You were sending proposals as Word documents. Attached to emails. No idea if the client had opened them. No way for them to accept without printing, signing, scanning, and emailing back. You wanted something that looked professional and let the client say yes online.
You found PandaDoc. It solved the problem. The proposals look good. The client gets a link. They can accept without leaving the browser.
But you are now paying for a platform built for a sales operations team. The CPQ engine. The approval workflows. The team content library. The Salesforce integration. The document analytics across hundreds of proposals. You send ten proposals a month. Those features are not open.
The Four Things Your Business Actually Uses
A proposal builder with your layout and pricing. A way to send it to the client. Visibility into whether they have opened it. A way for them to accept.
That is the job most small businesses hired PandaDoc to do. And PandaDoc does all four.
It also does CPQ pricing configuration, product catalogues, content locking, manager approval chains, workspace management across multiple teams, and analytics dashboards built for sales operations managers. You pay for all of it. Most small businesses open four things.
- CPQ pricing engine and product catalogue
- Content library with team-managed blocks
- Approval workflows and manager sign-off
- Salesforce and CRM integrations
- Document analytics across all proposals
- Custom branding controls and domain
- eSign compliance with full PKI audit trail
- Multiple workspace and team management
- Proposal builder with your layout and pricing
- Send to client for review
- Track whether it has been opened
- Record when the client accepts
Who PandaDoc Is Actually Built For
PandaDoc is a serious tool for sales teams sending high volumes of proposals with complex pricing tables, approval chains, and CRM integration. Businesses where proposals are a high-frequency operation managed by a sales operations function. Teams where a manager needs to approve every proposal before it goes out. Enterprises with a product catalogue that needs to be kept consistent across dozens of sales staff.
If your business sends five to fifteen proposals a month, writes them yourself or with one other person, and does not need a manager to approve each one before it leaves, PandaDoc is built for a different customer. You are using a fraction of the platform and paying for the rest every month.
A Note on Acceptance and Signatures
PandaDoc includes a full PKI e-signature platform: cryptographic audit trails, identity verification, court-admissible signing records. For most commercial proposals and service agreements, that is more than the job requires.
A custom Merebase proposal tracker handles document workflow and acceptance tracking. The client opens the proposal, reviews the pricing, and confirms acceptance through the app. The app records the date, time, and their name. For most standard commercial proposals, that record is sufficient evidence of agreement.
It is not the same as a court-admissible e-signature with a PKI audit trail. If your work involves deeds, regulated financial agreements, or contracts that require formal signing under legislation, a dedicated signing platform is what you need. For the majority of service proposals, project quotes, and commercial agreements between businesses, acceptance tracking covers the job.
What a Merebase proposal tracker Includes
A Merebase proposal tracker is built around the way your proposals actually work. Your layout. Your pricing structure. Your line items. The status labels that match your process. The app is built to do exactly that job.
What a Merebase proposal tracker includes:
Proposal builder with your layout and branding. Line items and pricing table. Send to client with a tracked link. Client acceptance with date and name recorded. Status tracking: draft, sent, accepted, declined. Proposal history. A$499 once. You bring your own hosting. A basic plan runs A$5 to A$20 a month.
There is no CPQ engine you will never configure. No approval workflow requiring a manager sign-off on a five-item quote. No team content library for a business where one person writes all the proposals. The app does the job. Nothing else takes up screen space.
The Cost of Paying for the Platform You Do Not Use
PandaDoc Business runs around A$65 to A$80 per user per month. Two users puts the bill at A$130 to A$160 a month. Three years at the midpoint is over A$5,000 for proposal software.
Picture a consulting firm that has been on PandaDoc for three years. Two people send proposals. They use the proposal builder and the client acceptance link. The CPQ engine has never been opened. The approval workflow has never been configured. The Salesforce integration was never connected. They paid over A$5,000 to access two features of a platform built for a sales operations team.