Alternative to Bidsketch

Bidsketch's editor

If you get annoyed at most online editors you'll absolutely hate this. One of the biggest issues with Bidsketch if you read online is how antiquated it feels when using the editor, you know, the bit you spend 98% of your time using?

It's not "preview as you go" so you're filling in text fields for each part of your proposal giving you little to no control over how it actually appears to your clients. Want a section to fit nicely on one page? Be prepared to press 'back' and 'next' a lot.

Better Proposals shows you what your content will look like as you're typing it. You're in full control of how everything looks but we don't let you make things look bad. Everything looks great by default.

Layout of your proposals

Despite claiming to be moving towards a paperless world, their proposals are still designed around the concept of a piece of paper. This means you still need to adjust your proposal to sit on sheets of paper even when it's viewed on a computer screen.

We know that proposals get printed less than 0.2% of the time so there's just no need for that in this day and age. With Better Proposals, you're working with web pages. Your content is infinite. This means no worrying about formatting your text, resizing things, resizing pictures. Just throw in your content and let the automatic designer handle everything.

Templates

The templates Bidsketch provides are very weak from a sales perspective. Even if you were to use their software, I would recommend hiring a professional to write your proposal content. It's written as example content which means you need to edit every bit of it.

Of course, you have to tailor it to each client but every template available in the Better Proposals marketplace has won business. Not only by our customers but by us when we ran our digital agency and our close business friends.

Bidsketch's pricing

Bidsketch have been around a long time and definitely seem to have rested on their laurels somewhat. Their pricing isn't really geared up for small businesses and doesn't really seem suitable for high senders either. While their lowest plan at $15/month is seemingly more affordable than Better Proposals’ at $19, there’s a catch. Bidsketch only allows for annual subscriptions on their lowest plan and, more importantly, digital signatures aren’t included. And if you’re wondering why you’d even need proposal software without being able to collect digital signatures, you’re not alone.

So, if you’re already going to commit to the lowest plan for a year, Better Proposals is not only more affordable, but also gives you the option to collect digital signatures. Billed annually, it’s only $13/month and you’re getting more value for your money.

This isn't an article bashing Bidsketch. They've done an incredible job to stay in business for the amount of time they have and they deserve credit for that. That said, the writing is on the wall and it seems if you look on review sites it doesn't take long for the same criticisms to come up again and again.

We hope they relaunch one day. Competition is good for everyone but right now, if you want a simple to use proposal system that saves you hours, your clients will love, and doesn't need a training manual then try Better Proposals free and choose a plan later.