Professional services proposal template
- Proposal total, dollars
- 21,450
- Professional fee, dollars
- 18,000
- Contingency line, dollars
- 1,950
- Deposit on signature, dollars
- 6,435
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs you enter, by the method stated below it. Sowbird supplies no constant of its own: the letter's length and the proposal's total are arithmetic on the engagement facts you type. The defaults are a worked example to replace with your own.
The figures above start from a worked example (21,450). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the Professional services proposal template worked example (CSV)
This prices a proposal the way a professional-services firm's statement of work is written. Enter the hours scoped, the fee rate, the phases the work is delivered in, the expenses billed at cost, the contingency and the deposit due on signature, and the page returns the proposal total, the professional fee, the contingency line, the deposit, the balance billed across the phases, the fee per phase and the hours per phase. A proposal is a document with a fee structure behind it; these are the lines, from your own scoping and your own rate, and the figure a client signs is the first one on the page.
Hours at the rate, then the expenses at cost
The scoping gives the hours; the firm's rate card gives the rate; the expenses are the travel, the licences and the third-party costs the client pays at cost and never inside the fee. A proposal that folds expenses into the rate is paying its own costs out of the fee without knowing it, and a client who later sees the expenses itemised assumes the rate was padded. The document takes both as inputs so the firm and the client see the lines separately.
Contingency on the whole, deposit on signature, balance by phase
The contingency is applied to the fee and the expenses together, because the risk it covers sits in both; the deposit is a share of the total and is due when the client signs, because the work that starts before the deposit lands is work the firm has already funded. The balance is billed across the phases, and the page prints the fee and the hours per phase so a three-phase engagement reads as three deliverables with a number on each rather than one figure at the end.
The statement of work is the method; the record is the product
The lines on the page are free, for every proposal, forever. What Sowbird Pro adds is the record: the proposal kept against the client and the engagement, the rate card that fills the rate automatically, the signature or the decline recorded against the fee, and the export the accountant reads when the engagements are compared with what they were proposed at. A firm that keeps that record scopes next year's proposals on evidence.
Where the constants in this tool come from
U.S. Small Business Administration, contracting guide. What a buyer expects a proposal and a statement of work to carry, which is the list of lines the document prints.
Professional services proposal template: common questions
Is this a free professional services proposal template? Yes: the fee, the contingency, the deposit and the phase lines are computed here for free with no account, and you can print the proposal. Sowbird Pro issues it under your firm's name, keeps it against the client and the engagement, and records whether it was signed.
Should a proposal include a contingency? When the scope has a risk the firm cannot price away, yes, stated as its own line on the fee and the expenses so the client sees what it covers; when the scope is fixed and the firm has done the work before, set it to zero and the line disappears from the total.
How much deposit should a professional services proposal ask for? Enough to fund the first phase before the first invoice is paid, which is why the page prints the fee per phase beside the deposit; on the worked example the deposit covers most of the first of three phases.
Sowbird Pro
Keeping what you write
The documents and the answers are free forever. Pro turns them into your client record: every proposal kept against the client and the engagement, the statement of work and the fee behind each one, whether it was signed, the reference letters written and to whom, reminders to the client who owes a signature, and a clean export when the accountant asks what the engagements billed against what they were proposed at.
- Download the document as PDF
- No Sowbird watermark
- Save and reopen later
- Your firm's name and registration on it
- Bulk export proposals and letters
- Signature and follow-up reminders emailed under your firm's name
- Connect your own Stripe account and take deposits online
- Connect your QuickBooks Online or Xero
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