Most freelancers who sign up for Qwilr send their first proposal within the hour — and that first proposal often closes faster than anything they’ve sent before. This guide takes you from your first Qwilr login through a complete setup checklist so your next proposal goes out polished, branded, and built to win.
Step 1: Create Your Account and Log In
Go to qwilr.com and click Sign Up. You have two options: email plus password, or single sign-on via Google or Microsoft. If you’re already deep in the Google Workspace ecosystem, use Google — it means one fewer password and you’ll never get locked out.
Email signup requires a minimum 8-character password with mixed case and at least one number. After you submit, Qwilr sends a confirmation email. Click the link, and you’re in. The whole thing takes under two minutes.
After that first Qwilr login, you land on a clean dashboard showing Proposals, Library, Settings, and your profile menu. Resist the urge to click around randomly. Start with Settings — it’s where the foundation for every proposal you send gets built.
Step 2: Brand Your Account Before You Build Anything
This is the step most freelancers skip, then regret. If you build a proposal before setting up branding, you’ll go back and redo it. Do it once, upfront.
In Settings, under Branding, add:
- Your logo — PNG with transparent background, at least 500px wide. Qwilr accepts PNG, JPG, and GIF up to 2MB. A transparent background means it looks clean on any proposal background color.
- Primary brand color — enter your exact hex code. Qwilr uses this for buttons, links, and accents throughout. If your brand color is #2D4A8A, type that in. Don’t guess.
- Company name, email, phone, and website — these appear in the proposal footer. Clients look here when they’re ready to sign and want to confirm they have the right contact info.
Spend 10 minutes here and every proposal you send from this point forward will look like a professional studio put it together.
Step 3: Set Up Payment Collection (Don’t Skip This)
If you plan to collect a deposit when a client accepts — and you should — connect Stripe before you build your first proposal. Go to Settings, then Integrations, then Stripe. Connect your account.
Once connected, clients can pay directly from the proposal page without leaving Qwilr. A $500 deposit, a 25% down payment on a $4,000 project, a flat project fee — all collectable in the same flow where they review scope and sign. This single feature closes deals faster than any other change you can make to your process, because it removes the gap between “yes” and paid.
If you don’t have Stripe, PayPal and direct bank transfer options also exist. But Stripe is fastest and most trusted by clients.
Step 4: Build Your First Proposal Template
After your initial Qwilr login and setup, click New Proposal from your dashboard. Qwilr offers pre-built templates — Service Proposal, Product Proposal, Quote, and Pricing Table Proposal. If you’re a freelance designer, copywriter, developer, or consultant, start with Service Proposal. It has the right bones.
The sections you need in almost every winning freelance proposal:
- Cover block — client name, project name, your name, date submitted. Keep it clean.
- Problem statement — 2–3 sentences on what the client is trying to solve. Use their words from the brief or discovery call, not yours.
- Your approach — how you’ll solve it, broken into phases or deliverables. Be specific. “Website redesign” is weak. “Three-phase redesign: UX audit (week 1), wireframes (week 2), build and launch (weeks 3–5)” is something a client can actually evaluate.
- Pricing block — line items or packages. Qwilr’s pricing section auto-totals. If you offer tiered packages (Essential / Growth / Premium), this is where conditional content earns its keep.
- Timeline — even a simple table showing phases and dates builds confidence. Clients want to know when they’ll see results.
- Terms and signature — standard payment terms, revision policy, what happens if scope changes. Add a signature block so clients can accept electronically without printing anything.
Build this as a template, not a one-off. Save it. Every new proposal starts here and takes 20–30 minutes to customize instead of two hours to build from scratch.
Step 5: Use Conditional Pricing to Handle Scope Questions
Here’s a Qwilr feature most freelancers ignore until they’ve wasted months of back-and-forth: conditional content blocks.
Say you offer website copywriting. A client asks: “What if we want to add a blog?” Instead of sending a revised proposal, you build the answer into the original. Add a conditional pricing section — if the client selects “Add Blog Package,” a $900 line item appears automatically and the total updates. They can see exactly what each choice costs without emailing you.
To set this up, add a pricing block, then click the block settings (gear icon). Enable conditional visibility tied to a client-facing toggle. Label it clearly: “Include blog setup (+$900).” The client controls what they see, and you control what gets included when they sign.
This approach works for revision packages, rush delivery add-ons, maintenance retainers, and anything else clients commonly ask about after the fact. Build it in upfront and you stop leaving money on the table.
Step 6: Send the Proposal and Watch What Happens
When your proposal is ready, click Share in the top right. Qwilr generates a public link. You can paste this into your own email client, or send directly from Qwilr with a custom message.
Sending through Qwilr’s built-in email adds one big advantage: tracking. You’ll see exactly when the client opened the proposal, how many minutes they spent on each section, and how many times they came back. This intelligence is worth more than most people realize.
If a client opens the proposal three times in 24 hours and spends four minutes on the pricing page, that’s a buy signal. Follow up that day with something simple: “Hey, I saw you had a chance to look it over — any questions on the pricing or scope?” That timing closes deals.
If a client opens it once for 45 seconds and goes quiet, they probably didn’t read it. Your follow-up message might be: “Happy to do a quick 15-minute call to walk through the proposal together — sometimes that makes it easier to ask questions.” Different situation, different approach.
Set up Qwilr’s built-in reminder to follow up automatically if the proposal isn’t opened within 48 hours.
Step 7: Build Out Your Library
After you’ve sent two or three proposals, you’ll notice you’re rewriting the same sections over and over. Your services description. Your revision policy. Your standard payment terms. That repetition is waste.
Go to Library in your Qwilr navigation. Save any section you use repeatedly as a library block. Label each one clearly: “Standard 3-Revision Policy,” “Website Copywriting Services Overview,” “30-Day Payment Terms.”
From that point on, adding any of these to a new proposal takes three seconds — click Library, select the block, done. A freelancer who sends 20 proposals a year saves roughly 10 hours of writing just from this one habit. Multiply that by your hourly rate and you’ll understand why this is worth setting up now rather than later.
From first Qwilr login to sending a real proposal should take under 90 minutes. Don’t spend days perfecting the design. Send something real, track how clients engage with it, and improve from there.
Troubleshooting the Most Common Setup Problems
Can’t get back in after signup? If you originally signed up with Google but tried to log in with email, Qwilr treats these as separate. Use the same method you used to create the account. You can link both in Settings once you’re in.
Client says they can’t open the proposal? Check that the public link is still active. Qwilr lets you deactivate proposal links. If you deactivated it by accident, go to the proposal, click Share, and confirm the link is set to active.
Proposal looks broken on your client’s phone? Use Qwilr’s mobile preview before sending. Click the device toggle at the top of the editor. If sections look cramped, reduce side padding and simplify any multi-column layouts. Pricing blocks and signature blocks are mobile-friendly by default — text-heavy sections with wide images are where you’ll have problems.
Logo looks blurry? You’re using a low-resolution file. Export a new version at 2x or 3x resolution and re-upload.
What to Do After Your First Signed Proposal
Check your analytics. Qwilr shows aggregate data across all sent proposals over time. Which sections do clients spend the most time on? Which pricing options do they select most often? If 80% of clients pick your mid-tier package, consider repricing it — you may be undercharging for it.
If you’re using invoicing software like FreshBooks or QuickBooks, connect it through Qwilr’s Zapier integration. When a proposal is accepted, a draft invoice can be created automatically. You stop copying and pasting numbers between tools.
The setup you do in the first session — the Qwilr login, branding, pricing blocks, library — compounds over every proposal you send afterward. Get it right once and your process gets faster and more consistent every time.
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