Proposal Templates
How to write a sales proposal buyers can decide with
By Justin HamptonLast updated Reviewed by Justin HamptonHow we write these
Short answer
Key takeaways
- Write for the people who weren't on the call; the proposal must make sense to someone who never saw the demo.
- The buyer's problems, quoted in their own words, are the most important section; never invent numbers they didn't give you.
- Match each problem to a solution one to one, in the same order, and say plainly if there's one you can't solve.
- Put about us, security, implementation and terms at the end, where IT and legal will look for them.
- End with next steps that have dates and owners, and ask for one specific decision rather than inviting questions.
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Here is how to write a sales proposal buyers can decide with: build it from what the buyer told you on the demo, not from a template. Restate their problems in their own words, show how you solve each one, price it clearly, and spell out the next steps. Then make it easy for your contact to forward to the people who actually sign. That is the whole job, and it is what sales proposal software like ours is built around. The rest of this guide is how to do it well, section by section, with a checklist at the end.
I've written a lot of proposals after a lot of demos. The ones that closed were rarely the longest or the prettiest. They were the ones where the buyer read the first page and thought, "yes, that's exactly our situation."
What a sales proposal is for
A sales proposal has one job: help a group of people agree to buy. Your contact already liked the demo. The proposal is for everyone who wasn't on the call: their boss, finance, IT, and the colleague who will use the thing every day.
That changes how you write it. Your contact will forward it with one line like "thoughts?" The person reading it next knows nothing about your call. If the proposal only makes sense to someone who saw the demo, it will stall.
So a good sales proposal does three things:
- It reminds the buyer why they took the call in the first place, using their words.
- It explains what you will do about each problem and what it costs.
- It travels. Someone who wasn't on the call can read it, understand it, and say yes or ask a sensible question.
A proposal is not a brochure. Your product tour, your company history and your full feature list don't help anyone decide. Keep them out of the main flow.
Before you write: what you need from the demo
You can't write a good proposal from a bad discovery call. Before you start, check you have answers to these. If you don't, send a short email and ask, or book fifteen minutes.
What to gather before writing
- What problems did they describe, in their exact words?
- What happens if they do nothing for another six months?
- Who else has to approve this, and what does each of them care about?
- What did they say about budget, timing or a deadline?
- What are they comparing you with, including doing nothing?
- What would make this a clear win for your contact personally?
Tick each one as you go.
The first question matters most. Write down the phrases they used, not your summary of them. If the operations manager said "we lose half a day every Friday reconciling timesheets," that sentence goes in the proposal almost word for word. When a buyer reads their own words back, they trust the rest of the document.
If you record calls, the transcript is the best source. If you don't, take notes in their language during the call, then clean them up straight after.
The sections of a sales proposal that gets decided on
Here is the order I use. It works for software, services and most B2B deals. Each section is short.
1. A one-paragraph summary
Three or four sentences: who they are, what's wrong, what you propose, what it costs and what happens next. Write it last. If an executive reads only this paragraph, they should know whether to keep reading.
2. Their problems, in their words
List the two to five problems they told you about. One short paragraph each. Quote them where you can. Add the cost of the problem if they gave you one, and only if they gave it to you. Don't invent numbers for them.
This is the most important section of the whole document. If you get it right, the buyer feels heard. If you get it wrong, nothing after it matters.
3. How you solve each problem
Match each problem to what you'll do about it, one to one, in the same order. Be specific: which part of your product or service, how it works for them, and what changes for the person who has that problem today. If there's a problem you can't solve, say so. Buyers notice when a proposal quietly skips one.
Screenshots, a short screen recording or an image of the finished work help here. One per problem is plenty.
For software: show each feature inside their workflow, not on its own. A one- or two-minute recording of the exact screen that fixes their problem beats a feature list. Say who uses it every day and what changes for them on day one.
For services: describe your approach and the deliverable for each problem, not the hours. Name who will do the work. List your assumptions, because the buyer will hold you to anything you don't. A statement of work is where the precise list belongs.
For agencies: separate outputs (what you'll make) from outcomes (what you hope it achieves). Commit to the outputs and the reporting. Show one example of similar finished work per problem, with permission.
For IT services: for each problem, say what's covered, the response time, and who their point of contact is. Buyers worry about the bad day, so explain what happens when something breaks.
4. Proof
A short customer story, a case study or a reference they can call, ideally from a company like theirs. Only use real ones you have permission to share. If you're new and don't have any yet, say what you'll do to reduce their risk instead: a pilot, a trial, a clear exit clause.
5. Pricing
Make it easy to compare. Show what's included, what's one-time and what's recurring, and the options you're offering, such as one-, two- and three-year terms. Don't hide fees in the terms. There's a whole guide on how to present pricing in a proposal, including good-better-best options and multi-year terms.
Pricing software: price per user or per seat, show the yearly cost for each term (one, two and three years), and list one-time onboarding separately. Say what happens at renewal. The SaaS proposal template has a pricing table laid out this way.
Pricing services: choose fixed fee or time and materials and say why. Tie payments to milestones, and price change requests up front so a new request isn't a negotiation. The consulting proposal template shows a fixed fee, a monthly phase and a capped retainer side by side.
Pricing agency work: show your fee separately from media or ad spend, and say whether it's a project or a monthly retainer with set deliverables. The marketing proposal template puts a one-off project next to retainer options.
Pricing IT services: per device or per user, a setup fee, and a clear line between what's in the monthly fee and what's billed extra. The IT services proposal template lays these out next to each other.
6. Next steps, with dates
The step most proposals forget. List what happens after they say yes: who signs, when you kick off, what you need from them, and when they'll see the first result. If there's a date they care about, such as a busy season or a budget deadline, work backwards from it. A buyer with a clear plan finds it easier to say yes than a buyer facing a blank calendar.
7. The business case for the approver
Your contact may not be the one who signs. Their approver wants one page: the problem, the cost of doing nothing, the cost of your option and the expected payback. Give your contact that page, or the material to build it. You'll find a business case template in our free templates.
Your contact signs: keep the proposal short and ask for the decision directly. The summary, their problems, your price and one next step with a date may be all they need.
Their manager signs: your contact will forward it with one line. Make the summary do the selling: the problem, what it costs them today, what you propose and the price. The manager should be able to say yes from the first paragraph.
Finance or a committee signs: they need different things. Finance wants the business case: cost of the problem, cost of your option, payback. IT wants security answers. Everyone wants a plan with dates, so add a mutual action plan. Our guide to the buying committee covers who needs what.
8. Reference material
About us, security, the implementation plan, terms. Put these at the end. IT and legal will look for them. Everyone else will skip them, and that's fine.
How to write it, step by step
- Rewrite your notes into their problems. Before you open any template, list the problems from the call in the buyer's own words. If you can't fill this list, you're not ready to write.
- Map each problem to a solution. One solution paragraph per problem, in the same order. Cut anything that doesn't map to a problem.
- Pick the pricing options. Decide what you'll offer and why, before you write the pricing section. Two or three options is usually right.
- Write the next steps. Dates, owners and what you need from them. Check that the dates are realistic for both sides.
- Add proof and reference material. Pull your standard sections (about us, security, terms) from what you've written before, and update anything that's changed.
- Write the summary last. Three or four sentences. Read it as if you were the CFO who wasn't on the call.
- Cut it down. Remove every sentence that's about you rather than them. Then read it out loud once.
- Send it with a short note. Two or three lines: what it is, the one decision you need, and when you'll follow up.
A short example of the problem section
Here's what the most important section looks like when it's done well. The company is made up: Halden Freight, a fictional 40-person logistics firm.
Example: problems in the buyer's words
1. Quotes take too long. "By the time we send a quote, the shipper has already booked someone else." Today, quotes go through two people and a spreadsheet, and the team told us most take a day or more.
2. Nobody trusts the rate sheet. "Every rep has their own version." Reps keep local copies, so the same lane gets quoted differently depending on who picks up the phone.
3. The owner can't see the pipeline. "I find out we lost a big account when the invoice doesn't come." There's no shared view of open quotes.
Notice what's not there: no features, no adjectives, no "we're excited to partner with you." Just their situation, stated plainly, so they nod along. The solution section then answers each numbered item in the same order.
For a full structure you can copy, start with the sales proposal template.
Proposal templates by industry
The structure above holds across industries, but the details change. A consulting proposal leans on scope and approach. A marketing proposal needs deliverables and reporting. Software proposals need security and onboarding. These templates are adapted for each:
Start here: the SaaS proposal template.
Start here: the consulting proposal template, with a statement of work for the deliverables.
Start here: the marketing proposal template.
Start here: the IT services proposal template.
- Consulting proposal template
- Marketing proposal template
- SaaS proposal template
- IT services proposal template
- Web design proposal template
- SEO proposal template
If the buyer only needs a price, a simple quote is enough. If they need a precise list of deliverables to sign against, you may also need a statement of work. And if you need something short to leave behind after a first meeting, use a one-pager instead.
Mistakes that stall a proposal
Most stalled proposals I've seen failed for one of these reasons, not because the price was wrong.
It's about you. Three pages of company history before the buyer sees their own problem. Move it to the back.
It's generic. The same document went to the last ten prospects with the name swapped. Buyers can tell, and it signals you weren't listening.
The problems are in your words. "Suboptimal workflow efficiency" instead of "we lose Friday afternoons to timesheets." Your words make it vague. Theirs make it real.
The pricing is a puzzle. Line items without totals, fees in the terms, or five options when two would do. If finance has to build a spreadsheet to understand your price, you've added a step to the deal.
There's no next step. The proposal ends with "let us know if you have questions." Ask for a specific decision by a specific date instead.
It only works for the person on the call. It refers to "what we discussed" without saying what that was. Write for the colleague who wasn't there.
It arrives late. A proposal sent a week after the demo reads like the seller wasn't keen. Send it within a day or two, or say on the call when it will come.
It goes into a void. You send it, and you have no idea whether anyone opened it, so your follow-up is a guess. Whatever format you use, know how you'll find out whether it was read.
Checklist before you send
Sales proposal pre-send checklist
- The summary works for someone who wasn't on the demo
- Every problem is in the buyer's own words
- Every problem has a matching solution, in the same order
- Nothing in the main flow is about us rather than them
- Pricing shows totals, one-time vs recurring, and the term options
- Next steps have dates and owners
- There's a one-page business case, or material for one, for the approver
- Security, terms and about-us are at the end, not the start
- It's readable on a phone
- I know how I'll tell whether it was opened
- The cover note asks for one specific decision
Tick each one as you go.
PDF or a live page?
Everything above works in a Word document or a PDF. The format matters less than the content. But there are practical differences once more than one person is involved: who can open it, whether you can tell it was read, and how easily it gets forwarded.
We built AfterDemo for this. It drafts the problem section from your call transcript or notes, then sends the proposal as one page: pricing in one-, two- and three-year terms, a business case the buyer builds for their approver, and one-click acceptance. Buyers never log in, and you see who's reading. Click through a made-up one at the live example, or see the sales proposal software page.
If you'd rather start from your notes and see a draft first, try the free generator:
Free toolAI Proposal GeneratorSend your next proposal as a live AfterDemo page
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Send your next software proposal as a live AfterDemo page
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Send your next services proposal as a live AfterDemo page
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Send your next agency proposal as a live AfterDemo page
Free for 30 days. No credit card. Your prospects never need an account.
Send your next IT services proposal as a live AfterDemo page
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Questions people ask
How long should a sales proposal be?
Long enough to cover the buyer's problems, your solution to each, pricing and next steps, and no longer. For most small and mid-sized deals that is something a busy person can read in ten minutes. Move background material like your company history and security details to the end, where the people who need it can find it.
What should a sales proposal include?
A short summary, the buyer's problems in their own words, how you solve each one, proof that you have done it before, pricing with clear options, next steps with dates and owners, and the reference material an approver or IT reviewer will ask for, such as security and terms.
What is the difference between a proposal and a quote?
A quote lists what you will sell and what it costs. A proposal explains why: the problems you heard, how you will solve them and what the buyer gets. Send a quote when the buyer already knows what they want. Send a proposal when someone else has to be convinced.
How soon after the demo should I send the proposal?
Within one or two business days, while the call is still fresh for everyone. If you need longer, tell the buyer on the call when it will arrive and then hit that date.
Should a sales proposal be a PDF?
A PDF works when one person reads it and decides. When several people have to agree, a web page is usually easier: it opens on any device, it can be shared without email attachments, and you can see whether it was read. Either way, the writing advice is the same.