If your proposals are mostly the same with a few pages that change, a template with locked brand areas and swappable sections saves hours. Pair it with an invoice in the same design and the client sees one firm from first quote to final bill.
Proposal design
Make the yes easy.
Proposal design does two jobs: it makes your offer clear enough to approve and your firm look worth the price. We design proposals and quotations.
Two documents
Proposal or quotation: which do you need?
Quote
A price for a defined job
One or two pages: the items, the price, the terms and a place to accept. Sent often, so it should be a template your team fills in minutes.
Proposal
A case for a bigger decision
Several pages: the client’s problem, your approach, the team, the timetable, the price and the proof, written for one client.
Both
A proposal with the quote inside
One document. The proposal makes the case, and the last pages are the quotation to sign.
What’s included
What goes into a proposal that gets approved?
- A cover and a summaryThe client’s name and the date, then, on the first inside page, what you propose and what it costs.
- Their problem before your answerA page that shows you understood the brief, in their words.
- The approachWhat you will do, in what order, and what they get at each stage.
- ProofSimilar work with named results, shown with permission.
- The price and the termsOptions side by side where it helps, with validity, payment terms and what is excluded.
- A way to say yesA signature block, a link or one sentence that tells them exactly what to do next.
Templates
Business proposal and quotation templates
A business proposal template or a quotation template is only useful if it is yours: your logo, your terms and your numbering, in software your team already uses.
| Template | Built in | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Quotation | Word, Excel or Google Docs | Jobs priced by the line, with totals and tax that calculate |
| Proposal | Word, Google Docs or InDesign | Longer documents with a contents page and reusable sections |
| Presented proposal | PowerPoint, Google Slides or Keynote | Proposals talked through in a meeting, then left behind |
| Online proposal | A PDF with links, or a page on your site | Clients who read on a phone and approve by link |
Every template comes with a short guide. Our templates page covers the formats in more detail.
Writing
Do you offer proposal writing services?
Yes. Send us the brief, your notes from the meeting and the price, and we write the proposal in plain English and in your voice. Many clients give us a proposal that won before; we turn its best parts into reusable sections for the template.
Public tenders have stricter rules and different documents. Our tender documents service covers those.
Profiles & documents
Related services
Questions
Questions about proposal design
Question not here? Send it to us and we will answer it directly.
Ask a questionHow do we start?
Email hello@redfoxbranding.com or use the project form and attach a recent proposal or quotation, even an ugly one. It shows us your terms, your pricing structure and what your clients are used to. We reply with a fixed quote for the template, the writing or both. If a proposal is due, put the date in the first line.
Should a proposal show one price or options?
Options, when the client has a budget you don’t know. Three tiers let them choose rather than haggle, and most pick the middle. One price suits a defined job where you were asked for a quotation. Either way, the price page states what is included, what is not, how long the quote is valid and how payment works.
Can the quotation template calculate totals and tax?
Yes, if it is built in Excel or Google Sheets, where line totals, subtotals, VAT or sales tax and the grand total update as you type. A Word template looks the same, but the sums are typed by hand. We set both up to match, with the tax line labelled for your country. Send the client a PDF, never the editable file, so the terms stay as you wrote them.
How is proposal design priced?
By how many page types the template needs and whether we write content as well. A two-page quotation template is the quickest job; a proposal template with a cover, a dozen inner layouts, a price page and a case study format takes longer, and writing the reusable sections adds to it. The quote lists each part, so you can start with the quotation and add the proposal later.
Sending the same proposal every week?
Get a quote for proposal design
Send a recent proposal or quotation, tell us which software your team uses and roughly how many you send a month, and mention any brand guidelines. We reply with a fixed quote in pounds, rand or dollars, with the template, the writing and matching stationery priced separately. Your proposal design begins once you approve it.