Bidsketch – Lets Designers Make Easy Sketched Bids
The problem is design is that most of it is visual and that’s hard to convey to a client in a proposal without doing a lot of (unpaid) work basically designing their project before you’ve even been awarded the bid. At least, that’s how it can seem.
Enter Bidsketch.com.
This site simplifies the proposal process by offering proposal templates, boilerplate legal documents to get the legaleze out of the way, and collaborate amongst team members on proposals. Completed proposals can then be offered to clients as a link, where they’ll see their project and be able to make changes or modifications (as suggestions).
The graphic aspects of proposals aren’t sped up much, but the less interesting (and often more time consuming) legal and offer phraseology is covered. Proposals can also be exported as PDFs to be sent to clients and full fee structure language is a part of the proposal-building process.
A free limited account allows a single freelancer to use the site with up to three clients (proposals) per month. Premiums services increase the number of users and proposals allowed, starting at only $9.
Other additions include being able to brand your documents with logos or stationary headers, etc.
The Bidsketch app is easy to use and relatively straight-forward. The templates are very simply laid out, making them easy to use, though the language should be read through entirely before submitting to your client. There may be some overly-specific things that you don’t need or things missing that you would need.
Overall, the site is a good beta startup and Bidsketch could become quite useful and popular with time.
