Dear Dakota: Proposal vs. Contract - Should You Send Them Together or Separately?
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When presenting your design fees to a potential interior design client, do you send the proposal first and the contract later? Or do you send everything at once so they have all the details before signing?
Some interior designers separate these steps. Some do them at the same time. Some send a contract out later, like mid project (🙀). Others don’t use a contract at all (🙈).
Obviously—the last two? NOT good strategies.
If you want a process that protects your business, builds trust, and keeps projects running smoothly, the proposal and contract go hand-in-hand.
PS: I’m not an attorney and this is not legal advice. This is based on my experience working 1:1 with over 100 interior design businesses.
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Your Clients Need the Full Picture Before They Sign
Your proposal should outline the specifics of the potential client’s project—the scope, investment, and what the client is getting. But without a contract attached that includes your terms and conditions and the nitty gritty fine print, clients will have to make a decision based on partial information.
And when that happens?
They might approve the proposal but push back on contract terms later.
They assume things that aren’t actually included.
They hesitate to move forward because they don’t have all the facts.
This is more than just protecting your interior design business—it’s about setting the right expectations and providing an elevated, proactive client experience.
I recently experienced this when my husband and I were looking to hire a landscape designer. We had their proposal and pricing—but we had no idea what was actually included once the work began.
Does the fee include purchasing and installation?
Does it include them overseeing the project?
If a plant dies in the first year, is that covered?
How many revisions do we get if we don’t love the plan?
Is everything included in the fee or does it ever move to an hourly rate?
What happens if there are issues or delays?
How often can we communicate with them?
We had pricing, but we didn’t have the full picture. So it delayed the process (and required more hand holding) because we needed more information before we could move forward with complete trust in the process (and a full understanding of the total investment).
Your interior design clients feel exactly the same way when you send a proposal without a contract. If they don’t have all the information upfront, they might agree to work with you—but then they’ll push back, ghost, or, worst-case scenario, feel like it was a bait and switch.
What Happens When You Send the Proposal & Contract Separately?
A lot of people don’t realize that separating these steps can actually slow down the sales process and create unnecessary friction.
Like if you’ve ever had a client sign the proposal, pay the retainer, then push back on your contract terms because they thought they could buy everything on their own, or they thought they’d have endless revisions?
When these two documents aren’t presented together, it leaves room for interpretation. And the last thing you want is a client agreeing to work with you based on assumptions rather than facts. Cuz you and I both know that most homeowners base their assumptions on what they’ve seen on HGTV, read on Houzz message boards, or learned from their friend’s sister’s college roommate who is a designer on the side.
🤷
The interior designers I’ve worked with who avoid these issues have a streamlined approach:
They give clients all the information they need to make an informed decision and so they can handle any objections right up front, so they don’t become an issue later.
They don’t wait until after the deposit is paid to share the fine print.
They make the contract part of the decision-making process, not an afterthought.
How to Make Your Proposal Process Seamless
Let’s be honest—backtracking to get a contract signed OR not having a contract and then having things go south is embarrassing and unprofessional.
Sending the proposal, contract, and any relevant information your potential client needs to make an informed decision is KEY.
My favorite tool for sending proposals and contracts seamlessly?
HoneyBook.
Back when we offered 1:1 services, we relied completely on HoneyBook for taking the stress out of the proposal and contract signing process. Build it out once, leverage it forever!
Before HoneyBook? It was a mess of PDFs and emails and (gasp) printing, signing, and scanning signature pages.
BLEH!
Once we moved to HoneyBook, oh my goodness it was SO elevated and streamlined. Clients even told us they wanted their process to be like ours. It not only simplifies the backend (saves time), it's also a great experience for your clients and makes a great first impression.
Here’s How You Can Streamline Your Proposal Process in HoneyBook:
Create a proposal template in HoneyBook (we have one here).
Add your contract template to HoneyBook (we have one here).
Create a SmartFile that includes the proposal template as step one, the contract as step two, and the invoice as step three (or if you don’t invoice through HB you can include the invoice in the body of the email).
When it's time to send a proposal and contract to a potential client, simply go into their project in HoneyBook and then choose that SmartFile.
Personalize it as needed, then send it to the client.
The client then views the proposal (yup, you can see whether they have looked at it or not).
They click a button on the proposal to take the next step: reviewing the contract.
They have all the info they need so they digitally sign the contract (yes you get a notification when it’s signed so you never miss a beat).
They are then taken to a screen where they can pay the invoice.
Once the invoice is paid, you can set it up so onboarding automatically begins.
So easy. So elevated!
Check out HoneyBook here and save on your first year with my affiliate code. Yes, I may make a small commission if you sign up, but I only recommend software I use and love!
