Alternative to Qwilr

The onboarding process

As soon as we signed up for Qwilr, we saw the first major difference was the way we onboard new users. The first part of their onboarding process was pretty similar to our own. They asked for basic information and what we’d like to do with Qwilr, so we were off to a great start.

What we didn’t expect was being sent straight to the editor and having to create a Qwilr page right after this step. As a matter of fact, we tried accessing the dashboard to set up our branding without creating a page first, but it wasn’t possible.

So, we ended up having to create a Qwilr page without a brand set up and then accessed settings later. It wasn’t a horrible experience, but it ended up being quite different from our own.

When you sign up for Better Proposals, the onboarding process is made to help you get global settings out of the way first so you don’t have to think about it later. We’ll also ask you for basic information, but we’ll use it to give you some suggested templates to add to your account.

Once you’ve done that, you can either enter your business website to let the system automatically pull in your logo or upload the logo manually. This is where you’ll also be prompted to set up main brand colors and, depending on the size of your company, set user roles. That way, you’re all set up before you go into the Editor and start sending documents.

Branding

Speaking of brand settings, once you do set them up in your Qwilr account, they’ll start applying to all your documents. You can add up to seven brand colors and choose from Google, Adobe, and custom fonts.

With Better Proposals, you have the same font options, but you’re not limited to the number of colors you can add to a brand. In addition to that, you can manage multiple brands under the same account, meaning you can have several different sets of brand settings. You can then choose which settings to apply to which document while creating it.

Document creation

When it comes to document creation, Qwilr and Better Proposals both organize all your content in blocks. The similarities don't stop there, as documents can be created either from scratch or from a template. In addition to that, you also have the option of adding media and design elements in both of our editors.

That said, Better Proposals gives you more flexibility in document creation. That's because in our Editor, you can go beyond our default editing settings by tweaking the HTML. 

Our Proposal Editor

Zero learning, automatically designed, lightning fast.

Templates

There's no arguing that Qwilr's templates look great. They're beautifully designed, and they scale perfectly to whatever screen they're being viewed on. Just as Better Proposals, Qwilr lets you work with web pages rather than around a concept of a piece of paper.

When it comes to the number of document templates available, we can guarantee Better Proposals offers over 200. All of them are professionally designed and written, so all you need to do is adjust them to your business needs.

With Qwilr, you'll also get impeccable design, but finding the exact number of templates they offer proved to be a challenge. Their website states 70+, and their welcome email states 150+.

Number of templates according to Qwilr's website

Number of templates according to Qwilr's welcome email

So, since we were already signed up, we decided to add up the number of templates inside Qwilr. There are 43 under Promote, 26 under Update, and 69 under Pitch, which makes the grand total of 138.

That said, we noticed that some of the templates exist under more than one category. We didn't go to the trouble of comparing each and every template in each of the tabs, but that puts the total number of available templates somewhere above 70 and under 138.

What about bringing in your existing templates?

If you already have a template you love, both Qwilr and Better Proposals let you bring it over and modernize it. With Better Proposals, it's as simple as using our free document importer. Just upload your doc and it's converted in a few clicks.

With Qwilr, you don't have an option of importing your template yourself, except if you want to resort to copy-pasting. That said, they do offer document conversion packages you can buy. Converting three documents will cost you $449, and 20 documents will set you back $2499. It's also worth keeping in mind that, with both conversion packages, your documents can't be longer than ten pages.

Sending a document to your client

There are two major differences in sending a document in Qwilr vs Better Proposals. The first one is the fact that, in Better Proposals, you'll first get to choose whether you're sending the document to a new contact or an existing one. Since Better Proposals remembers who you’ve sent documents to before, all previously entered company names will appear in a dropdown menu, saving you the hassle of typing them in manually. Once you're happy with your content, all you need to do is press Send and you're done.

With Qwilr, you'll first create a new document (Qwilr Page) and then decide who you're sending it to. However, you won't be able to create and send the document directly from Qwilr. Qwilr doesn't store contacts, so you'll have to manually fill in information every time you send a document. What's more, once you set the link to your document live, you'll then have to copy it and change platforms to send it to your client in an email or a message.

Another difference between sending documents through Qwilr and Better Proposals is in the expiry date settings. With Qwilr, you can set the link expiry to a number of days after setting it live. Once the expiration date is within a week from expiring, your client will see a pre-set message letting them know in how many days the document expires.

Better Proposals, on the other hand, gives you more flexibility here as well. In addition to being able to set documents to expire a certain number of days after sending, you can also set the expiry to a specific date. What's more, the message your client will see is completely customizable.

Qwilr’s Account Tokens vs Better Proposals’ Merge Tags

Both Qwilr and Better Proposals offer automatic fields to help you personalize your documents faster. We also both have default fields based on common use while allowing you to create custom ones. That said, there are differences in how the automatic fields are used that stem from the document creation process itself.

You can set Qwilr's Account Tokens once across your template, save it, and reuse it for future clients to automatically populate information. This part of the process is the same with Better Proposals's Merge Tags - simply set the placeholders and populate them automatically later.

That said, the main difference here is that Better Proposals saves contact information, while Qwilr doesn't. In practical terms, this means you'll need to manually fill in what each Account Token stands for every time you want to populate a document. What's more, their Account Token feature currently doesn't work with their CRM integrations. This means that, even if you take the time to add Account Tokens into your template, you won't be able to automatically pull data from your CRM into the fields.

With Better Proposals’ Merge Tags, there's more automation to the process. For example, your client's name automatically populates from the database, and sender information is pulled from your account settings. You can also use our Merge Tags in more than just your documents for fast and easy personalization. They work in all customizable messages, on cover pages, in client emails, and on the payment page. And yes, they also work with our CRM integrations.

Support

Both Qwilr and Better Proposals offer detailed help docs and live chat support. That said, the level of support you’ll be getting with Qwilr depends on the plan you’re on. For example, they’ll reply to your email in under an hour if you’re on the Business plan, and within 30 minutes if you’re on Enterprise.

When it comes to live chat, their website says it’s available when their team is online, but it doesn’t specify when that is. So, once again, since we were already signed up, we tried at two different times a day. We had no problems contacting support through live chat at 5pm CET, but there was nobody around at 11am CET.

The Better Proposals support team, on the other hand, is online for 24 hours a day during the work week. Since our customers are located in different timezones, we make sure to be there whenever you need help.

Pricing

Last but not least, it’s time to talk about value for money. Both Qwilr and Better Proposals work on a subscription basis, with plans charged per user per month. Qwilr offers two plans: Business at $35/user/month if you pay annually and Enterprise at $59/user/month. Both of these plans are billed annually, and you need to have at least ten users on the Enterprise plan. If you check their FAQs, you’ll see you can pay for the Business plan on a monthly basis, which then costs $39/user/month.

Qwilr’s Business plan vs Better Proposals Premium plan

At $35/user/month billed annually, Qwilr’s Business plan will cost you $420 a year. For that money, in addition to standard features such as eSignatures or analytics, you get to send unlimited Qwilr Pages (documents), set passwords on documents, and integrate with HubSpot. What you don’t get is a Salesforce integration or the ability to set your custom domain and remove Qwilr branding.

At $29/user/month billed annually, Better Proposals’ Premium plan will cost $249 a year (annual subscription discount applies). Along with standard features, you’ll also get to have multiple brand settings, set a custom domain, and remove all our branding. On top of that, both HubSpot and Salesforce integrations, as well as our API, are included in the price.

What you won’t be able to do on our Premium plan and can do on Qwilr’s Business plan is set passwords to your documents. However, in Better Proposals, you don’t need to. Since every client you send a document to through Better Proposals gets a unique, encrypted link, password protection is just an added layer of security, not a necessity.

With Qwilr, document sharing works like sharing any link - you set it to live and it’s available to anyone who has access to it. You or anyone on your team can accidentally share the wrong link with the wrong person, so password protection is necessary for data security. With Better Proposals, you won’t be pasting links into emails because you’ll specify who you’re sending to before even creating a document.

Qwilr’s Enterprise plan vs Better Proposals’ Enterprise plan

At $59/user/month billed annually, Qwilr’s Enterprise plan will cost at least $7080 a year. And before you say the math isn’t adding up, let us remind you that the minimum number of users is ten. Now that we got that out of the way, you might be wondering what you’re getting.

For a minimum of $7k a year, Qwilr lets you use a custom domain and remove their branding. You’ll also be able to integrate with Salesforce and set team permissions. That said, you still won’t be able to have multiple brand settings. In addition to that, you can get access to their API, but you’ll have to pay extra for it - it’s an add-on.

While you can get the Better Proposals Enterprise plan even as a single user, we’ll take ten as an example in the interest of a fair comparison. So, at $49/user/month billed annually, Better Proposals’ Enterprise plan will cost $4990 a year for ten users (annual subscription discount applies).

Compared to Qwilr’s pricing, that’s 2k less right off the bat. What’s more, you don’t have to pay extra for the API with Better Proposals - it’s included in the plan. You also get to set team permissions, set passwords on documents for an added layer of security, and completely customize your branding. And on top of that, you get access to our HubSpot and Salesforce Advanced integrations that let you launch Better Proposals directly from your CRM.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, both Qwilr and Better Proposals give you modern, beautifully designed, web-based documents. That said, Qwilr’s pricing seems to be geared more towards large teams than growing and small businesses. Better Proposals, on the other hand, was designed to grow with your business with options for everyone.

The bottom line is, if you want completely branded online documents with a modern website feel, you can get them at $29/month/user with Better Proposals. If you want the same with Qwilr, you’ll have to pay $59 for ten users, for 12 months.

And if you do have a large sales team that requires manager approvals and team permissions, Better Proposals gives you that for $2000 less than what you’d pay with Qwilr.