10 Best Proposal Management Software & Systems For 2024

iQuoteXpress is a Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) solution that’s built to support various aspects of the quote and proposal management process. It can be used to configure products or services, set pricing, and generate quotes for potential clients and customers.

The software can accommodate complex pricing structures and discounting rules. This supports your team in creating accurate, consistent quotes and proposals with ease. It can also connect with various customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, making customer data easy to transfer between systems.

Some of the specific features this product offers are proposal templates, product and pricing configuration, contact management, proposal tracking, and reporting, and integrations with eCommerce platforms.

Specific SaaS tools it integrates with include DocuSign, HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM, QuickBooks Online Advanced, Zoho Books, and Salesforce Sales Cloud.

iQuoteXpress costs from $39 per user, per month, and a free quote is available upon request.

Dock is a sales and customer onboarding software that provides client-facing portals for easier account management. Users can bring client documents, quotes, proposals, and other items together in the centralized space, making them accessible and easy to find. Customizable quote, proposal, and order forms to help you standardize your processes and provide a more consistent customer experience.

Quotes can be easily turned into signable order forms and the platform also facilitates approval features for custom orders, large deals, and discounts. After a deal closes, this information syncs with your CRM, providing better sales visibility across the organization.

What's nice about the platform is that it helps sales teams nurture potential customers and track them through the buyer's journey. For example, digital sales rooms create a space for sharing educational content, and analytics tools allow users to better understand prospect behaviors. Other features include mutual success onboarding plans, buying signals, custom branding, a flexible workspace editor, secure sharing and digital signatures, centralized client-facing content management, and a wide range of customizable templates.

Dock integrates with many other tools and apps including HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Zoom, Airtable, Pandadoc, Typeform, and more.

Paid plans start from $49 per user, per month, and a freemium version is available.

SignNow is an online service that provides a platform for digital document management and eSignature solutions. It enables users to create and apply digital signatures to documents, collaborate with others, and track the progress of shared files. SignNow is also designed to facilitate teamwork and document sharing, with features that support monitoring document workflows.

SignNow aids proposal management software by allowing users to electronically sign software proposals, thereby expediting the approval process. Users can also generate documents with fillable fields and use templates to standardize proposal creation. SignNow additionally ensures the security of the documents with encryption features and compliance with industry standards. 

SignNow integrates with a wide range of third-party applications, including Oracle, Google Workspace, SharePoint, 1Password, Microsoft Dynamics 365, MailChimp, Magento, Braintree, Pipedrive, and Slack.

One drawback of the tool, however, is that some users have reported occasional glitches or technical issues while using SignNow, such as delays in document processing or error messages. This may disrupt workflow efficiency and cause frustration.

SignNow starts at $8/user/month. A free trial is also available.

Guru is an AI-powered enterprise search, intranet, and knowledge management platform designed to integrate with existing tools and workflows to provide instant, accurate answers within a company's operations.

The platform provides a centralized knowledge base, which eliminates redundant work and ensures your team can access accurate and up-to-date information. With the ability to build a repository containing relevant materials, templates, and brand assets, Guru can help you draft proposals based on previous templates and ensure all included terms and offerings are up-to-date with current company information and policies.

Additionally, the platform’s AI enterprise search and AI suggest expert features allow you to quickly find the necessary information and identify team experts if you need help drafting proposals. Guru also includes an AI writing assistant, known as AI Assist, which helps you create, summarize, and translate content. For example, the platform can take your notes from a client meeting and summarize the content into a proposal.

Integrations include Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, GitHub, Jira, HubSpot, Dropbox, Asana, Trello, BambooHR, Freshdesk, Notion, ServiceNow, Airtable, and Adobe Workfront.

Jotform Enterprise is a robust document, form, and contract management software that can support the collection stage of the RFP process. The tool has ready-made and customizable templates that make it easy to create professional-looking forms, with the ability to save frequently used documents as templates for future use. All templates are optimized for mobile devices and fully editable, so companies can customize them with their branding and add additional fields according to their requirements. The software also has analytics abilities for insights into document engagement across all stages of the process.

Users can easily track all submitted proposals in the central dashboard. They can sort submissions by status, assign tasks or messages to team members, and add comments or notes on each request. Organizations can use custom rules such as setting forms to specific departments or adding alerts when tasks are not completed on time. Users can also set up automatic reminders for specific actions, such as collecting feedback from stakeholders or sending out follow-up emails after receiving a submission. These automation features help streamline processes so that all team members stay informed throughout the project lifecycle.

The software integrates with popular third-party applications like Salesforce, Dropbox, and Zapier, so users can connect their existing data and tools. Additionally, the software offers various add-ons like payment gateways, further customizing the user's capabilities.

Pricing details are available upon request.

Google Slides is a free, web-based presentation software provided as part of Google Drive along with Docs, Sheets, Forms, and more. Slides is an intuitive tool allowing the application and arrangement of images and texts on pre-designed templates. It can be launch in any web browser and has a mobile app.

Launched in March of 2009, Slides became a viable free alternative to the widely-used Microsoft Powerpoint. No-cost-to-entry scored it highly in the Value for Cost evaluation category, particularly since Google is not known to skimp on features, support, or update.

Google Slides plays well with add-on integrations, including other Google Drive products, competitor products like Microsoft, Adobe, Shutterstock, options from the G Suite Marketplace (some paid, others free), and many other tools through Zapier.

The major con is that most of the presentation slide templates are simple or generic and not particularly easy to adapt to your brand image. You would be better off starting from scratch in most cases and bringing in a designer for help.

Google Drive is free to use.

Proposify’s design editor offers users the ability to build proposals and maintain company branding across sales documents. It also has a wide range of proposal templates, including options specific to industries, such as advertising and construction.

The tool is packed with features and boasts the ability to increase sign-offs with its built-in, legally binding signature tool allowing prospective clients to sign documents digitally on any device. It also allows clients to input required information straight into the document, helping to reduce the unnecessary, and time-consuming back-and-forth between the rep and the client.

Other features document tracking insights to know how the client is interacting with the document (i.e., when they open it, how long they spend viewing each section), as well as the ability to create a content library with all the necessary descriptions, fees, images, and so on, for quick and easy access when creating documents.

Proposify offers integration with various tools, including Asana, Basecamp, Pipedrive, Trello, Slack, and Stripe.

Proposify starts at $19/user/month and has a 14-day free trial.

RFPIO is a request-for-proposal automation system used by Microsoft, Adobe, and Zoom. They have high-quality import and export functionality, CRM integrations, project management solutions, a user-friendly design interface, a dynamic repository (the Answer Library), and more.

The Answer Library is a welcomed amplification to a few items on our Features & Functions piece of the evaluation criteria. First of all, having a compiled database of regularly used content helps with the speed and accuracy of proposal templates. Secondly, it’s a hands-off collaboration key that can provide information to any interested party, per their access levels.

Integrations include Salesforce, Dynamics CRM, Pipedrive, Pipelinedeals, HubSpot, Sharepoint, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Microsoft ADFS, Microsoft Azure, Onelogin, Okta, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and more.

As far as critiques go, some navigation within projects was a bit cumbersome. Read-Only access to certain items would be a wishlist item.

RFPIO offers pricing by contact and has a free demo available.

HoneyBook is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) built for small businesses. It’s an easy-to-use software designed to help small business owners streamline their business processes from inquiry to invoice. HoneyBook lets users manage projects, book clients, sign contracts online, send invoices and accept payments.

HoneyBook allows users to view and track various stages of a project, as well as keep invoices, contracts, and other documents in one place. Users can respond to clients quickly with automated follow-ups using personalized templates and notifications. In addition, automated payment reminders can be sent and task reminders can be created based on the projects.

HoneyBook can be used by small businesses for booking clients, staying organized, and streamlining their businesses as well as other types of users, such as creatives, entrepreneurs, freelance business owners, hospitality professionals, and health professionals.

HoneyBook is a fully functioning mobile app with a modern and user-friendly interface design, allowing users to manage the business on the go. The tool offers easy-to-use features, including lead capture, Project management, client management, templates, brochures, questionnaires, and bookkeeping.

HoneyBook integrates with tools such as QuickBooks, Calendly, Zapier, Gmail, and Google Calendar.

HoneyBook subscription plans start at $9/month and include a 7-day free trial. Only available in the US and Canada.

InDesign is part of the Adobe software suite and is built primarily as layout and page design software for print and digital media. They have a wide range of templates, graphic designs, typography options, and image stock. Most printing companies can work with InDesign.

Adobe is industry-leading with its design, editing, and layout programs like InDesign and Photoshop and Lightroom. InDesign is incredibly flexible, diverse, and can integrate with many other apps and tools because of its popularity.

InDesign allows plug-in modules and other integrations with other software; for example, Asana, Shutterstock, Paymo Timetracker, Getty Images, Workfront, Wrike, and an app for any feature you can think of (overlays, barcode generation, CMS, version control, collage templates, et cetera).

InDesign loses points on our evaluation criteria spectrum because Usability can be a major hurdle to overcome. Like many Adobe programs, it has a steep learning curve and there are whole college courses dedicated to it alone. That means it’s not great for novice designers.

Adobe InDesign starts at $20.99/user/month and has a 7-day free trial.