I've been freelancing for a few years now, and am pretty ad hoc about the proposals that I write up. I'd love to see examples of how others approach this.
FWIW, my headings are usually: - background (summarises my understanding of what problem the client has) - vision (what they have asked me to build, in a sentence or two) - solution (gets more specific about technologies, etc) - features (details the specific things it needs to do) - other considerations (browser targets, mobile, data management etc) - out of scope - optional extras (sometimes extra sections describing bits that they would have to pay extra for) - pricing and timeframe: how much I'm charging, how quickly I agree to deliver, and milestones for payment/review
I don't think it's perfect. In particular, I think I'm missing a good way to communicate the quality I'm (not) promising, what kinds of iterations/feedback/bugs will be acted on, and various other assumptions.
* Background/Overview
* Project Scope
* Requirements (System level, or feature level)
* Requirements (The things I require from the client)
* Project Timing and Cost
* Out of Scope items or items that maybe addressed in a future phase of the project.
I found this book on writing a single page proposal to be quite helpful https://www.amazon.com/One-Page-Proposal-Business-Pitch-Pers...
I haven't ever succeeded in keeping it all one page but it is a great goal.
- Who are we and what do we do (establish credibility).
- Who have we worked for that is a similar industry.
- Who they are and what the project is (i.e. what are we delivering).
- How we will carry out the project (by phase) along with key deliverables/stage-gates at each phase.
- Who will carry out the project (CV's / Bios).
- Pricing (with scope exclusions)
- Case studies (sometimes before pricing)
- Summary