2024 Report
What we learned analyzing 1,280,657 proposals
I consider it one of my missions in life to not only educate sales and marketing professionals about the critical role proposals play in the sales cycle, but also to help them take advantage of the opportunities to increase sales velocity and improve close rates through a more effective proposal process.
We’ve dug deep into our data and extracted the information that sales and marketing leaders can use to make their proposals better and boost their business.
If you follow our tips, how big of a boost can you expect? How does at least doubling your wins sound?
No joke.
Data doesn’t lie. Your mileage may vary, but if you follow the advice in this State of Proposals Report, I'm positive you'll be closing more deals in no time.
Proposals: the unsung heroes of your revenue team
“I wish we had more visibility into the final stages of our deals.”
We hear this all the time in our sales calls: after proposals get sent they disappear into a black box of silence. The lack of transparency and control is maddening.
This report shines a light into that black box, revealing core insights into what successful sales and marketing pros do to create winning proposals that bring mind-blowing close rates.
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Want just the juiciest stats and insights in one easy-to-reference format?
- We've made a Quick Guide to Doubling Your Close Rate cheat sheet with all the top stats and tips from the report.
- Download the cheat sheet
The Big Numbers
As the proposal experts, we’re sitting on a mountain of data at Proposify. Let's start with a high level overview of that data and the big ticket insights we pulled from it.
The Big Numbers
We mined the data for the State of Proposals report from proposals created through Proposify in the past year.
1,280,657 proposals studied
across 27 industries
generating $2,427,531,058 USD
The companies involved varied in size from single-person businesses to enterprise-scale operations.
Company size, industry, and deal size all made an impact on closing rates.
Average value of closed deals: $13,656
But one revelation in particular completely knocked our socks off: A good proposal can double your close rate.
Average close rate of proposals sent through Proposify: 36%
The industry average close rate is only 20%
How do your sales closing rates compare?
While compelling, these high-level numbers don’t tell the whole story. We subdivided our proposals in a number of ways to reveal more granular trends and insights.
Results vary significantly depending on industry and deal size, with many industries seeing close rates more than 3X the normal average
And the external factor that impacts close rates the most is...
When we broke down the data, it became clear that deal size has a huge impact on close rate.
Generally, the smaller the deal size, the higher the close rate
It makes sense that certain industries, such as Construction & Engineering, have larger average deal sizes and send more higher value proposals, but the trend that small deal sizes have higher close rates remains consistent across industries.
Why do bigger deals have lower close rates and what can my proposal do about it?
| Challenge | Solution |
|---|---|
| Companies often have spending thresholds for what can be approved without higher authorization, making it harder to get sign-off on bigger deals. | ✅ Find out what the authorization spending cap is, then price your proposal under it. |
| With more stakeholders involved in bigger deals, internal misalignment and indecision can make deals fizzle. | ✅ Multi-thread your deal by involving as many stakeholders as you can, then send the proposal to all of them. |
| It’s common to hedge bets by starting with smaller engagements, then scaling up the scope and investment after proving success. | ✅ Don’t go for the big win right away, test the waters with a smaller deal and follow up for the upsell. |
| Buyers typically gather more quotes on larger spends, increasing competition on larger deals. | ✅ Make your proposal as slick, persuasive, and professional as possible to stand out from the crowd. |
Don’t let the size of your company limit your deals
There's a wide range in the sizes of companies within each industry, but in general the number of employees doesn’t seem to make a difference in proposal close rates.
Smaller companies have just as much success across all deal sizes as larger companies.
When competing against big companies on deals, smaller companies can level the playing field with professional-looking proposals
The Proposal Journey
The proposal journey puts together best practices from creation to close. This section contains the best insights on subjects such as proposal timing, templating, and following up.
“Timing is everything.”
While the physical handshake used to be the gold standard for many deal closures, the switch to remote and hybrid work environments means that now more business is done online than in the boardroom or on the golf course.
Physical location isn't the issue it once was. No matter where you are, with today's digital tools you can sell to anywhere in the world. And the e-signature is way more legally binding than a handshake, too!
That makes your proposal more important than ever, not to mention the process you use to create your proposals.
As the final touchpoint in your sale, the proposal is your last chance to communicate value as well as pricing. The data shows that a clear, concise, and comprehensive document that follows proposal best practices often makes the difference between winning or losing the deal.
Beat the competition to the punch with quick proposal turnaround
Average time to create a proposal: 17 minutes
If your proposal process takes too long, you run the risk of letting the deal go cold, or worse: letting the competition sneak in ahead of you.
Use proposal templates to maintain consistency
“Did I change the company name on page six before I sent the proposal?!”
– Nobody who uses templates
With standardized templates and all approved assets in one place, customizing and completing a proposal can be done in record time without sacrificing quality for speed, and while keeping your branding elements consistent.
- Use professional proposal software to connect to your CRM and automatically input fields including company and contact names and addresses
- Maintain consistency with standard boilerplate copy such as product or service descriptions, bios, and about the company
Retain visibility into your deal to the very end
You can tell a lot about a proposal’s status by seeing who’s looking at it, when they’re looking, what they’re looking at, and for how long.
Being able to track your proposals by their data trail creates new opportunities to increase your success rate:
- Find indicators that your deal is at risk when the proposal isn’t being viewed, or has languished for too long without action
- Time follow ups for maximum impact
- Learn what works and what can be improved in future proposals
- Create KPIs to drive growth
Accelerate the deal and boost close rates with electronic signatures
Proposals with e-signatures are 3.3X more likely to close and close 30% faster
Take it one step further by signing your proposal before you send it out. It shows your commitment and readiness to begin, not to mention boosting close rates by 26%!
More eyes to win the prize
Selling to one person in a vacuum adds a ton of risk to your deal. Multi-thread for the win by sending your proposal to more than one person.
Most proposals are only sent to 1 stakeholder, but when more than one person views it the close rate nearly doubles!
Having multiple stakeholders engaged in the deal builds momentum by:
- Getting alignment on the problem you’re solving by involving more people earlier
- Selling the deal internally with the help of multiple champions
What happens to your proposal after you click send?
The average time from first open to deal closed might be 51 hours -- a little over 2 days -- but as with everything else, various factors can influence proposal timings.
- Deal size has the greatest impact on close time -- the money at stake, the longer it takes
- Company size has little impact -- as we saw before with close rates, smaller companies experience the same timing trends as larger ones
Follow up for the win
You might be tempted to think that once you’ve hit send your work is done. You’d be wrong.
Proposals with automated reminders are 10% more likely to close, but only 7% of sellers use them
Automatic reminders are handy, but they shouldn’t replace diligent monitoring of your proposal’s status. Use the timing benchmarks to guide when to nudge the deal forward.
- After 1 day: if you see your proposal hasn’t been opened, follow up
- After 2 days: If you haven’t heard back yet, follow up
- If the view count stops at 7, follow up
Don’t be afraid to ask what you can do to seal the deal
The negotiation doesn’t end after you click send.
All it might take to bring your prospect off the fence and onto your side may be a little tweak to the deal. Don’t be afraid to revise.
- If they ask you for a revision it shows they’re still interested and engaged – don’t miss that opportunity to close the deal.
- Even if you get rejected, see if there are changes you can make to rescue the deal.
Proposal Structure
Looking at how proposals are put together and formatted reveals powerful insights you can use to achieve higher close rates.
Page count: less is more
“How long should a proposal be?”
— Every sales and marketing professional we talk to
How long is the idea proposal?
You’re not going to like our answer: as long as it needs to be.
Average page count for won vs. lost deals: 11 vs. 13
The reason why we can’t be more definitive about the ideal proposal length is because there are a lot of factors that contribute to how long a proposal ought to be.
- Does the proposal represent the entire pitch, or is it the culmination of a long sales cycle?
- How large is the deal?
- How complicated is the deal?
- Do you simply need to summarize the deal, or do you also need to sell yourself?
In general, we can say this: shorter is better.
Do proposal sections matter? Yes, yes they do
When it comes to the sections in a proposal, there is more to look at.
Starting with the basic number of sections, we find the same results as with page count: less is more.
Average section count by won vs. lost proposals: 7 vs. 8
As for what those sections ought to be, there is a common structure we found in successful proposals. The specific titles for each section can vary, but the flow in winning proposals is usually similar.
- Cover Page
- Executive Summary / Introduction / Project Summary
- Approach / Solution / Our Process / Overview & Goals / Scope of Work
- Deliverables / Products / Timeline
- About Us / Our Team / Team Bios / Why Us?
- Pricing / Your Investment / Fee Summary / Quote / Budget
- Terms & Conditions / Sign Off / Next Steps / Acceptance
Section views tell us what matters most to buyers
Knowing which sections other businesses put into their proposals is one thing, but which sections are prospects actually looking at?
Buyers pay close attention to the fine-detailed business aspects of the deal
- Buyers spend the most time scrutinizing the finer details like Pricing and Terms
- Senders spend the most time preparing fluffier sections like the Executive Summary
We’ll revisit this disconnect a little later when we look at the tone and language, revealing some important insights about how to boost your close rates by improving your proposals.
Interactive pricing tables increase buyer engagement with upsell opportunities
It was very common for proposals to present their pricing in a table format.
Proposals with interactive pricing tables have 6% higher close rates
- Advanced proposal software can go a step further and allow sellers to include pricing tables with editable quantities and optional rows
- Buyers can fiddle with the numbers, changing quantities and adding or removing features until they find the pricing they’re comfortable with
- Often, interactive pricing tables result in a larger deal size than originally proposed
Use forms in proposals to collect information and boost close rates
Incorporating fields to collect contact and billing information demonstrates your commitment and professionalism while also smoothing the path forward.
Providing fields to collect information from the buyer slows the time to close by 38%, but increases close rates by 46%
- You’ll need to get the information into your CRM eventually
- Doing it at the proposal stage saves everyone time and effort in the long run, and buyers appreciate that
Images bring a proposal to life
It’s standard practice now to use images in your proposals. Often lots of images.
85% of winning proposals included images; the average number of images was 12
Not only is a picture often worth a thousand words, but it also helps break up the visual monotony of text. Today’s winning proposals are slickly designed to match the company’s brand.
In addition to creating brand identity, images in proposals typically include:
- Team headshots
- Product examples
- Portfolio work
Video use in proposals is a missed opportunity
One advantage of the digital proposal is the ability to include interactive elements such as videos. According to Vidyard, over 50% of those who used videos in their sales cycles last year saw improved close rates, but we found them to be under-utilized in proposals.
Only 22% of proposals included videos
Using videos in your proposals is a terrific opportunity to stand out from the competition, especially since so few businesses are doing it.
- A personalized message from your CEO
- A demo reel
- An explainer video
- A customer testimonial or case study
Proposal Writing
We've always known that the best language to use in a proposal is persuasive language. We dove a bit deeper this time and analyzed the text used in winning proposals to gain fresh insights into what what to say and how to say it to close more deals.
We were able to identify several insights on how to write that can boost your close rates:
- Be succinct
- Show your prospect you’ve listened to them
- Be professional
- Use clear language
Your proposal doesn’t have to be a novel
Proposals with fewer words generally had higher close rates
Deal size has an impact on the relationship between word count and close rate:
- As the size of the deal grows, word count makes less and less of a difference
- In the largest deals, the number of words in the proposal has less impact
Make your proposals personal
We’ve talked about how proposal templates make it fast and easy to plug in boilerplate copy, but that doesn’t mean your proposals should all be exactly the same.
Strategic use of personalization can boost close rates. The executive summary is one area where some personalization can yield big results.
When 30% of an executive summary is customized for each prospective client, close rates rise by a whopping 50%
- Cite the prospect’s specific pain points to show you understand the issues your solution needs to solve
- Include auto-fill fields in your templates to personalize the prospect’s name (and to make sure you're not leaving that last prospect's name in by mistake)
Personalization by industry
Certain industries seem to have a sweet spot for the amount of customization.
- Branding, Advertising & Marketing businesses can see nearly 100% close rates when half of the executive summary is customized content
Personalization by deal size
With larger deals, more personalization improves close rates
- When the deal size is under $2100, the biggest bang is achieved at around 30% personalization
- Greater personalization has an even greater impact when the dollar amount of the deal rises
Keep your proposal tone professional (duh)
Using machine learning algorithms, we scanned the text of winning proposals looking for tone and sentiment. Not surprisingly, we found next to no negative sentiment in winning proposals.
70% of winning proposals have a professional tone using neutral language
- A professional tone doesn’t mean boring or jargony, it means the overwhelming sentiment was neither positive nor negative, but neutral
- In industries where emotion plays a bigger role in the decision-making process such as Consumer Services and Real Estate & Property Management, a positive tone yields better results
Make it easy for buyers to read your proposal’s legal bits
We mentioned earlier that buyers spend a lot more time reading sections like the contract than they do on something like the cover letter — over 3X as long. Clearly, having legal information is important, and this is especially true in larger deals.
Boost close rates by simplifying legalese and making the language more readable
When we analyzed the text in legal sections of proposals, we found a clear relationship between readability and close rates.
- Smaller words and shorter sentences lead to higher close rates
Proposal Checklist
To make the most of every opportunity, use our checklist featuring the key takeaways from the State of Proposals report to help your revenue team close double the deals.
The more you can follow this checklist of things to include in your proposals, the closer you can get to record-smashing close rates.
Use a template to save time, reduce errors, and create a consistent sales process
Add images and videos to your proposal to stand out from the competition
Accelerate the deal by sending the proposal within minutes of promising
Include the 7 essential sections for a solid proposal backbone
Gather important details with a client intake form
Add e-signatures and sign your proposal before you send it
Set up automated reminders to move your buyer through the sales process
Track proposal activity so you can monitor the health of your deal and respond accordingly
Be open to negotiations and revisions
Price your deal under the buyer’s authorization limit
Multi-thread and send your proposal to multiple stakeholders
Keep your word count and page count to a minimum
Add some personalization but don’t go overboard
Keep your language clear, persuasive, and professional
Slash the legalese and make terms easy to read and understand
Include short testimonials to reinforce your value proposition
Add interactive elements to your pricing tables
Automate your sales process by integrating specialized proposal software with your sales tech stack tools like Gong, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Stripe
We take privacy seriously
Data was collected from the Proposify database, which contains metadata from the sales documents sent through our software. The data we used for this report is entirely anonymous. All personal and competitive information and all other identifiable information was removed from the dataset before it was analyzed for this report.