Sample consulting proposal: what a good value-based proposal looks like
This is a complete consulting proposal built in PropelQuote and anonymized with the client's permission. It shows every section of a value-based proposal — objectives, scope, the ROI math behind the price, three investment tiers, terms, and the acceptance block — exactly as the client received it.
Prepared for
Northwind Logistics Software (B2B SaaS, ~$40M ARR)
Attn: VP, Customer Success
Prepared by
Independent operations consultant
14-week engagement
1. The problem we are solving
Enterprise accounts currently take an average of 68 days from signature to first production use. Implementation is run ad hoc by whichever manager is available, so quality varies, revenue recognition slips a full quarter, and the accounts that onboard slowest churn at nearly double the rate of the rest of the book.
2. Objectives
- Cut average onboarding time for new enterprise accounts from 68 days to under 35 days.
- Stand up a repeatable implementation playbook the internal team can run without outside help.
- Reduce first-year churn among newly onboarded accounts by at least 4 percentage points.
3. The value at stake
Pricing is anchored to the value below, not to hours. Every figure comes from the client's own numbers, reviewed with finance before the proposal was sent.
| Measure | Value | How it was calculated |
|---|---|---|
| Cost of inaction (annual) | $486,000 | 33 extra onboarding days × 42 accounts/yr × $350/day of delayed revenue recognition. |
| Time-to-value gain | 33 days faster | Revenue recognized roughly one quarter earlier per enterprise account. |
| Expected value (probability-adjusted) | $340,000 | 70% confidence applied to the full $486K opportunity. |
| Churn reduction upside | $212,000 | 4 points of first-year churn across $5.3M of newly onboarded ARR. |
Anchor value used for pricing: $552,000 in year one.
4. Scope and deliverables
| Deliverable | Qty | Rate | Line total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery & current-state audit12 stakeholder interviews, process mapping, and a quantified bottleneck report. | 1 | $6,500 | $6,500 |
| Implementation playbook buildWritten playbook, role checklists, templates, and QA gates for each onboarding stage. | 1 | $11,000 | $11,000 |
| Executive working sessions (90 min)Bi-weekly sessions with the VP of Customer Success and implementation leads. | 6 | $1,200 | $7,200 |
| Team enablement workshopsHalf-day workshops to train the onboarding pod on the new playbook. | 2 | $3,500 | $7,000 |
| Delivery cost basis | $31,700 | ||
5. Investment options
Conservative
$28,000
19.7x projected return on the anchor value
Audit + playbook build. Client-led rollout.
Target
$42,000
13.1x projected return on the anchor value
Audit, playbook, 6 executive sessions, 2 enablement workshops.
Premium
$68,000
8.1x projected return on the anchor value
Everything in Target plus 90 days of embedded rollout support and dashboards.
6. Terms and assumptions
- Engagement runs 14 weeks from the kickoff date, with a mutual 21-day exit clause.
- 50% of the selected tier is invoiced at signature; the balance at week 7.
- All work product, playbooks, and templates transfer to the client on final payment.
- Scope changes are handled by written addendum priced against the same value model.
- Either party may pause the engagement once for up to 30 days without penalty.
7. Acceptance
In the live proposal the client selects a tier, types their full name as a binding e-signature, and accepts the terms above. The signature is timestamped and both parties receive a copy by email. This sample page is a read-only illustration, so the signature block is disabled.
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