You do not compare proposal software on the length of the feature list but on six criteria: AI, electronic signature, tracking, CRM integration, price and the VAT rules you work with. This is how to weigh PandaDoc, Proposify, Qwilr, Better Proposals, DealHub and Proposal Expert honestly.
Proposal software is an online tool that lets you write, send, have signed and follow up your quotes and proposals from one place. Instead of a Word file that you email as a PDF, you send a link to a web page the client can read on any device and accept digitally. The tool records what happens after that: was the proposal opened, which sections were read, was it signed. In 2026 almost every vendor adds an AI layer on top that helps with writing and reviewing. That makes choosing harder rather than easier, because every website promises roughly the same thing. This article gives you six criteria that let you see through the marketing and make a choice that fits the way you actually sell.
Use this order as a checklist. 1. AI: does the tool write loose sentences only, or does it turn a brief into a complete draft, and can you have single sections rewritten? 2. Electronic signature: which level within eIDAS is delivered, and is there an audit trail with a timestamp, an IP address and a seal on the document? 3. Tracking: do you only see that a proposal was opened, or also how long the client reads per section, and are you notified at the moment it happens? 4. CRM integration: are deals, contacts and amounts synchronised in both directions, or only exported once? 5. Price: what does it cost per user per month, is there a free plan to start on, and what happens in a month when you send nothing at all? 6. The VAT rules you work with: can the tool show a standard rate, a reduced rate, a zero rate and a reverse charge line side by side on one proposal, with a correct total line? Anyone who fills in these six points for each tool has a comparison within an hour that says more than ten demos.
Ask three things about every AI feature. What goes in, what comes out, and what does it cost. A good AI assistant takes a short brief (client, problem, offer, budget) and turns it into a draft with an introduction, an approach, a timeline and a pricing structure. After that you want to steer per section without regenerating the whole document. Look at the pricing model of the AI as well. In Proposal Expert a full AI draft costs 20 credits and a single section costs 5 credits, and the free plan includes 25 credits per month. That is transparent, and you can work out in advance what you need. With tools that call their AI "unlimited" you want to know whether there is a fair use limit underneath. Check how the tool handles your data too: is the content of your proposals used to train models, and do personal details of your client go to the model? There is more on how this works in the article on the AI proposal generator.
For ordinary commercial proposals between businesses, a Simple Electronic Signature (SES) with evidence around it is enough in practice. What matters is what gets recorded around the signature: who signed, when, from which IP address, which version of the document was in front of them, and whether that version was sealed afterwards so changes can be demonstrated. Proposal Expert delivers an SES within eIDAS with that audit trail and a cryptographic seal per document. It is deliberately not a qualified signature (QES), which you only need for specific deeds and government procedures. When you compare, check whether a tool names the level at all. Words like "legally valid" without any explanation say very little, because almost every signature is legally valid. The real question is how much evidence you hold when it comes to a dispute.
Five vendors turn up in almost every comparison, and each sits in a different corner. PandaDoc is a document automation platform for proposals, quotes and contracts, so it fits organisations that also want to handle HR documents and internal approvals in the same system. Proposify has focused on agencies for years, with a section editor and a large template library, which shows in its role structure. Qwilr presents proposals as interactive web pages and is strong when the visual presentation is your main priority. Better Proposals is deliberately simple, aimed at quick template-based proposals with an e-signature and CRM connections through Zapier. DealHub is an enterprise CPQ and proposal suite with a quote configurator, product rules, discount matrices and contract management, which suits a different kind of selling than a consulting proposal. Proposal Expert positions itself on the combination of AI writing help, real-time tracking with an engagement score and two-way CRM sync with HubSpot, Salesforce and Monday, with a free plan and 16 interface languages. None of these is right for everyone. If you sell products with many variants, look at CPQ first. If you send mostly small, repeating quotes, a light tool is pleasant. If you write multi-page proposals that several people at the client will read, AI, tracking and CRM weigh more heavily.
Prices differ a lot in structure, so compare on a yearly basis and per proposal sent. Work through an example. If you send 8 proposals a month and pay 24 euro a month, each proposal costs 3 euro in software. At 59 euro a month and 30 proposals that is roughly 2 euro per proposal. Proposal Expert has a free plan (3 proposals and 25 AI credits per month), Starter at 24 euro per month and Professional at 59 euro per user per month. For PandaDoc, Proposify, Qwilr, Better Proposals and DealHub you can find the current rates on their own pricing pages, which change regularly, and there is little point quoting an outdated amount here. With every tool, watch three things: whether the price is per user or per account, whether electronic signatures are included or billed separately, and whether you can cancel monthly. A tool that costs you nothing in a quiet month lowers the barrier to starting considerably.
Build a test proposal in two or three tools with a real client case, not with the sample material of the vendor. Send it to a colleague and to yourself on your phone. Look at how the pricing structure reads with a reverse charge line and an optional item in it. Sign it yourself and look at the evidence you get back. Connect the tool to your CRM, even if you think you do not need that at the start, because that is usually the reason people switch later. If you run through these steps in one afternoon, you know more than any comparison table can tell you. For the full feature list, see the comparison pages on this site, where Proposal Expert is set against each of these tools point by point.
For a freelancer or a small team that sends a few proposals a month, usually yes. The free plan of Proposal Expert gives you 3 proposals per month with an electronic signature and tracking. You will notice by yourself when you run into the limit, and upgrading is then a matter of one click, without having to move your proposals.
No, and you should not reject a tool over it either. It is sensible though to choose a tool that connects to the CRM you may grow into, such as HubSpot or Pipedrive. Otherwise you will be rebuilding your whole proposal process a year from now.
Usually not one to one. What you can bring across is the content: standard texts, terms and pricing lines. Most tools offer a template editor in which you rebuild that content in half an hour. In Proposal Expert you can also paste an existing text as a brief, after which the AI turns it into a first draft.