Cone vs Proposal Expert

Cone combines proposals, billing, payments, and practice management in one platform for professional service businesses. Users can create branded web proposals with customizable sections, engagement tracking, electronic signatures, and multiple pricing packages. Proposals can generate invoices, while recurring billing and payment collection can be automated. Practice-management tools cover projects, tasks, templates, client requests, time tracking, and document management. A client portal supports chat, file uploads, forms, and document signing. Listed integrations include QuickBooks Online, Xero, Zoho Books, Stripe, and GoCardless; Growth also lists Zapier and email among advanced integrations. Cone provides analytics, reporting, custom branding, and client activity tracking. It is available on web, Android, and iOS, with white-labelled mobile apps for client portals. Cone states SOC 2 Type 1 and GDPR compliance and advertises free migration support. There is a 14-day trial but no free plan.

Proposal Expert is a web-based subscription service for creating proposals, combining an editor, AI feedback, and CRM integrations. Its assistant, Fred, suggests stronger wording, flags weak points, and supports multilingual proposals. Engagement tracking reports when a client opens a proposal, which sections they read, and how long they spend reading. Electronic signatures use email verification and record an audit trail. HubSpot and Pipedrive integrations are listed for Professional, while Salesforce is listed for Business. The company says customer data is stored on servers in the EU, encrypted in transit with TLS 1.2+ and at rest with AES-256, and not sold or used to train foundation models. The free plan includes three proposals per month, 25 AI credits, five templates, three e-signatures per month, basic analytics, and 250 MB of storage. Starter costs €24.00 per month. Support is available in Dutch and English, with weekday replies within one business day; there is no phone line during the beta. Monthly AI credits are pooled per workspace and roll over for one month, capped at one times the monthly allocation.