Quote Requests and Proposals

Some things don’t have a fixed price. Custom work, bulk orders and projects need a conversation first, and that conversation usually lives in your inbox. You end up typing prices into an email, then building a manual order once the customer says yes.

Request a Quote puts that flow inside your store. Customers ask for a quote from any page or product. You reply with a proposal, which is a draft invoice with your prices. The customer accepts it online, and accepting issues the invoice and takes them straight to payment.

Turn It On

Request a Quote needs the Custom Invoices module, because proposals are invoice drafts. Switch on both from Stackless > Dashboard. Then open Stackless > Settings and choose Request a Quote under Sales & invoices.

Add the Quote Form

You have three ways to show the form:

• The Request a Quote block (stackless/request-quote). Its only setting is a product ID.
• The [stackless_request_quote] shortcode. Use [stackless_request_quote product="123"] to tie it to one product.
• A button on product pages, controlled by the Product page button setting.

The form asks for name, email, phone, company, country and what the customer needs. With a product attached, it also asks for quantity and, for a variable product, the variation. Logged-in customers get their billing details filled in.

Set Up the Product Page Button

Under Quote form:

• Product page button: Off, On products marked “Request a quote” or “Quote only” (default), or On every product.
• Button text: “Request a quote” when left empty.
• Quote page: optional. The button links to this page, which holds the form, instead of opening the form in place.
• Country: on by default. Asks for the customer’s country, which helps you quote tax and shipping.
• Thank-you message: shown after a request is sent.

To mark a product, open Product data > General on the product edit screen and tick one of these:

• Request a quote: shows the button on this product.
• Quote only: hides the price and Add to cart. Customers can only request a quote. The price reads “Price on request”, and the product can’t be bought at checkout, including the block checkout.

Handle a New Request

Every request lands in Stackless > Quote requests, and the menu shows a count of new ones. The store gets the New quote request email, and the customer gets Quote request received.

You can filter requests by state: New, Proposal sent, Accepted and more. Requests that came in by phone or email can be added by hand with Add request. Those don’t trigger any emails.

To reply:

1. Open the request and click Prepare proposal. This creates a draft invoice with the requested product and quantity. A request without a product gets a “Custom work” line with no price yet.
2. Click Edit proposal to set prices, items, discounts or a deposit in the invoice editor.
3. Set Proposal valid through. It defaults to Valid for (days) from today, 14 by default.
4. Send the proposal from the editor, or with Send proposal on the request.

The customer gets the Quote proposal email with a link to their proposal page.

What the Customer Does

The proposal page shows the items and totals with Accept and Decline buttons.

• Accept issues the invoice and sends the customer to the invoice page to pay. The store gets the Quote proposal decision email.
• Decline takes an optional reason. The store is told, and the reason shows on the request.
• If the proposal includes a deposit, the page explains that accepting asks for the deposit now, and the balance is invoiced after the deposit is paid.

A proposal can’t be accepted when:

• it has expired
• it was withdrawn
• it was edited after sending

If you change a sent proposal, the request shows a warning. Send it again so the customer can accept the new version.

Proposal Reminders and Expiry

Under Proposals:

• Valid for (days): 14 by default, from 1 to 365. The valid-through date can be set from today up to a year ahead.
• Expiry reminder (days before): 2 by default. One reminder email goes out before an open proposal expires. 0 turns it off.

Reminders are sent at 9:00 in your site’s timezone. Withdraw proposal turns off the customer link immediately.

Good to Know

• The form allows 5 submissions per connection every 10 minutes. Developers can change that with the stackless_request_quotes_rate_limit filter.
• A proposal draft can’t be issued from the invoice editor. The customer issues it by accepting.
• An accepted request stays with its invoice and can’t be trashed.
• The proposal and the quote request must use the same customer email.
• Edit all five quote emails under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails.
• For the invoice side of the flow, see Create and Send Invoices.