apart from the other software on this list; you first need to build an RFP response library and tag and categorize the content, and then the app auto-populates a proposal by pulling from your content library using its automation engine. Apart from this, it can associate content with a subject-matter expert and help you easily know who to talk to update and customize information. Loopio readily integrates with all major tools such as Google Drive, Slack, OneDrive, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, and more.
Conclusion
Good online proposal management software will undoubtedly give you a significant professional advantage. They will help you save a lot of time and generate more revenue for your company. For that, however, you need to select the right solution.
Proposa is a great choice for starters, but if you are working with a large brand, then you should go for Proposify.Similarly, solopreneurs and freelancers have a preference for Prospero. Better Proposals and Qwilr have their own advantages as well, and certainly, deserve consideration. I advise you to go through this article thoroughly and do your research well. After that, you can sign up for a few free trials to gain hands-on experience before finally choosing the solution that suits your needs best.