Updated on 29 September 2026 by the Proposal Expert editorial team
An SOW with the scope of work inside it, plus a filled-in example in Word
A statement of work (SOW) template that includes the scope of work as one of its sections: purpose, scope, deliverables, schedule and milestones, acceptance criteria, fees and payment, assumptions and exclusions, and a signature line. With a filled-in example for a fictional US web agency, priced per milestone in dollars. Free as a Word download.
A statement of work turns an agreed proposal into work both sides can check: what will be done, what will be delivered and by when, how the client decides a deliverable is finished, and what each milestone costs. People often look for a scope of work template when they need exactly this, and the two terms are easy to mix up. The scope of work describes the tasks and their boundaries. The statement of work wraps that scope in the schedule, the acceptance rules and the money. This template does both, with the scope of work as section two of the SOW. The example below fills in every section for a fictional web agency in Denver building an online booking portal for a group of veterinary clinics.
A statement of work, usually shortened to SOW, is a project document that the client and the supplier both sign. It describes the work in enough detail that a third person could tell whether it was done: purpose, tasks, deliverables, dates, acceptance criteria and fees. In agency, IT and consulting work it usually sits under a master services agreement (MSA), which holds the terms that stay the same from project to project, such as liability, confidentiality and intellectual property. Each new project then gets its own SOW. Without an MSA, the SOW refers to your standard terms and conditions. The term is used in the US and the UK alike, although UK contracts sometimes call the same content a specification or a schedule.
The scope of work is one part of the statement of work. The scope describes the tasks and where they stop: what the supplier will do, what it will not do, and which systems, sites or teams are involved. The statement of work adds what is needed to manage and pay for that work: deliverables, schedule and milestones, acceptance criteria, fees and payment terms, and the assumptions both sides rely on. A scope of work can stand alone for an internal project or an early brief. Once money and deadlines are involved, you need the full statement of work. Contractors, especially in construction, sometimes call the whole document a scope of work, so check which one the other side means.
Eight sections in the order a client reads them: purpose, scope of work, deliverables, schedule and milestones, acceptance criteria, fees and payment, assumptions and exclusions, and next step. Every payment is linked to a milestone and every milestone to a deliverable the client can test. The Word file has the same headings with the example text, ready to replace.
Agencies, IT firms, software developers, consultants and freelancers who have agreed a proposal and need a document that controls the project. It fits fixed-price work paid per milestone best. For time and materials work, keep the same headings and replace the fixed fees with a rate, an estimate of hours and a cap. Buyers use it too: a client that writes the SOW itself and asks several suppliers to price it gets quotes it can compare line by line.
Start from the deliverables, not the tasks. List what the client will receive and write one test per item that says when it is done. Then work back to the tasks, which gives you the scope of work, and to the dates, which give you the milestones. Price each milestone so that payment follows acceptance. Write the exclusions as carefully as the scope, because most disputes start with something neither side wrote down. Describe the change request process before the first request arrives. Adapt the payment terms to the reader: US clients know net 30, UK clients expect payment within a stated number of days of the invoice. If you send the SOW through Proposal Expert, the pricing table calculates the total and can carry excluded extras as optional line items the client can tick.
This statement of work example shows how a web agency in Denver, Colorado, sets out an online booking portal for three veterinary clinics. The scope of work is section two and the exclusions sit in section seven, so both sides can see where the project stops. Each of the five milestones has dates, a deliverable and a fee, and the client pays per milestone once it has accepted the work, for a total of $51,900. To adapt it, keep the eight headings, replace the deliverables with your own, write an acceptance test for each and move the fees to your milestones. Without a master services agreement, refer to your terms and conditions in the purpose instead.
This proposal can be downloaded as a Word document (.docx) on this page.
From: Fernhollow Digital, Denver, Colorado
To: Aspen Row Veterinary Clinics, Fort Collins, Colorado
Date: 1 October 2026
Reference: SOW-2026-014
Valid until: 31 October 2026
Aspen Row Veterinary Clinics runs three clinics in Fort Collins and Loveland and takes almost all appointments by phone. This project adds an online booking portal for routine visits, connected to the practice management system the clinics already use, to free front desk time for the calls that need a person. This statement of work is issued under the master services agreement between the parties signed on 3 September 2026. Where the two differ, the agreement applies, except for the scope, schedule and fees set out here.
Fernhollow Digital will design, build, test and launch an online booking portal for the three Aspen Row clinics and train the staff who will manage it. The work covers:
Each deliverable is handed over with a short note that lists what it contains and which acceptance criteria apply.
Work starts on Monday 19 October 2026, provided this statement of work is signed by 14 October. Each milestone ends with the delivery of its deliverable.
Aspen Row has five business days from each delivery to accept it in writing or to list the defects that stop it meeting the specification. Fernhollow fixes those defects and resubmits, with the same five days. A deliverable not rejected within five business days counts as accepted. The live portal (D4) is accepted when:
The fees are fixed per milestone, as listed below, for a total of $51,900. Fernhollow invoices each milestone when its deliverable is accepted, and invoices the 30 days of support at go-live. Invoices are payable net 30. Work outside this scope is quoted at $160 an hour through a written change request that states the effect on price and dates, and starts only after both parties sign it. Fees exclude any applicable taxes.
The schedule and fees rely on the assumptions below. If one does not hold, either party can raise a change request. Not included in this statement of work: online payments, text message reminders, a native mobile app, content writing, and hosting or maintenance after the support period ends on 1 April 2027. Each can be quoted separately.
This statement of work is valid until 31 October 2026. To keep the start date of 19 October, please sign by 14 October 2026. A later signature moves every milestone date by the same number of days. Once it is signed, we send the invitation to the first workshop within two business days.
| Description | Amount |
|---|---|
| Milestone 1: discovery workshops and functional specification, 40 hours at $160 | US$6,400.00 |
| Milestone 2: design of 12 screens for desktop and mobile, two review rounds | US$9,800.00 |
| Milestone 3: portal build and practice management system integration | US$24,600.00 |
| Milestone 4: testing, data migration and go-live, 45 hours at $160 | US$7,200.00 |
| Milestone 5: staff training, 3 sessions at $500 | US$1,500.00 |
| Milestone 5: support for 30 days after go-live | US$2,400.00 |
| Total | US$51,900.00 |
Accepted for Aspen Row Veterinary Clinics
It is meant to be. Cornell Law School's Wex defines a contract as an agreement creating mutual obligations enforceable by law, with mutual assent, consideration, capacity and legality as its basic elements. A signed SOW, with the work on one side and the fees on the other, is written to meet the first two. Signing electronically does not change that. In the US, the ESIGN Act says a contract may not be denied legal effect solely because an electronic signature was used in its formation (15 U.S.C. 7001). In the UK, section 7 of the Electronic Communications Act 2000 makes electronic signatures admissible in evidence. Proposal Expert signs with an eIDAS simple electronic signature, a trusted timestamp and a sealed audit trail. Whether a particular SOW is enforceable depends on its terms and the governing law, so have your master agreement reviewed by a lawyer.
Usually the master services agreement. It is negotiated once and holds the terms that do not change per project: liability, confidentiality, intellectual property and termination. Each project then gets its own SOW that refers back to it. Say which document wins if they conflict. In the example, the MSA governs the legal terms and the SOW the scope, schedule and fees. For a one-off project, a single SOW with your terms and conditions attached does the job.
In agency and IT work the supplier usually drafts it after the proposal is accepted, because it knows how the work breaks down, and the client reviews and signs. In procurement the buyer often writes it and asks suppliers to price it. US federal contracting allows both: under the Federal Acquisition Regulation, a performance work statement is prepared by the government or proposed by the bidder from a statement of objectives the government wrote (48 CFR 37.602).
Three are common. A design or detail SOW says exactly how the work is done. A level of effort or time and materials SOW buys hours, with a rate and usually a cap. A performance-based SOW describes the results and leaves the method to the supplier. US federal rules ask agencies, where practicable, to describe work in terms of the required results rather than how it is done or the number of hours (48 CFR 37.602). The example follows that approach: it says what the portal must do and how it is tested, not how many hours the developers spend.
A proposal sells the project: the client's problem, your approach, why you and the price. A statement of work controls the project once it is won: deliverables, dates, acceptance tests and payments, without the persuasion. Many firms send the proposal first and the SOW once the client says yes. For smaller jobs, one document can do both if its scope, schedule and fees are precise enough to sign.
With a change request process written into the SOW before work starts: who can ask for a change, how it is priced, and that no extra work starts until both sides have signed it. The example prices changes at an hourly rate. Precise fees and dates matter legally too. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a contract for services between businesses that leaves the price or the time open gets an implied term of a reasonable charge and a reasonable time (Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, sections 14 and 15). Writing both down means nobody has to argue about what reasonable means.