The 5 Best Proposal Software Solutions 2023

Crafting a compelling proposal that effectively showcases your company is no walk in the park. The process demands transparency, impeccable writing, and an aesthetically pleasing design to make a lasting impression on potential clients. However, in the fast-paced business world, your sales and marketing teams cannot afford to dedicate excessive time to proposal creation at the expense of their core sales responsibilities.

To address this challenge, businesses are turning to proposal software solutions, which offer efficient and reliable ways to create high-quality proposals quickly. These tools facilitate the proposal writing process, allowing marketing and sales teams to draft proposals and send them to clients with unprecedented speed.

In this article, we will delve into the top business proposal software available in the market today, exploring their features and functionalities to help you make an informed decision and optimize your proposal creation process. By leveraging these cutting-edge tools, your company can enhance its proposal workflow, maximize efficiency, and ultimately increase the chances of winning over clients. Let’s dive into the world of proposal software and explore the best options for your business’s unique needs.

Expedience Software

Expedience is proposal automation software that works where proposal writers do – Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The solution emphasizes ease of use while streamlining proposals, RFP responses, sales letters, DDQs, RFI responses, security questionnaires, compliance reviews, and more.

Expedience Software is one of the best RFP and Proposal software offerings because it provides tools that help create persuasive business proposal documents while reducing proposal creation time. It allows the use of only one platform: Microsoft Office. It is easy to use, integrates with MS Office functionality, and has friendly and willing customer support.

Key Features:

• Change Management: Because Expedience integrates with Microsoft Office, users have less to learn, and SMEs and contributors can keep their processes the same.
• Number of licenses required: SMEs and contributors are not required to purchase a license.
• Security/Data Privacy: The Expedience Content Library is in customer control and placed on SharePoint, OneDrive, Dropbox, or for maximum security behind the corporate firewall.
• Future Proof the Investment Decision: Expedience integrates with MS Copilot/ChatGPT for the latest Artificial Intelligence capabilities.
• Customization Offerings: Customize your proposals with Excel Integration.
• Flexibility: Different proposals can follow different processes.
• Proposal Type Flexibility: Proactive Proposals, RFP response, SOWs, Contracts, Compliance Reviews, Sales Letters, Security Questionnaires, and more.
• Ease of use: Expedience Software is built inside the familiar Microsoft Office, where sales and proposal teams work.
• Training and Support: Access resources, training, and customer support to ensure customer success.

Important Details

• Sales and Proposal Teams choose Expedience Software to optimize their document creation workflows, streamline collaboration, ensure consistency, and deliver clients more personalized and effective proposals.
• Free trial available.

PandaDoc

PandaDoc is an all-in-one tool that allows you to create, edit, send, track, and eSign documents quickly and easily. It has various features that can help you streamline your document workflows.

Key Features:

• Onboard document editor for creating proposals, contracts, and more with drag-and-drop tools, combining text, electronic signing, and multimedia.
• PandaDoc content library to save and reuse formats, layouts, text blocks, and multimedia across multiple documents.

Important Details:

• Ideal for businesses seeking centralized document creation and management.
• 14-day free trial.

Responsive (Formerly RFPIO)

Responsive (formerly RFPIO) is tailored for streamlined RFP responses and centralized proposal management. It aids sales teams in efficiently handling RFPs, RFIs, and security questionnaires by connecting experts with response requests. This accelerates submissions, reduces costs per bid, and utilizes AI to enhance the process.

Key Features:

• AI recommendation engine accelerates proposal creation by searching existing content for quick and accurate responses.
• Metric-based decisions help evaluate RFPs for worthwhile opportunities, preventing wasted time and effort.

Important Details:

• Ideal for sales teams aiming to enhance RFP-response efficiency with AI and automation.
• No free trial, but a demo is available.

ConnectWise CPQ (formerly ConnectWise Sell)

ConnectWise CPQ (formerly ConnectWise Sell) is a cloud-based tool that automates and streamlines your quoting, procurement, and service delivery process. It offers IT solution providers of all sizes a cloud-based quoting solution, enabling the quote-to-cash process to run smoothly.

Key Features:

• Professional quote or proposal templates
• Product catalog and sourcing
• Workflow automation
• Sales reporting
• Integrations with best-in-breed solutions like Cisco, Dell, HP, and Salesforce

Important Details:

• Improves the sales process with faster turnaround and enhanced visibility into the process.
• 30-45 day free trial.

QuoteWerks

QuoteWerks is a sales quoting and proposal software designed to help businesses create professional quotes and proposals quickly and easily. It has various features that can help you streamline your sales process.

Key Features:

• Product data base
• Quote generation
• Proposal generation
• Sales management
• Integrations with best-in-breed solutions like QuickBooks, ACT!, Autotask, ConnectWise, Salesforce, MS CRM, Outlook, and more.

Important Details:

• Sales teams use this quoting and proposal software solution in their CPQ and Quote-To-Cash sales process.
• Free trial available.

Top Pick: Expedience Software!

For an all-encompassing solution suitable for businesses of all sizes, Expedience takes the lead.

Industry-leading and optimized for Copilot 365, Expedience is the automation solution sales and proposal teams need to create winning proposals faster and more consistently than ever. Say goodbye to tedious administrative proposal tasks and hello to curated, branded, and approved content at your fingertips.

Because Expedience is native to MS Word, there is no steep learning curve or change management required—everyone knows MS Word! This also means that proposal content remains 100% secure and in your control.

Expedience offers a suite of modules to automate nearly every type of proposal, business development document, or contract, including RFP responses, proactive sales proposals, template-driven proposals, SOWs, Excel RFPs, PowerPoints, and more.

See how Expedience can transform the proposal creation process, boost efficiency, enhance collaboration, and help win more business effortlessly.

Experience Expedience firsthand with a free product demonstration or a free trial.

Selection Criteria

To ensure effective tool comparison, we evaluated critical factors for daily business operations:

Pricing: Value vs. Budget

Features: Capabilities and Custom Solutions

Scope: Basic vs. Comprehensive Tool Options

User Experience: Prioritizing Ease-of-Use

Automation and Scalability: Prioritizing Enterprise Solutions

Trial Availability: Prioritizing the offer of free trials for pre-investment assessment

Remember, while these factors are significant in the proposal process, they do not assure that any tool will perfectly suit your sales document needs. Numerous tools on our list provide a free trial, allowing you to assess their compatibility with your sales process before making a substantial commitment.