Sending proposals, estimates, and contracts to clients

Last updated January 17, 2025

If you sell custom products and services to clients or manage ongoing projects, you may want to send branded, professional documents to scope out your working relationship and establish your fee. This guide covers the documents you can send to clients within the Projects panel, and how your clients interact with them.

Accessing this feature

You can send documents in the Basic, Core, Plus, Advanced, Business, Commerce Basic, and Commerce Advanced plans. To learn more, visit Choosing the right Squarespace plan.

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Draft documents

Note

To send documents, you’ll need to create a project and have a valid reply-to email address in your business information settings.

In a project, scroll to the Documents section, click the + icon, and select the document type. You can choose from these template options:

  • Proposals - Gives clients a high-level overview of your business and services
  • Estimates - Outlines the services you'll provide for a project, and the associated costs
  • Contracts - Outlines your terms of service

Replace the demo text and images with your own content. These templates are pre-formatted to help you get started, but you can add and delete sections to fit your needs. You can also use Squarespace AI to help you draft the document text. Click a section, then click Add section, or use the options that appear in the top-right corner of the section to duplicate, delete, or move it. You can choose from these sections:

  • Acceptance
  • Card
  • Image banner
  • Text

Click any text area to edit the text. Replace images in the right panel that appears when you click a card section.

Style the document

Use the Styles tab in the document editor to change the document’s layout, fonts, and colors. You can choose custom colors using the color picker, or apply one of your site’s color themes. You can apply color changes to individual sections, or the entire document. Click Sync font styles to apply your site’s fonts to the document.

Acceptance

The acceptance section prompts your clients to review and accept the document details. Use an acceptance section to make a document binding between you and your client.

Please note, we can’t provide any legal advice or contractual formation recommendations for your particular jurisdiction, and aren’t liable for any legal repercussions.

Send documents

To send a document:

  1. Click Send in the top-right corner.
  2. Customize the email subject line and write a message to your client.
  3. When you’re ready, click Send.

The document will send to the client email address linked to the project, and from the email address in your business settings. It’s not possible to add additional recipients, but you can duplicate documents to send to different clients. After you send a document, its status will change to Live on the project page. After clients accept, the status will automatically change to Accepted, and you will both receive an email confirmation with the document attached.

Duplicate a document

After you draft a document, you can duplicate it to send to different clients. In the project, scroll to the document you want to duplicate:

  1. In the project, scroll to to the document you want to duplicate.
  2. Click the icon, then click Duplicate.
  3. Select an existing client or create a new client and project for the document. You can view all clients in the Contacts panel.
  4. Click Continue.
  5. Create a new project or select an existing project.
  6. Click Continue, edit your document, then click Send.

Edit and delete documents

You can edit and re-send a document if your client hasn’t already accepted the agreement:

  1. On the project page, click the icon beside the document, then click Edit.
  2. Make your changes.
  3. Click Save, edit your email subject line and message, then click Send. Clients will receive a second email with a link to the updated document. The original email link will also lead to the updated document.

To delete a document that hasn’t been accepted, click the icon, click Delete, then click Delete document. This can't be undone. If a client follows a link to a deleted document, they’ll land on a 404 page.

The client experience

Clients will receive an email with a button to view your document. They’ll land on a page where they can review and accept the details of the document. 

When they click Accept, a pop-up confirmation appears. After confirming, you’ll both receive a confirmation email with the document attached, and the document status that displays when they open the document will change to Accepted. The acceptance button follows your site's language settings and can't be edited.

Acceptance.png

Next steps

Now that you’ve scoped your work and agreed to a fee and delivery schedule, you may want to:

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  • Get help from our community on advanced customizations.

  • Hire a Squarespace Expert

  • Stand out online with the help of an experienced designer or developer.

Sending proposals, estimates, and contracts to clients