You send a proposal most weeks. It goes out as a PDF, and from that moment you know nothing: not whether it was opened, not whether they reached the price, not which part made them stop. The follow-up on Thursday starts with "just checking in" because there is nothing else to start with.
This guide is about sending the proposal as a web page instead, an interactive proposal on a link, and what that gives back. Hostus is the option we put first, and the category matters: best if you want the proposal as a page on your link that tells you what the client read. Qwilr, PandaDoc, Proposify, Better Proposals, Storydoc and a Notion page each have a case and are covered below, with the prices their own sites showed today.
What the client gets
Here is a proposal page, live: a website redesign for a fictional dental clinic, with two options, a timeline and an Accept form at the end. The clinic does not exist and the prices are illustrative. It opens on a phone from the same link, like any web page.
Three things on it are not on a PDF. The client can ask the page a question ("is hosting included in the second option?") and get an answer from what the proposal says, with the section cited, no account. They can reply on a section ("the scope is fine, the deadline is not") and the reply reaches you by email, anchored to that section. And the Accept at the bottom is a form: name, email, the option they chose. It lands in an inbox on the document and in your email. Try the form on the demo; the record lands with us.
What you learn after sending
Switch the page to email-gated in the dashboard (pages are born private). The client types an email before it opens, no account, and you see who opened it and when. From there, reading by section shows which sections each reader opened and for how long: whether they reached the price, where they stopped, what they came back to. The page needs headings with ids for this, which the prompt below takes care of.
- Questions. Ask is on by default. Every question the client asked the page is listed for you, and the ones the page could not answer are the list of what the next proposal should say.
- Replies. Each conversation is private between that reader and you. You answer from the dashboard or through Claude. Two people at the client reading the same link do not see each other's notes.
- The accept. The form records on the document and emails you. Set it to close after the first response if you want, and set the data mode to per reader: in the default shared mode the accepts, minus the email, are readable through the page's storage by anyone who opens the link.
- The second version. They want the timeline moved and a third option. Upload v2 to the same document: the link they have shows v2, and v1 stays in the history.
If you publish the proposal public instead of gated, the client can also ask for a one-page version of it. It is a transformation of the original with no new numbers, published under their account with a link to your page on top.
The structure of a proposal page
A proposal page is a PDF with the sections kept and the dead ends removed. The sections that work, each one a heading with an id so reading by section has something to anchor to:
summary: the problem in the client's words and the result in one paragraph. This is the section most people read in full.scope: what is in and, in the same breath, what is out. Replies land here most often.options: two or three, with the price in this section only. If reading by section shows they never opened options, they never saw a number.timeline: dates, not durations. "Kickoff 3 November, launch 12 December" gets a reply; "six weeks" does not.about: who does the work and two examples. Short.next-steps: what happens after they accept, and the Accept form:<form method="post" name="accept">withname,emailand the chosenoption. Any form with amethod="post"and named fields records on the document; no action URL, no key, no backend.
Keep it one page. The client scrolls; there is no "next" to lose them on, and appendices are just the last sections.
The prompt
With the Hostus connector on, this writes the page from your notes, publishes it and sets the form. Paste your notes under it.
Here are my notes for a proposal (below): the client, the problem, two options with prices, the timeline, and two past projects.
Write it as one proposal page with these sections, each a heading with an id: summary, scope, options, timeline, about, next-steps. Put the prices in the options section only. End with an accept form: <form method="post" name="accept"> with fields name, email and option (radio, one per option). No action URL, no key in the page, no backend, no localStorage, one HTML file, mobile first.
Publish it to Hostus. Set the form to email me on every response and to show "Thanks. I will confirm by email within a day." instead of the form after sending. Set the data mode to per reader so nobody but me reads the accepts. Give me the link.The page is born private: in the Hostus dashboard, switch it to email-gated before you send the link. Ask and Reply are already on. The form settings (email per response, the success message, closing after N responses, a redirect instead of a message) are document settings, not HTML. Claude changes them with hostus_update; you can change them in the dashboard later without touching the file. For v2, paste the changes and say "update the same page".
Qwilr, PandaDoc, Proposify, Better Proposals, Storydoc, Notion: pick it if
Hostus first, for the case this page is about: a proposal that is a page on your link, with the reading signal and the accept, on a free plan. Prices were read on each vendor's own site on 2026-10-18; where a page did not say, this guide says "check their pricing page" rather than a number.
- Qwilr. Pick it if the proposal needs an e-signature and a quote in the same link, and a CRM behind it. Starter is $35 per user per month billed annually ($49 monthly), with e-signature, analytics with 60 days of history, and HubSpot, Zoho and Pipedrive integrations. No free plan; a 14-day trial with no card.
- PandaDoc. Pick it if e-signature is the point and five documents a month is enough to start. Its help center lists a Free eSign plan at $0 with 5 documents sent per month and 2 recipients per document, Starter at $19 per user per month billed annually ($35 monthly) and Business at $49 ($65 monthly).
- Proposify. Pick it if you want a timeline of each open and the time per section inside a template editor. Build is $35 per user per month billed annually ($49 monthly), every plan can add signatures, and the site promises "a timeline of when each recipient opens your document and how much time they spend in each section". No free plan; a 14-day trial with no card.
- Better Proposals. Pick it if you send fewer than ten proposals a month and want signatures with them. Starter is listed at $13 and $19 per user per month (the lower figure is the annual rate), capped at 10 sends a month; Premium is $21 and $29 with 50 sends. Every plan has "legally binding digital signatures" and the analytics show "which sections they spent the most time on". A 14-day trial, no card.
- Storydoc. Pick it if the proposal is a deck, not a document. Starter is $19.80 per month billed annually ($237.60 a year), Pro $36 per month billed annually. Analytics is "tracking the traffic to your decks and your audience's behavior"; e-signature is through an integration with a provider such as DocuSign. The site has "Create free" buttons but does not describe a free plan, so check their pricing page.
- A Notion page. Pick it if the client already lives in Notion and you do not need a gate. The Free plan is $0 and includes basic page analytics with "a list of page viewers" and views over time; Plus is $10 per seat per month. There is no email gate, nothing per section, and a viewer can set their view history to "Don't record".
- A PDF by email. The baseline. Free, opens everywhere, and tells you nothing after it is sent. Keep it for the client who asks for one; the relationship is worth more than the signal.
Side by side
| Tool | What you learn after sending | Client needs an account | Accept is a form you keep | E-signature | Edit after sending | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostus | Who opened, per section, where they stopped, questions, replies | No; the gate asks for an email | Yes, on the document and in your email | No | Yes, same link, history kept | Yes: 20 docs, 100 responses a month, no clock |
| Qwilr | Analytics, 60 days of history on Starter | Not stated on their pricing page | Signed in the page | Yes, from Starter | Not stated | No; 14-day trial, from $35 per user |
| PandaDoc | Status tracking, per their plan comparison | Not stated | Signed in the document | Yes | Not stated | Yes: 5 documents sent a month, 2 recipients |
| Proposify | Opens and time per section | Not stated | Signed in the document | Yes, every plan | Not stated | No; 14-day trial, from $35 per user |
| Better Proposals | Received, opened, read, forwarded, downloaded, signed, sections with most time | Not stated | Signed in the document | Yes, every plan | Not stated | No; 14-day trial, from $13 per user, 10 sends a month |
| Storydoc | Traffic and audience behavior | Not stated | Not stated | Through an integration | Not stated | Check their pricing page; Starter $19.80 a month annual |
| Notion page | A list of page viewers and views over time | To be listed as a viewer, yes | Not stated | Not on the pricing page | Yes, it is a live page | Yes, $0 |
| PDF by email | Nothing | No | No, the reply is an email | No | No, you resend | Free |
The E-signature column splits the table. If the accept has to be a legal signature on the same link, the proposal tools earn their price. If the contract is a separate document anyway, the page on your link does everything else for nothing.
Follow-ups that use the signal
- Opened, read summary and scope, never opened options. They did not see a price. The follow-up is about scope, which is what they actually read, and ends with the price in one line.
- Opened options three times, no reply. The number is the question. Offer the call about it, or add a smaller option in v2 on the same link.
- Asked the page a question it could not answer. The unanswered list is the gap. Add the section, upload v2, tell them it is there.
- Replied on timeline. Answer on the same thread, from the dashboard or through Claude, and move the dates in v2.
- Accept arrived. Send the contract for signature separately; the form is the record of which option and who, not the signature.
Use what you saw to choose what to say, never as something to say. "I noticed you spent a while on the price" makes the next proposal get read less.
Good to know before you switch
There is no e-signature. The Accept form is a record of who chose what and when, not a legal signature; if the engagement needs a signed contract, send the contract separately. There are no payments on the page and no CRM: the accepts live on the document and in your email, and Claude can read them, but there is no pipeline view. The gate is by email, not by password, and it does not verify that the typed email is real unless you restrict the page to a list.
Hostus hosts an HTML page, not a PDF, with no custom domain and no multi-page site: a proposal is one page, and a folder groups several. The free plan is 20 documents, 2 MB of storage in total and 100 form responses a month, which is more accepts than most of us get. No card, no clock.