What a proposal has to do#
The person who signs your proposal may not have been on the call. They will read the first page, look for the price, and check whether you understood the problem. Everything else is for the person who will run the project on their side.
So write it for those two readers, and make it short enough to forward. A proposal that a buyer can sign without a meeting has three things on the first page: what they get, what it costs, and what you need from them to start.
Proposal or SOW? The proposal sells the work. The SOW (statement of work) is the contract document that holds the same scope, price and dates, signed under the client’s MSA or your own terms. For a small job, one document can do both: add a signature block to the proposal. For a larger one, the proposal comes first and the SOW follows the yes, word for word on scope and price.
The 10 parts of a services proposal#
1. The problem, in their words. Two or three sentences, with their numbers and their deadline. “Checkout went down for 40 minutes on Black Friday, and the next peak is November 27.” If they read this and nod, they keep reading.
2. The outcome. What is true when you finish, in terms they can check. “A load test at 3x last year’s peak, a report of what breaks first, and the fixes ranked by cost.” Avoid “improve” and “optimize”: they cannot be checked.
3. The scope. What you will do, as a short list of deliverables. Each one is a thing they receive: a report, a site, a workshop, a test suite.
4. Out of scope. What you will not do, named. This is the part founders skip and the part that saves the margin. See the wording below.
5. Phases and dates. Two to four phases, each with what it delivers and a date or a week number. Tie the last date to their deadline. “Week 3: the test results, ten days before your freeze.”
6. The people. Who does the work and who is their contact, by name and role. One line each. Leave out the company history.
7. The price, and its basis. The number, and how it is built. See the three bases below.
8. Assumptions and what you need from them. Access, data, a person who answers questions within two business days. The price holds while these hold. See the wording below.
9. Payment terms. When you invoice and when they pay: “50% on signature, 50% on delivery, net 30, 1% a month on late payment.” For a retainer, add the notice to end it and what is paid for work in progress. Write it here so it is not a surprise in the SOW.
10. The next step, with a date. One step: “Reply yes by Friday, October 16, and we start Monday the 19th.” Add how long the price holds, usually 30 days.
Three ways to price the work#
| What | What you write | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed fee | One price for the scope above, paid by milestone | The scope is clear and you have done this work before |
| Time and materials with a cap | A rate per hour or day, an estimate, and a cap you will not pass without their written OK | The work has unknowns, and they need a ceiling to approve it |
| Monthly retainer | A fee per month for a set amount of work or hours, a minimum term, notice to end it | The work is ongoing: support, a fractional role, monthly content |
Show the basis next to the number, with the estimate behind it in two or three lines: “12 engineer-days at $1,400 a day, plus a two-day report: $19,600, fixed.” A buyer who sees the days and the rate asks about the days, and you can trade scope for price while your rate holds.
How to pick the number. Count the days each phase takes, multiply by your day rate, and add 15 to 20% for what the call did not show you. Then hold it against the budget range they gave you. Inside the range: send one price. Above it by more than 20%: send two options, a smaller scope that fits their number and the full one, each with its price. Two is enough; with three, they compare instead of decide.
When they ask “can you do it for less?” Answer with scope, not rate: “At $[lower price], we drop [phase or deliverable]. The rest stays as written.” A cut rate tells them the first number was padded.
Wording for the scope and the assumptions#
Paste these into your proposal and fill in every bracket.
Scope. [Your firm] will deliver:
(a) [Deliverable one: what they receive, and in what form.]
(b) [Deliverable two.]
(c) [Deliverable three.]
Out of scope. This proposal does not include [work they may assume is included, e.g. fixing the issues the test finds], [a second round of the same work], [third-party license or hosting costs], or [work on systems other than (named system)]. We can quote any of these as a change order at [rate or "a price agreed in writing before the work starts", e.g. $(rate) per hour, quoted in writing before the work starts].
Revisions. The price includes [two] rounds of revisions on [the deliverable]. Further rounds are billed at [rate].
This price and schedule assume that:
(a) [Client] gives us access to [systems, accounts, data] by [date].
(b) [Client] names one person who answers our questions within [two] business days.
(c) [Client] reviews each deliverable within [five] business days of receipt. If we hear nothing in that time, we ask once more, and the deliverable is accepted [three] business days after that.
(d) [The environment, the volume, the number of pages, users or locations] stays as described on our call of [date].
If an assumption changes, we will tell you in writing within [two] business days, with the effect on the price and the dates, before we do the extra work.
The email that sends the proposal#
Send the proposal by email, to your main contact with everyone from the call in Cc, on the date you promised in the recap. Put a summary in the body: the person who signs may read only the email. Attach the proposal as a PDF, or link a shared document.
The email that sends your proposal
To your main contact, the others from the call in Cc. Attach the proposal, or link it.
Hi [Name],
Here is the proposal for [project], attached. The short version:
- [The outcome: what is true when we finish.]
- [Scope: the deliverables in one line. Not included: the one thing they may assume is.]
- [Price: $(amount), (fixed / time and materials capped at $X / per month), invoiced (terms).]
- [Dates: start (date), (deliverable) by (date), before your (deadline).]
It assumes [the one assumption that matters most, e.g. access to staging by (date)].
If this works, reply yes by [date] and we start [date]. If something needs to change, 20 minutes with you and [the person who signs] settles it faster than email. I can do [day, time] or [day, time], your time.
[If their legal team reviews contracts: Once you say yes, I will send the SOW with the same scope and price, so your legal team can start on it the same day.]
[Your name]
Common mistakes in services proposals#
- Sending a deck instead of a decision. Twenty slides of case studies and process diagrams, with the price on slide 18. The buyer wants the price, the scope and the date on the first page.
- A price with no basis. “$24,000” alone gets a request for 20% off. “12 days at $1,400, plus the report, fixed” gets a question about the days.
- No out-of-scope line. The work they assumed was included shows up in week 3, and you either do it free or argue.
- Assumptions nobody wrote down. The access arrives two weeks late and the deadline does not move. Written assumptions let you move the date without a fight.
- No next step. “Let me know your thoughts” leaves the next move to a busy person. Name the date to reply and the date you start.
- Waiting a week. By day seven they may have a proposal from the vendor who wrote first, and they have forgotten half of your call. Send within two business days, or say in the recap which day it arrives and keep it.
- A proposal that disagrees with the SOW. The client’s legal team reads the SOW against the proposal. Copy scope, price and dates across word for word.
After you send it, follow up on a plan: How to follow up on the proposal until you get a decision.
How Tommos writes the proposal email from your estimate#
Tommos (tommos.ai) is a CRM with AI agents inside it, the tommos, that take a B2B inquiry to a signed contract. After your discovery call, Tommo Closer reads the transcript and your estimate and writes the proposal email in the shape of the ten parts above, from your Gmail, then follows up until the client decides. Tommo Legal drafts your SOW from your own template in your Google Drive and reads the client’s MSA when it arrives. You price the work and you make the calls; the tommos write it up, on the deal’s record. Tommo Closer does not price the work: the number on the proposal is the number in your estimate.
- 1
Your estimate on the dealClose
You or your presales person put the estimate on the deal: a link to the sheet or doc you already use. Tommo Closer takes the scope, the price and the dates from it and never makes them up. When the deal has no estimate, it asks you for one on a card.
- 2
The recap, then the proposal emailClose
Tommo Closer writes the recap from the call’s transcript (Granola or a Google Drive folder), then the proposal as an email in your voice, with the ten parts above filled from the transcript and the estimate. The card: the email, with Send, Change and Skip.
- 3
Follow-ups to a decisionClose
If the client goes quiet, Tommo Closer follows up inside their working hours until there is a yes, or a no with its reason on the record. When they name a date (“after the board meets on the 20th”), it waits for that date.
- 4
Your SOW and their MSASign
Tommo Legal drafts the SOW as a Google Doc from your template in the Templates folder of your Drive, with the scope, price and dates from the same estimate, so the proposal and the SOW agree. It names every blank it could not fill and whom to ask. When the client sends their MSA, Tommo Legal reads it against your positions and writes a clause memo. Tommo Closer sends the SOW’s link to the client once you take the draft.
Each email waits on a card until you let a tommo send that kind on its own. After twelve approvals in a row of one kind of email with nothing to fix, Tommo Closer asks; you switch it on, on a paid plan, and switch it off the same way.
Tommo Closer comes with the Close plan, $599 a month for the firm. Tommo Legal comes with the Sign plan, $899 a month, which also holds Tommo Closer and Tommo SDR. No seats, the AI model included, 14 days of everything with no card.
Questions about writing a services proposal#
- What should a services proposal include?
- Ten parts: the client's problem in their words, the outcome, the scope, what is out of scope, phases and dates, the people on the work, the price and its basis, assumptions, payment terms, and the next step with a date. Keep it to two to four pages.
- How long should a consulting proposal be?
- Two to four pages for most engagements, or a long email for a small one. The person who signs reads the first page, so put the outcome, the price and the start date there.
- Should I price fixed fee or time and materials?
- Fixed fee when the scope is clear and you have done the work before. Time and materials with a cap when the work has unknowns. A monthly retainer when the work is ongoing. Show the estimate behind the number in either case.
- What is the difference between a proposal and a statement of work?
- The proposal sells the work. The SOW is the contract document with the same scope, price and dates, signed under an MSA. For a small job one document can do both. For a larger one the SOW follows the yes and copies the proposal's scope and price word for word.
- How soon should I send a proposal after a discovery call?
- Within two business days for most work. If you need an estimate from your engineers, give the date in the recap and keep it.
- Can AI write a proposal from my estimate?
- Yes. In Tommos (tommos.ai), Tommo Closer writes the proposal email from your estimate and the call's transcript, with the scope, the price and the dates taken from the estimate, then follows up until the client decides. On the Sign plan, Tommo Legal drafts the SOW from your own template in your Google Drive. Each email waits on a card until you let that kind go on its own. Close is $599 a month and Sign $899, for the firm.
- What does Tommo Closer need to write my proposals?
- A Google Workspace account, since the emails go from your Gmail; your call transcripts in Granola or a Google Drive folder; and your estimate on the deal, as a link to the sheet or doc you already use. Sign in with Google to start.
- Does the AI make up the price?
- Not in Tommos. Tommo Closer and Tommo Legal take the scope, the price and the dates only from your estimate. With no estimate on the deal, they ask you for one on a card.
Read next
- How to write the follow-up email after a discovery callThree templates and the timing.
- How to review a client's MSA before you signTen clauses, the wording to send back, and the email that sends it.
- One tool from inquiry to contractThe reply, the call, the proposal, the contract and the invoice in one record.