How to Write a SaaS Sales Quote to Close More Deals

To create a sales quote for a SaaS product that results in completed transactions, a software company has to integrate the concepts of pricing, usage, and licensing into one clear process. The application of spreadsheets for manual calculation can result in discrepancies, potentially influencing the duration of proposal approval and the pace of document entry for enterprise purchase consideration. 

This guide provides information relevant to the quotation process, particularly concerning its pace, accuracy, and overall duration. It explains the typical process, the approval process, and the handover of the contract.

The process of setting a prospective customer’s requirements serves as a prerequisite to creating any line items contained in the final software proposal. 

An Account Executive should be the first one to initiate the process of discovery to identify the target market, understand what the seat is, and define the overall business objectives.

A Sales Engineer takes over the process of technical requirements, embodying functions like API integration, SSO, and system integration.  It is important to identify these specific aspects very early in the process to avoid presenting a package that is either too basic or missing important features. 

These usage metrics provide the account team with data concerning software functionality and customer interests.

Before providing this response, a review of the subsequent questions may be undertaken:

• What is the average deal size and the complexity of the contract?  If the deal is for standard seats worth less than $10,000 annually, it is better to use a direct quote to speed things up.  If the deal is more than $50,000 annually and also includes custom integration, it is better to use a detailed proposal. 
• How many internal decision-makers are there who will approve the purchase?  When selling to one person, a simple quote is enough.  When several departments, for example, the sales, legal, and engineering departments, are involved in the approval of the purchase, a detailed proposal is enough to provide the necessary background information.
• What is the requirement for the number of users?  Simple recurring charge quotes can incorporate a fixed number of seats. Variable usage or changed deployment patterns require a customized quote with precise usage rules.

Identify the different pricing structures available based on customer requirements:

When deciding between a sales proposal and a price quote, the extent of the information that is required from the stakeholders of the purchase before giving their consent should be considered.

A proposal usually contains information on the product being offered, its specifications, and the plan for the implementation of the product for the evaluation of the product by more than one stakeholder.

A quote simply contains the pricing, the payment terms, and the legal terms when the audience understands what the software does. 

The selection of these two documents suggests that transaction speed may be influenced by the volume of information or the audience’s interpretation of numerical data. As far as possible, the structure of the document should be according to the needs of the audience; in this case, the discussion will be about the terms of the agreement.

While making documents, the sales team often refers to a SaaS proposal example or a SaaS sales proposal template to maintain brand consistency across the complicated processes of the proposal.

For license renewals with minimal complexity or an increase in seat numbers, a direct SaaS sales quote may be sufficient for document presentation.

Creating accurate line items forces us to define clear pricing methods and have a rule-based or go-through process for every quote.

The Account Executive puts in the subscription, the professional onboarding, and the anticipated usage in the pricing software. Incorporating structured discount rules helps in controlling the extent of discounts that sales reps use of cutting pricing too far just to close the deal quickly. If reps use non-standard discounts, the built-in approval workflow takes the quote to managers or finance executives directly. Clear discount rules are linked to the maintenance of gross margins and provide a structure for sales representatives’ negotiations in the final stage of customer interaction.

In enterprise transactions, companies like Talend rely on a Deal Desk to calculate the return on investment or net present value of the deal and only then provide a price to the potential customer. At Talend, the commercial operations team brings in the pricing issues with the finance team to understand the impact of the discount on the gross margin. If the discount is more than a certain level (e.g., more than 20%), go through the quote with the CFO or finance management and get approval in the process before being presented to the customer.

The use of a standard template for quotes is associated with a consistent presentation and the inclusion of accurate company details in each issued quote.

Quote processing tools obtain opportunity information from the CRM, which then populates fields such as prices, quantity, and customer contact details without manual entry. Avoiding manual data entry procedures tends to reduce the frequency of errors, including those related to billing addresses and line item totals. The template outlines details regarding the recurring fees, the one-time setup cost, and the payment terms within its tables. The formatting of documents can impact the operational efficiency of internal processes. These factors relate to stakeholder trust and the efficiency of legal reviews.

The adoption of a standardized SaaS quote template is crucial for establishing a consistent approach and aligning various stakeholders on pricing and market opportunities.

Subskribe‘s modern CPQ system is employed by applications as EvenUp and Beamery for template creation and price establishment, in correlation with CRM opportunity data.

The final document should include:

• Contact details of the buyer and the seller
• Prices of the line items and the billing periods
• Increasing or decreasing usage ramp term 
• SaaS sales tax terms
• Quote expiration date (usually 14 to 30 days).

Transaction execution is contingent on valid signature sequencing and the transmission of contract information to finance systems without manual intervention causing delays.

Embedding electronic signatures in documents allows potential customers to accept the terms and conditions within the document viewer. When the customer signs or enters a Purchase Order (PO) number, an automatic action takes place to update the CRM status to closed-won. Integrations then take over to put in the schedule to pay, the start date of the billing, and the details about the product to the accounting core application. This procedure aims to maintain a match between revenue recognition policies and the contract’s terms from the start of the agreement.

Send over the finalized quote together with the e-signature function.

Once the buyer agrees to the terms or issues a Purchase Order (PO):

1. Adjust the CRM status (e.g., in Salesforce or HubSpot) to the “Closed/Won” designation.
2. Extract any additional information that may be necessary for accounting purposes such as the start date of the service, renewal terms, or the total of the line items and deliver it to the accounting software, such as Xero or QuickBooks, using ScaleXP.  
3. Create ASC 606/ IFRS 15 revenue recognition schedules to track deferred revenue over the duration of the subscription.