How to write a proposal that gets picked
A client gets five to ten proposals and spends about a minute on each. They don't pick the most experienced person — they pick the one who clearly read the brief and knows what to do.
Two proposals, same job
The job: a website for a beauty salon with online booking, budget $600–1,300.
«Hello! I am a professional full-stack developer with 5+ years of experience in React, Node.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Docker and AWS. I have completed 50+ projects. Please check my portfolio. I can start immediately. Looking forward to your reply!»
- — nothing about this job specifically
- — a list of tools the client cannot judge
- — no price, no timeline
- — reads like it was sent to forty other jobs
«Booking is the tricky part here — the salon needs to see the calendar per stylist, not per salon, otherwise two clients land in the same slot. I'd build that first and show it to you in week one. $900, about three weeks. Two questions: do your stylists have different service lists, and should clients get a reminder the day before?»
- — names the real difficulty in this job
- — price and timeline stated plainly
- — questions that prove the brief was read
- — no jargon at all
Short rules
Give a price and a timeline
A proposal without them is a conversation, not an offer. If the scope is genuinely unclear, give a range and say what would narrow it.
Ask one or two questions about the brief
Nothing shows you read it better than a question that could only come from reading it. Three or more starts to feel like an interrogation.
Offer to split the payment into stages
The client is afraid of paying a stranger. Suggesting stages yourself removes that fear and costs you nothing.
Don't list technologies
The client hiring a salon website cannot tell React from Vue and does not want to. Say what they will be able to do, not what you will use to build it.
Show one similar project, not everything
One relevant example beats a portfolio of twenty unrelated ones. If you have nothing similar, say what is similar about the problem.
Write in plain English
Your client may not be a native speaker either. Short sentences win. Do not run your proposal through a thesaurus — formal English reads as distance, not as competence.
Only apply to what you can deliver
One job done well brings a review and repeat work. One job abandoned halfway ends a profile that took months to build.
Naming a price when you have no track record
Working for free «for the portfolio» is a bad deal: a client who pays nothing rarely comes back paying, and the work you show was never worth anything to anyone. A beginner's discount is fine. Zero is not.
Estimate the honest number of working days, multiply by the rate you would accept without resentment, and take off 20–30% for your first two or three jobs. Say plainly that the price is lower because you are building up reviews — clients respect that far more than a made-up «5+ years of experience».