Before you act on proposal templates format

A proposal is read three times, in three ways. Skimmed on a phone on the day it arrives. Read at a desk by the person who has to approve it. Hunted through months later by someone looking for one figure or one exclusion. Format decides whether all three readers find what they came for.

The content of each section is set out in the proposal overview. This page covers the page map, the numbering, the pricing layout, the choice of file, and the mechanics that survive forwarding.

What to take away

The page map

For a mid-sized job. Shorter jobs collapse pages; larger ones add appendices, never more front matter.

Page 1    SUMMARY
          Buyer name, job name, date, version, validity date
          What we understand: three lines
          What we propose: one paragraph
          Total price and structure: two lines
          Next step and who to contact

Page 2    1. WHAT WE UNDERSTAND
          2. WHAT WE PROPOSE

Page 3    3. SCOPE
             3.1 Included    3.2 Not included    3.3 From you

Page 4    4. HOW IT RUNS
          5. WHO DOES THE WORK

Page 5    6. WHAT IT COSTS
          7. ASSUMPTIONS AND CHANGES

Page 6    8. NEXT STEP
          Acceptance block

Appendix  A. People, in more detail
          B. Relevant past work
          C. Terms, or a reference to them

The summary page is the whole proposal for the phone reader, and often for the decision-maker who receives it forwarded without the rest. Write it last, from the finished document, and make it self-contained: no "see below."

Numbering

Sections numbered, subsections numbered, pages numbered. Someone will ask about "3.2" on a call and everyone will find it. Keep the numbers stable between versions. If a section is removed, leave its number out rather than renumbering everything, so a reader with version 2 and a colleague with version 3 are still talking about the same thing.

Stable numbering and headings also make a document usable to someone reading it with a screen reader. The federal notes on creating accessible PDFs treat that as a structural question, not a cosmetic one.

One section, one page

Where length allows, start each numbered section on a new page. The document grows in page count but reads faster, because the reader sees a heading at the top of each page and knows where they are.

The exception is the summary page, which is never shared with anything. A one-page summary also fits the tighter page budget of business card formats, where every line has to earn its space.

The pricing page

Laid out so the buyer can read one column and know the answer.

6. WHAT IT COSTS

                            Option A        Option B
[Deliverable 1]                 x               x
[Deliverable 2]                 x               x
[Deliverable 3]                 -               x
Total                       [figure]        [figure]
Currency [code]; [tax treatment stated in one line]

Payment schedule
  On acceptance                [figure]  ([n]% )
  On [milestone]               [figure]
  On completion                [figure]

Our recommendation: [A or B], because [one sentence].

Rules: each option totals on its own, and a grid marks what differs.

The payment schedule is a table, not a sentence, with currency and tax treatment appearing once, plainly, on this page.

The recommendation is one line, and the totals block matches a quote's conventions, so a buyer who receives both from you can compare them without translation.

Which file

Send the PDF. If the tool needs a link for acceptance, add one, and state in the covering note that the PDF is the document of record.

The plain language design guidance is a fair test of the layout: headings that describe, white space that separates, and no paragraph that runs past the point. If you present with slides, send the PDF afterwards.

Length

Length follows the decision, not the price. A small job with three approvers needs the same summary and scope pages as a large one.

What grows with the price is the appendix: more people, more past work, more terms.

The body stays the eight sections. Past ten body pages, something in the body belongs in an appendix.

Footer and file name

Every page: buyer name, proposal title, version, date, page x of y. The file name: your name, the buyer's name, the job, the version, the date. Version markers in the heading of the summary page as well, in words: "Version 2, supersedes version 1 of [date]."

Search the document for the previous buyer's name before it goes. Proposals are built from earlier proposals, and paragraph three is where the old name survives.

Type and layout

Before it goes

Common questions