Cone vs The Decent Proposal

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.

The Decent Proposal is proposal software for freelancers, studios, and agencies preparing scope, pricing, and terms. Its Proposal Wizard asks five questions and creates a tailored draft, while AI proposal drafting and pricing tables support the same workflow. The Smart Library stores reusable scope blocks and fee tables. Free users work in the web interface and save proposals locally without cloud synchronization. Export options include PDF, Word document, and JSON. Pro adds cloud persistence, share links, viewer-activity tracking, analytics, and agent runtime access. The optional CLI can create or update proposals, retrieve and validate them, and publish them with scoped agent keys. The agent guide requires Node.js 18 or later, a verified-email account, and an agent API key. The Secure Vault is described as using client-side AES-GCM encryption, with the maker saying it cannot read users’ data. Listed workflows cover agencies, photography, consulting, freelance development, freelance creative work, and production houses.