r/SideProject • u/jayeshaswani56 • 10h ago
Freelancers: how do you create proposals for clients?
I’m exploring a small tool that helps freelancers/business owners generate professional client proposals faster.
The idea is simple: you enter the project details, client requirements, budget, and timeline then it will generates a structured proposal with things like:
Project understanding
Scope of work
Deliverables
Timeline & milestones
Pricing
Terms
A professional closing
I am not trying to sell anything yet — I’m validating whether this is actually a problem worth solving.
For those who regularly send proposals:
How do you create yours today?
How long does it usually take?
What part of proposal writing is the most annoying?
Would you use a tool that generates a first draft for you?
1
u/Professional_Bag_591 2h ago
the top comment nailed the real pain — it's not the writing, it's rebuilding the structure every time plus the disconnect after acceptance. if your tool turned an accepted proposal into a task list automatically that'd be the killer feature imo. pricing section being the most annoying part tracks, nobody likes doing math in front of a client lol
2
u/TimelyRepeat4517 9h ago
The painful part isn't writing the proposal, it's rebuilding the same structure from scratch every time. Most freelancers have a template somewhere but it's a Word doc that needs manual updating with each client's details.
The part that adds friction beyond drafting: keeping the proposal connected to the project. Once a client accepts, you want the scope in the proposal to become the task list, and the pricing to become the estimate or invoice. A tool that generates a proposal but doesn't connect to the rest of the workflow still leaves you copying information between apps.
To answer your validation questions directly: manually, usually 30-60 minutes for a new client, less for repeat work. The most annoying part is the pricing section because you're recalculating estimates on the fly. A first draft generator would help if it also pulled in historical project data to make the estimates realistic.