If you’re searching for proposal software, you’re bound to come across Proposify. They’d probably be considered like the 800 pound gorilla in the proposal space.

They definitely have a cool homepage — with a smart (and smug) looking chap pouring some coffee, which is meant to apparently give you the impression that Proposify will make your proposal creation proposal as easy as having a cup of coffee.

 

 

Unfortunately, using Proposify is not easy at all, especially if you’re a freelancer or consultant.

You see, Proposify is targeting their software at the enterprise market — where teams of designers, writers, sales folks and project managers collaborate to create multi-million dollar proposals for Fortune 100 companies.

If you are that enterprise team I just described, then by all means give Proposify a try. It might just be right for you.

But if you’re a freelancer, consultant or small agency or company looking to create winning proposals for projects worth tens of thousands of dollars, then Proposify is probably OVERKILL — and waaaay too complicated for what you actually need.

A better alternative for you would be Propfire — which was built specifically for freelancers, consultants or small agency owners.

So let’s run through and compare some of the features and pros and cons of both Better Proposals and Propfire.

Design Templates

While Proposify offers a lot of design templates, but in order to modify them and get them to look right with your content, you’ll need a navigate a pretty complex design editor.

If you’re a designer and used to working in Photoshop or other editors, then maybe this isn’t a big deal to you. But for those of us who find design challenging (even though we still do it), the last thing we want to do is spend a lot of time designing a proposal.

In any case, whenever you use design templates, you’re going to have to do some degree of designing and tweaking. That takes time and is really hard to do on a mobile device or tablet.

And yet, the Proposify folks claim that you’ll be able to create proposals in minutes. Really?

Maybe if you can to use one of their templates without making any changes at all.

Propfire Design Templates

Propfire provides several templates with great looking cover designs to get you started quickly. But beyond choosing the cover you want, you don’t have to do ANY design work. Propfire automatically creates the design for you. That saves you a lot of time and frustration.

Your proposal design on Propfire can be as graphics heavy as you like, but we recommend you stick with our clean, streamlined and image-free design.

Contrary to what Proposify and other proposal software companies would like you to believe, proposals are NOT won based on complexity of design.

Proposals are won based on deliverables, pricing and timing — and the prior relationship you’ve developed with the client.

 

Proposal Content

Proposify provides content with their templates.

But while the content might be relevant for certain types of projects, for most freelancers, consultants or digital agencies, it isn’t.

That means that you’ll need to enter in all of your own content. For many users, that’s not so simple. After all, one of the main purposes of a template is to provide guidance regarding content, not just design.

With Propfire you get super relevant proposal content geared towards web design, seo, content marketing, social media and PPC. So you can pretty much use the proposal content as is, with just making a few modifications based on your own specifications.

You can also skip the template process altogether and use Content Snippets to create very customized proposals on the fly.

Check out this video to see how it works:

 

 

When it comes to content, Propfire provides freelancers and consultants with relevant content that they can use as is.

No Printing

The Proposify folks don’t believe that you’ll ever have to print out another proposal again. And they might be right, if they’re only addressing enterprise clients.

But if you’re a freelancers or consultant, you know that many of your potential clients want a document that they can hold in their hands and sign with a pen.

I know from my own experience as a digital consultant and small agency owner, most of the clients I pitch still want to print out a hard copy to hold, pass around and — most importantly —  sign.

These clients I deal with are all successful companies that have been around for a long time and who have owners and management that still remember a time before Facebook and Tinder. There’s no way that they are not going to want to hold a hard copy of a proposal.

Proposals created with Propfire are formatted to be easily saved as a PDF and printed, so you can get it into the hands of your client quickly.

Embed Your Proposal

One of the coolest features of Propfire is that you can embed your proposals directly into your own website. That’s something Proposify or the other competitors do NOT let you do.

They might give you a branded subdomain, but just imagine how professional it would be to send clients to your own website to view your proposal?

Well, you can do it with Propfire!

It’s as simple as copying a couple of lines of code (iframe) and adding to your website.

For Big Teams

Proposify offers a few features for the large team agency market, like Salesforce integration and team collaboration.

Again, if you need a Salesforce integration or multiple team members collaborating on the same proposal, then you should check out Proposify.

But if you’re a consultant or smaller agency, you need something simpler to use and faster, that can create a proposal that’s right for the type of small and midsized clients you’re pitching too who want to see a concise, no-nonsense, proposal that they can hold in their hands.

That’s exactly what Propfire offers.

Pricing

Oops…almost forgot the all important pricing.

Since Proposify is aiming for the enterprise market their pricing is obviously on the high side of the market.

Propfire plans start from as low as $8 per month (paid annually).

But the truth is, if it’s going to help you get even 1 new client, then either software is well worth the investment :)

 

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