Consulting proposal template that prices the extra meeting.
An advisory engagement is sold as thinking and gets spent as attendance, so the fee holds right up until somebody asks you to join one more call or build the thing you recommended. Section 6 of the proposal here puts a rate on both, months before either one comes up.
A consulting proposal is the document you send to win an advisory engagement, and it has to show that you understood the client's problem, say what you'll do about it, name who takes part on both sides, and put a price on all of it. The version printed below is filled in for a $38,400 seven-month engagement with a five-branch home services company, and it carries the one thing the free versions leave out, which is a rate for the requests that arrive once the work is running. Copy it, download it as a Word file or a PDF, and edit it into your own.
Consulting money leaks differently from project money. A website build grows by pages and a rebrand grows by revision rounds, and both of those are things a client can see themselves asking for, while an advisory engagement grows by attendance: one more call with the regional managers, a version of the findings written for the board, an hour on the phone between sessions, and eventually the request to stop recommending the change and go make it. None of that looks like extra work to the person asking, because every one of them is simply more of you, and the hours nobody priced are the hours nobody bills.
What goes in a consulting proposal?
The client's situation in their own words, the work you'll do about it, who sits in which conversation, what it costs, when the money moves, and what happens the first time somebody wants more of you than the fee covers. The published versions agree closely on the first two thirds of that list. Entrepreneurs HQ builds its checklist around nine components, running from an executive summary through the client's needs and goals, the consulting approach, the deliverable list and the fees, and closing on terms and conditions. Storydoc keeps ten and separates the problem statement from the solution, which is a good instinct for advisory work, because defining the problem is often the thing you're being hired to do. Neither one prints a dollar figure, and neither writes out a clause you could paste into your own document.
Bonsai's marketing consulting template does both, and of the three versions we read it's the one worth keeping open beside your own. It runs to five pages, and its investment section carries real numbers: a $6,500 one-time marketing audit, an $8,500 go-to-market strategy, a $4,500 monthly advisory retainer over six months for $27,000, a $42,000 total, $15,000 due at signature and invoices due within fifteen days. Its scope section names what's excluded, which is hands-on campaign execution, hiring, the day-to-day management of the client's marketing team, paid media and tooling costs, and then it adds that new scope can be added in writing at any time. That last sentence is where the money is, and there's no rate anywhere in the document that new scope could be added at.
What does a $38,400 consulting engagement look like on paper?
Like the one below, which runs seven months for Quarrington Home Services, a heating, cooling and plumbing company with five branches, 62 field staff and one marketing coordinator. Their spend went up by about a third last year while booked jobs went up by six percent, and nobody can say which of the five branch phone numbers, the web form, the two paid search accounts or the branch directory listings produced any given job. The engagement is an audit, then a plan, then five months of advice while the plan meets the branches, which is the shape most advisory work takes once you strip the vocabulary off it.
The document splits into two halves that behave completely differently. Sections 3.1 and 3.2 are finite: they have a scope, an end and a fixed fee, and they're the easy part to write. Section 3.3 is the retainer, and it doesn't have an end in the same sense, so everything that makes it safe to sell is a matter of counting. Two sessions a month, four named people, one readout, a two-business-day reply window. Every one of those counts exists so that section 6 has something to price a second one of.
Engagement: Quarrington Home Services marketing operations
Reference: [QHS-01]
Date: [date] · Version: 1.0
1. WHO THIS IS FROM, AND FOR
1.1 Prepared for: Quarrington Home Services, [address]. Client contact: [name, title, email].
1.2 Prepared by: [your agency name], [address, email].
1.3 Named approver: [name, title, email]. Only this person's written yes changes anything priced in this proposal.
1.4 Everything priced here holds for 30 days from the date above.
2. WHAT QUARRINGTON ASKED FOR
2.1 Quarrington Home Services runs heating, cooling and plumbing work out of five branches, with 62 field staff and one marketing coordinator.
2.2 Leads arrive through five branch phone numbers, one web form, two paid search accounts and a directory listing per branch, and no record connects a lead to the branch that eventually books it.
2.3 Marketing spend rose 34% last year and booked jobs rose 6%, and the reason has never been isolated.
2.4 You asked us to find where the money goes, decide which channels to keep, and stay close enough for two quarters that the decisions hold once the branches are working to them.
3. WHAT WE'RE PROPOSING TO DO
3.1 Phase one, marketing operations audit, weeks 1 to 4. We trace all nine lead sources end to end, spend two days on site observing call handling at two branches, read twelve months of spend against booked jobs, and deliver one written audit with a recorded walkthrough.
3.2 Phase two, channel and lead-routing plan, weeks 5 to 8. One written plan covering which channels to keep, cut or test, how a lead reaches the right branch, and what each branch owns. Two revision rounds are included.
3.3 Phase three, advisory retainer, months 3 to 7. Two 90-minute working sessions a month with up to four named Quarrington participants, one written readout a month, and email answers inside two business days.
3.4 The four named participants for 3.3 are [name], [name], [name] and [name]. Sessions with anybody else are priced in 6.2.
4. WHAT THIS ENGAGEMENT DOESN'T INCLUDE
4.1 Carrying out what the plan recommends. Building campaigns, writing ad copy, configuring your CRM and making the routing changes are excluded from the fee and priced at 6.3.
4.2 Media spend, which you pay to the platforms directly.
4.3 Software, call tracking and reporting licenses, which you buy and keep.
4.4 Hiring, performance management and the day-to-day supervision of your marketing coordinator.
5. HOW THE WORK RUNS
5.1 Start date: [date]. Phase two is delivered eight weeks later, and the retainer runs for the five months after that.
5.2 The audit needs read access to both paid search accounts, twelve months of job records and the branch call log by [date]. Each working day those are late moves every date in 5.1 by a working day.
5.3 A session cancelled with less than two business days' notice counts as one of the two for that month.
5.4 Unused sessions don't carry into the following month.
5.5 The audit and the plan are accepted when the named approver says so in writing, or ten business days after delivery if nobody replies.
6. WHAT ANYTHING ELSE COSTS
6.1 A working session beyond the two included in a month: $780.
6.2 A working session with any group other than the four people named in 3.4, such as branch managers, the board or a supplier: $1,450, which covers preparing for that audience. This applies whether or not the month's two included sessions have been used.
6.3 Carrying out anything the plan recommends: $155 per hour, quoted in writing and agreed before it starts.
6.4 A revision round on the phase two plan beyond the two included: $640.
6.5 A second written readout in the same month, prepared for a different audience: $890.
6.6 A day at a branch beyond the two in 3.1: $1,100.
6.7 Anything not named above: $155 per hour.
7. WHAT IT COSTS
7.1 Phase one, marketing operations audit: $9,600.
7.2 Phase two, channel and lead-routing plan: $7,200.
7.3 Phase three, advisory retainer, five months at $4,320 a month: $21,600.
7.4 Total: $38,400.
8. WHEN IT GETS PAID
8.1 $9,600 on acceptance of this proposal.
8.2 $7,200 on delivery of the phase two plan.
8.3 $4,320 on the first day of each retainer month, five times.
8.4 Invoices are payable within 14 days of issue.
9. HOW A CHANGE GETS AGREED
9.1 Anything in section 3 that Quarrington changes after accepting this proposal is requoted before it's done, at the rates in section 6 where one of them applies.
9.2 A request arrives as one written line, comes back with a price and a date effect, and starts when the approver named in 1.3 replies yes.
9.3 Work paused by Quarrington for more than twenty business days is requoted at the rates in force when it restarts.
10. WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END
10.1 The retainer finishes after the fifth month unless both sides agree in writing to continue it, either at the rates in section 6 or under a fresh proposal.
10.2 The audit, the plan and every readout are yours to keep and reuse.
10.3 Either side may end the retainer on 30 days' written notice, and sessions already held in the notice month are payable.
11. ACCEPTANCE
11.1 This proposal sets out the work and the price. It becomes binding when both signatures below are dated, or when a separate agreement names it by reference and version.
11.2 Signing it accepts sections 3 through 10 as written.
For Quarrington Home Services: ____________________ Date: __________
For [your agency]: ____________________ Date: __________
Why does a consulting proposal need a price for one more session?
Because what a client buys in an advisory engagement is your attention, and attention has no natural unit unless the document gives it one. Section 3.3 sells two 90-minute sessions a month with four named people and one written readout, so when a third session gets asked for in March, or a fifth person wants one of their own, the answer was written in September: $780 for another session with the named group, $1,450 for one with an audience outside it. The second number is higher because a session with the branch managers isn't the same session held twice, it's a fresh explanation from zero, prepared for people who weren't in any of the earlier ones.
A build doesn't need this as badly, because a client asking for a ninth page template can see they're asking for something. A client asking you to join the Thursday operations call believes they're asking for nothing at all, and they're not being unreasonable, since nothing in the document ever said an hour of your time had a price. Two small clauses do most of the protecting here, and they're the two nobody thinks to write: an exclusion is only half a clause until it carries a rate, and a session cancelled the night before, in 5.3, still counts as one of the two you sold that month.
How do you price advice without charging by the hour?
Split the work that ends from the work that continues, then price each half on its own terms. The audit and the plan finish, so they take fixed fees of $9,600 and $7,200, and Storydoc's advice on that half is sound: break a fixed fee down by phase or by deliverable so the client can see what each part of the money buys. The retainer never finishes in the same way, so it's sold as capacity instead, at $4,320 a month for two sessions, a readout and a reply inside two business days.
Storydoc's alternative, quoting the expected number of hours each person will spend, is the version we'd avoid on retainer work. An hourly retainer invites the client to count your hours back, which turns a five-minute answer into something they feel they're paying for and slowly teaches them to save up questions. Selling a named capacity avoids that conversation completely, and it also makes an overrun visible to both sides in the same moment, because a third session is a thing that either happened or didn't. This is the same argument as the one between time and materials and a fixed price, arriving at a different answer because the thing being sold is access rather than output.
Who should the proposal name, and why does that decide the fee?
Four people in section 3.4 and one approver in 1.3, all by name, because in a business with five branches the audience for your advice multiplies quietly and each new audience costs a whole session. Naming the four is what makes 6.2 enforceable without an argument, since the client can see exactly which conversations they already paid for. Naming the approver does the same job for money: it stops a branch manager from agreeing to something on Tuesday that nobody senior knew about until the invoice.
This is also the part of a consulting proposal that most published versions leave blank, and it's the part clients respect most once it's there. Writing four names into a document reads as a plan rather than a restriction, and it lets you say yes to the fifth person with a number attached instead of saying no. The same reasoning applies to a website proposal, where the countable thing is page templates rather than people.
What happens when Quarrington asks you to build it in month three?
Month three is the first retainer month, and it's when the plan stops being a document and starts being work somebody has to do. The routing changes need configuring in the CRM, the two paid search accounts need rebuilding around branch service areas, and Quarrington has one marketing coordinator who's already fully booked. So they ask whether you can just do it, which under 6.3 is 14 hours at $155 for $2,170, quoted and agreed before anybody opens the account.
The same month brings two more asks. The regional managers want sessions of their own before the routing changes reach their branches, which is two sessions at $1,450 under 6.2 for $2,900, and the operations director wants the audit findings rewritten for the board, which is $890 under 6.5. That month runs to $5,960 above the retainer and takes the engagement to $44,360, and none of it needed a renegotiation, because every line was already priced in a document the client accepted in September. The version of this engagement without section 6 ends the same month at $4,320, with 14 hours of CRM work, two unpaid sessions and a board deck absorbed into it.
An advisory fee only holds while the work stays advice
If one line of this proposal is worth copying into your own, it's 6.3: carrying out anything the plan recommends is $155 per hour, quoted in writing and agreed before it starts. Every advisory engagement drifts toward execution, because the client has one busy person and you have the plan in your head, so doing it yourself is faster than explaining it a third time. That drift is what turns a profitable retainer into a bad month, and a single priced line turns it back into a decision the client makes with a number in front of them.
Once the engagement is running, the documents around it carry the same rates forward: a consulting statement of work names what each phase actually hands over, and the difference between a proposal and a contract decides which of the two your client is bound by. Keeping each month-three ask as one priced request rather than a thread is what makes the rate card work at all, which is why a change request form with the impact already priced beats an email. If what you're selling is a fixed monthly output rather than access, a retainer scope of work is the closer fit.
Frequently asked questions
What is a consulting proposal template?
A consulting proposal template is a reusable document you send to win an advisory engagement, setting out what you understood about the client's situation, the work you'll do about it, who takes part on both sides, what it costs and when it gets paid. On agency and consultancy work it has one more job that most published versions skip, which is to price the requests that arrive once the engagement is running, so the version on this page carries a rate for an extra session, for a session with a new audience and for executing anything the plan recommends.
Is this consulting proposal template free to use?
Yes, with no sign-up and no email address. The whole proposal is printed on this page, and you can copy it to your clipboard or download it as a Word file or a PDF from the buttons under it. Replace the client, the phases in section 3 and the rates in section 6 with your own, keep sections 5 and 9 close to the wording here, and delete anything your engagements never involve.
How should a consulting proposal price an advisory retainer?
By saying what the client gets each month rather than how many hours you plan to spend. The retainer in the proposal above is $4,320 a month for two 90-minute working sessions with four named people, one written readout and email answers inside two business days, which is a capacity a client can picture and an invoice nobody audits line by line. An hourly retainer invites the opposite conversation, because every message you send becomes something the client can price and question.
What should a consulting proposal template say about work outside the scope?
It should name the work and print the rate beside it in the same breath. An exclusion on its own tells the client what you refuse to do, and it reads as a wall rather than an option, while the same line carrying a number reads as something they can buy if they decide they want it. Section 4 of the proposal above excludes execution and section 6.3 prices it at $155 per hour, so the client always has a door rather than a refusal.
What is the difference between a consulting proposal and a statement of work?
The proposal is written to win the engagement and the statement of work is written to run it. A proposal argues, so it carries the client's situation, your approach and the reasons to choose you, while a statement of work drops the argument and keeps the countable parts: what gets delivered, by when, for how much, and what happens when one of them moves. On smaller engagements the same document does both jobs, which is why it pays to write a proposal you'd be comfortable having signed as the only document in the file.
How do you stop an advisory retainer from turning into execution work?
Price execution in the proposal instead of excluding it, then quote it every time. A retainer slides into delivery because the client has one overworked person and you have the plan in your head, so doing it yourself is faster than explaining it for the third time. The rate card makes that a decision rather than a drift, since the work now arrives as a quote the client accepts or declines, and the month you spend building things is a month you also get paid for.