The client signing experience

Once you hit Send, the next move is on your client. Here's exactly what they see and do — useful both so you know what to expect, and so you can answer the inevitable "wait, where do I sign?" call.

What loads when they click the link

A clean proposal page in their browser. No login, no app download, no account creation. Just your proposal.

The page is styled with your logo at the top, your business name and contact info in the header, and the rest of the page is the proposal itself:

• Scope of work — the plain-English summary of what you're doing
• Line items — each piece of the job with its price
• Payment schedule — the deposit and milestone breakdown
• Terms and conditions — whatever you've set up under your settings
• A sign area at the very bottom

It works on a phone as well as on a laptop. Most homeowners will open it on their phone first.

If you price by the room

Some contractors don't put a price on every line — they quote a room at a time. "Primary Bath, $20,000", then underneath it the walls, the pan, the tile you're setting, all as a list of what's included rather than a column of numbers.

If that's how you work, go to Settings → Proposal Settings, tap Layout & pricing, pick One price per room under Prices your client sees (it groups the lines by room for you), and tap Save. The client's page is laid out that way: a heading for each room with that room's price beside it, the work listed underneath, and the tile spec and any notes on the lines where they belong. No per-line prices anywhere — the room price is the price.

Anything that isn't tied to a particular room — permits, dump fees, a whole-house demo line — is grouped at the bottom under General with its own price. The grand total and the payment schedule work exactly the same as always.

A couple of things that keep working the way you'd want:

• Options still show their price. If you've offered an optional add-on inside a room, the client still sees what it costs — they can't decide on something they can't price. Ticking it moves that room's price and the total together.
• Your own copy still shows everything. On your side of the app you keep every quantity and unit price, with the room price sitting above the lines that produced it. Only the client's page and the PDF you send them are laid out room-by-room.

If you never pick it, nothing changes — your proposals keep showing a price on every line, exactly as they do today.

Options and add-ons on the signing page

If you offered the client any choices on this proposal — an optional add-on, or a Good / Better / Best style choice group — this is where they make them. See Offering options and add-ons for how to set them up on your end.

Optional add-ons show up as a line with a tick box and an "Optional" tag. The client ticks it to include the work, unticks it to leave it out. When it's not included the line dims and its price shows as a "+ $X" so they can see exactly what saying yes would cost.

Choice groups show up as a small stack of cards under a heading like "Tile package", with a "Choose one" tag. Each card shows the choice, a short description if you wrote one, its price, and how it compares to whatever they've currently got picked — "Included", "+ $1,200", "− $800". Tapping a card switches the pick. Exactly one is always selected, so there's no way for them to leave it blank and confuse you both. If a choice covers several lines of work, those lines are listed inside the card so they know what they're getting.

The total updates as they go. Every tick and every card tap re-totals the proposal on the spot, and the Total Estimate at the bottom of the itemized list moves with it, labelled "Based on your selections". Right above the signature block there's a Your selections summary — a plain list of what they chose, added, and left out — so nobody signs without seeing the configuration in front of them.

[!note] Their picks are remembered on their device, per link. A homeowner can open the proposal on the couch, tick through the options, close the tab to go talk it over, and come back later to find their choices exactly where they left them. Nothing is sent to you until they actually sign.

Two things worth knowing:

• Prices always show on options, even if you've hidden per-item prices. If you've turned off per-item pricing for clients, the regular line prices drop away as usual — but add-on prices and choice prices stay. An option a client can't price is an option they can't decide on.
• Whatever's on screen is what they sign. The picks travel with the signature, and everything downstream — the signed total, the deposit invoice, the payment schedule — is built from the configuration they chose, not from the version you drafted.

The signing flow

When they scroll to the bottom, they get a signature block. Three things happen there:

1. They type their full name and email address into the fields
2. They draw their signature on the canvas (finger on a phone, mouse or trackpad on a computer)
3. They check the legal consent box confirming the signature is binding

When they hit the "Sign Proposal" button, BidCraft captures everything they did and stamps it with an audit trail:

• IP address they signed from
• Browser and device they used
• Exact timestamp (date, time, timezone)
• The signature image itself (saved as a graphic)
• Their typed name and email

[!note] This audit trail is what makes the e-signature legally meaningful. If a client ever disputes that they signed, you've got the full record. You can see it yourself in the History panel on the proposal page (Open history › under the proposal bar).

What fires the moment they sign

The signature kicks off a small chain of things automatically.

The project status moves from Sent to Signed. You'll see this on the project page — the timeline shows the new state with a green checkmark. If you've got notifications set up, you'll get pinged.

A copy goes to the client. They get an email with the signed proposal attached so they have a record. They didn't have to ask for it.

If you have Stripe payments set up: the deposit invoice fires automatically. Your client gets a second email right behind the signed-proposal copy, with a "Pay Now" link for the first milestone (typically the deposit). They can pay it by card, ACH, Apple Pay, or Google Pay, right then. No phone call, no chasing.

If you don't have Stripe set up, the signature still completes — you just won't collect a deposit automatically. The proposal is still legally signed; you just handle payment some other way.

[!tip] Most contractors collect their first deposit within an hour of the client signing because the pay link arrives in the same email session. The faster you collect, the more committed the homeowner feels to the schedule you proposed.

If the proposal has expired

Every proposal can carry a valid until date, shown under the proposal date at the top of the page. In the last three days your client sees a reminder above the signature pad.

Once the date passes, the page still opens and reads exactly the same, but the signature pad is replaced by a note that the proposal has expired and a Request an updated proposal button. Tapping it emails you and shows on the proposal's tracking row; your client sees "Request sent". Extend the date and the same link can be signed again. See Proposal expiration dates.

A signed proposal never expires.

What if they want to ask a question first?

The proposal page doesn't have a comment field — by design. If a homeowner wants to talk something through, they reply to the email, which goes straight to your inbox, and you sort it out by phone or text the way you always have.

If they want a change before signing, edit the proposal on your end and hit Resend — the same link updates to your new version, so there's nothing extra for them to keep track of. See Resending, revoking, and new shareable links.

When the email is a change order, not a fresh proposal

If you've already gotten a signature and the scope changes mid-job — added niche, found rotted subfloor, upgraded tile — the next email they get from you is a change order, not a new proposal. The experience is similar but distinctly different in three ways:

• The page opens with context. A clear "You previously signed this proposal on [date] for $X" header sits at the top so they immediately know this isn't the original.
• They see a clear before/after. Added lines highlighted, modified lines showing old → new, removed lines struck through, plus the new project total. They're not re-reading the whole scope from scratch — just what's changing.
• They sign just the change. A signature block at the bottom for the change order specifically. Their original signature on the original proposal is untouched and stays binding for everything that didn't change.

For most homeowners this is faster and less stressful than re-signing a whole new proposal. They glance at the diff, sign the change, and the work continues.

If you've got Stripe payments connected, signing a change order can also fire an invoice — depending on the payment mode you picked when you built it (rolled into existing milestones, due on signature, or its own custom schedule). See Sending a change order.

Next steps

• Tracking views and signatures — checking in on a proposal that's out
• Sending a change order — amend a signed proposal without scrapping it
• Setting up Stripe payments — so the deposit invoice fires when they sign
• Deposits and milestone invoices — the full payment flow after a signature