Comparison
Four ways to get a price in front of a client. One takes 30 seconds.
Most small businesses email a PDF or retype a Word template. Proposal platforms fix that and charge per person per month for it. This is the honest version of the tradeoff, including the jobs we are the wrong tool for.
- Under 30 seconds to a client-ready link
- Free to send, and no account to start
- Accepted with a typed name and a timestamp
Side by side
What actually differs
Every row is something a client feels or a number you can check. The rows we lose are written the same way as the rows we win.
| The question | SendProposalsFastFree · $12/mo Pro | Proposal platformPer user, per month | PDF by emailFree | Word or DocsFree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time to send your first oneFrom opening the page to a link in the client's hand. | Under 30 seconds | An account, a card, and a setup session | About as long as the document takes | About as long as the document takes |
| Account needed to send | No | Yes, plus a card on most | An email account | Yes |
| What the client doesThe step where deals go quiet. | Opens a link, taps accept | Opens a link, taps accept | Downloads, zooms, replies | Asks for access, replies |
| Readable on a phone | Both sides | Client side, usually | Pinch to zoom | Poor |
| Recorded acceptanceA typed name and a timestamp, not a reply saying it looks good. | Yes, every tier | Yes | No | No |
| You know when it was read | Pro, $12/mo | Yes, on most tiers | No | No |
| Deposit collected on the pageThrough your own payment processor. The money never touches us. | Pro, $12/mo | Yes, on higher tiers | No | No |
| Fixed once acceptedNeither side can quietly change the price afterwards. | Yes | Yes | The file can be edited | The doc can be edited |
| Template library and a client listA row we lose. | 13 industry templates, no CRM | Full library and a CRM | Your own folder | Your own folder |
| Team workflows and approvalsA row we lose. | None, this is a tool for one person | Yes, that is what the price buys | No | Comment threads |
| What 20 proposals a month costsTwenty you wrote yourself. | $0 free, or $12 on Pro | Per seat, and metered on entry tiers | $0, plus your time | $0, plus your time |
The proposal platform column is the shape of the category rather than any one product. For a named comparison with figures and their sources, open one of the pages below.
The real cost
The free option is the one with a price on it.
Do the arithmetic with your own numbers. If retyping a template takes you 40 minutes and you send 20 proposals a month, that is 13 hours of your own time, every month, to send the document you sent last week. Ours takes about 30 seconds each, which is under 10 minutes for the same 20.
Those are your numbers, not measurements of ours. The 40 minutes is the assumption, and it is the one worth checking against your own last invoice.
Retyping a template
13 hrs
per month, 20 proposals
This
10 min
per month, 20 proposals
Honest limits
When to buy something else
Four cases where a proposal platform is the better purchase. If one of these is you, the rest of this page is not worth your time.
You need a legally binding signature
A client accepts by typing their name, which we record with a timestamp and the exact line items they agreed to. That is a strong record of intent, and it is not an e-signature with a certificate and an audit trail. If a contract needs that, buy a tool that does it.
More than one person sends proposals
There are no seats, no roles and no shared library, because there is no team model at all. That is why the price does not multiply, and it is also why a sales team of four should buy a proposal platform instead.
The proposal is a 20-page pitch
This is built for a scope, some priced line items and terms, on one screen. A long RFP response with case studies and appendices belongs in a document, not in a link.
You want the proposal in your CRM
We have no integrations and no API. The proposal lives here and the link goes wherever you send it. If it has to appear against a deal record automatically, we cannot do that.
One by one
Compared with the tools people ask about
Each page names what the other tool does better before it says a word about what we do, and every figure carries the page it was read on and the day it was read.
Comparison
SendProposalsFast vs PandaDoc
PandaDoc is a document platform for sales teams. It handles proposals, contracts, NDAs and order forms, with a content library, a CRM connection and approval routing behind them. We do one of those things, for one person, in about half a minute.
Comparison
SendProposalsFast vs Proposify
Proposify is the proposal tool agencies benchmark against: a deep template library, section-level analytics showing how long a client spent on your pricing page, approval workflows and CRM integration. It is a well-built product for a sales team that sends proposals for a living.
Comparison
SendProposalsFast vs Better Proposals
Better Proposals is proposal software built for freelancers and small businesses who want a proposal that looks designed without hiring a designer. Good templates, a genuine focus on simplicity, and a price that respects a small business. Of everything in this category it is the closest to what we are trying to do.
Comparison
SendProposalsFast vs Qwilr
Qwilr turns a proposal into an interactive web page rather than a document: embedded video, live pricing tables a client can configure, ROI calculators, and analytics behind all of it. For a sales team selling something complicated, it is a genuinely different and better artifact than a PDF.
Comparison
SendProposalsFast vs HoneyBook
HoneyBook is a client management platform for independent businesses: enquiry forms, a scheduler, proposals, contracts, invoices, payments, automations and a client portal in one place. Proposals are one feature of a dozen, and for the right business that bundle is genuinely good value.
Check the 30 seconds yourself
SendProposalsFast is proposal software for freelancers and small service businesses. Fill in four fields on the home page and time it. Nothing to cancel afterwards, because there was nothing to sign up for.