Most proposals read like price lists with a personality. The ones that get signed have a fixed skeleton, and the skeleton has an order. Change the order and you start negotiations one step behind.
The seven parts, in order
1. Their words. The problem restated in the client's own language, first line. They should recognize themselves before they see a number.
2. The outcome. One sentence on which lever moves - revenue, cost, or risk - and roughly how far.
3. The shape of the work. Phases or deliverables, short and noun-heavy. No day-by-day theater.
4. One number. A total for the default scope. No line-item hourly maths - line items invite line-item bargaining.
5. What's not included. Two or three honest exclusions. This line is where scope creep dies.
6. The terms. Payment schedule, the two revision rounds included, response times.
7. The expiry. Prices hold for 14 days - not pressure, just the fact that your calendar is finite.
Say it like weather
"This comes to $4,800 - half to start, half on delivery, and the first draft lands two weeks after the deposit." Then stop talking. The pause after a price is the sound of a decision being made. The person who fills it has just offered to negotiate against themselves.
When they push back
"It's more than we expected" is almost always a scope mismatch, not a price objection: ask which part of the scope they expected it to cover, then cut scope, never margin. "Another quote is half yours" deserves a blessing, not a discount: "If the cheaper quote includes that, take it." A number that folds on the first push was never a price - it was a wish with a decimal point.