Proposals: Build, Send, Track, and Get Signed in One Workspace

Why the PDF proposal keeps costing you

The document itself is usually fine. What breaks is everything around it. You attach a PDF, and from that second you are blind: you do not know if it was opened, whether it reached the person who signs, or which version is being discussed after you sent a revision.

So you follow up on a guess. Too early and you look anxious, too late and the deal has cooled. Meanwhile the client asks a clarifying question by email, you answer it there, and now the agreed scope lives partly in the PDF and partly in a thread. When the project starts, nobody is entirely sure which version won. We wrote about closing that gap in how to hand off a proposal into a project.

Then comes the retyping. Someone opens the accounting tool and rebuilds the accepted scope as invoice line items by hand. That is where numbers drift, add-ons get forgotten, and an agency quietly under-bills its own agreement.

What Arpixa Proposals is

Arpixa Proposals is a proposal builder and tracker that lives beside your clients and your billing. A proposal is assembled from blocks rather than typed into a fixed form:

• Hero — a cover image with a title and subtitle.
• Text — rich text for context, approach, and terms.
• Timeline — phases with dates and descriptions.
• Image — work samples and diagrams with captions.
• Package — a named, priced option with a feature list.
• Add-ons — optional extras the client can select.
• Signature — the acceptance block with your message.

Blocks can be dragged into any order. Two placeholders, {{clientName}} and {{date}}, fill themselves in on the client's copy, and the editor auto-drafts as you work so a closed tab does not cost you an afternoon.

What you can do with proposals

Proposals live on a board grouped by stage — Draft, Sent to Client, Client Viewed, Accepted, Declined — so pipeline reality is visible without a status meeting. A separate tracking view filters by signed, viewed but not signed, and sent but not yet opened, which is the list you actually want when planning follow-ups.

Signing, tracking, and the audit trail

Acceptance happens on the proposal itself. The client reviews it, chooses a package and any add-ons, types their full legal name, and draws a signature. Both are required — a typed name alone will not complete it.

When they accept, Arpixa records the signature image, the signer's name, the server timestamp, the IP address, the browser user agent, and exactly which package and add-ons were selected. That combination is what turns “they said yes” into something you can point at six months later.

Tracking is per recipient. If you sent the proposal to three contacts, each link is distinct, so a view is attributed to a person rather than to the document. You also get a notification and an email when a proposal is accepted, so nothing waits on someone refreshing a dashboard. A validity date can be shown on the proposal, and Arpixa sends reminder emails three days and one day before it.

From accepted to invoiced

The moment a client accepts, Arpixa assembles a draft invoice from what they actually chose. The selected package becomes a line item, each selected add-on becomes its own line item, the total is summed, the invoice takes the proposal's currency, and it is numbered sequentially against your existing invoices. The due date is set seven days out, and a note records which proposal it came from.

It arrives as a Draft, deliberately. You review, adjust tax or terms, and send when you are ready. The point is not to bill automatically, it is to make sure the bill starts from the signed agreement rather than someone's recollection of it.

If you would rather bill in stages, keep the draft and edit it in the Invoice Studio, which handles advances, partial payments, and tax modes.

How it connects to the rest of Arpixa

• A proposal is addressed to a record in your CRM, and can go to several of that client's contacts at once.
• Leads accepted in the Lead Inbox arrive with the original inquiry text attached, so scope reflects what was asked for.
• Acceptance drafts an invoice, ready for review.
• Formal paperwork such as contracts and NDAs lives in E-Sign Docs, with multi-party signing.
• Clients can see proposal status in the branded client portal alongside their projects and invoices.
• Automations can react to a proposal being accepted, for example by creating a kickoff task or notifying the team.

Arpixa has a real Free plan (not a trial), with Starter at $12/month, Pro at $29/month, and Advanced at $89/month. Free includes 5 proposals per month and Starter 25, with Pro and Advanced unlimited; all 35 built-in templates are available on every plan, and the Free plan shows an Arpixa badge on the public proposal page. Annual billing lowers the effective monthly cost, and the pricing page is the source of truth for current plan limits.

How to send a proposal

1. Start from one of the 35 templates or a blank canvas, and add the blocks you need.
2. Choose the client, then add priced packages and any optional add-ons.
3. Preview the proposal, then send it to one contact or several, each with their own tracked link.
4. Watch the status move from Sent to Viewed, and check the tracking view to see who has opened it.
5. The client picks a package, types their legal name, draws a signature, and accepts.
6. Review the draft invoice Arpixa creates from the accepted package and add-ons, then send it.

For the writing side of it, see how to scope and price a proposal and how to send a proposal online.

Frequently asked questions