Bidsketch vs. DocuSign

I think Bidsketch would work well for any small business or freelancer looking for a low-cost, simple to use proposal software solution. It's quick and easy to set up and provides everything you need for more cases. If you're looking for something with more flexibility or features that Bidsketch does not offer then you may need to keep looking.

Incentivized

This product is well suited in the use case that I provided before: when it comes to onboarding employees and providing a clear channel for decision making for human resources, this is an excellent tool to accomplish that. I would say the weak points is when you have back and forth communication with users that it might seem a little redundant to have that back and forth communication in that scenario.

Incentivized

• Pre-written proposals for many scenarios.
• Integrations with 3rd party apps.
• Own domain for branding.

Incentivized

• Ease of sending the same document out to multiple recipients, at multiple locations, for multiple signatures
• Quick turnaround - once the recipient signs the document, we receive notification and the document back immediately
• Can resend, alter, change, and/or add to the email and/or document that is sent out very easily
• The recipient can save the document after signing, so they too have their own electronic copy for their records

Incentivized

• REALLY PRICEY for a small business/freelancer that doesn't do a lot of proposals each month. Would be nice if they offered a per proposal pricing for the smaller guys.
• Wish there was more customization of the design/layout to better fit in with branding.
• Also would like to be able to mark a proposal private.

Incentivized

• Tracking, particularly when collecting signatures through connected applications, such as an ATS, is not always clean or easily traceable.
• Formatting documents to handle electronic signature types (signatures, initials, etc.) is not always easy, and highly dependent on the partner's technology.
• It is not convenient to have to use DocuSign as a stand alone product if the signatures are required for 3rd party applications. It definitely excels on its own, but the scope of that usage, at least for us, is slim.

Incentivized

I can't imagine doing business without DocuSign now. I would never want to go back to the way we used to do things. The "new way" is "the way" is "the right way." We can honestly be proud of a "one right way" process and not have to suffer through "5 ways for 5 days."

Incentivized

I'd say Bidsketch is very easy to use. I don't think most people would have any problem getting comfortable with this software. I was able to get up and running very quickly. Their template library is a great resource to get a professional proposal up and out the door fast.

Incentivized

Generally user-friendly once you have command of the basics, but also has a lot of nuances that can make it difficult to train others on. DocuSign University is a helpful tool, but understandably a lot of content to get through to become a well-versed user. A lot of different functionalities but only a few I use on a weekly basis.

Incentivized

It does not go down. I have had zero issues with DocuSign, approaching 4 years.

Incentivized

Everything loads quickly. Reports are generated in a reasonable time. No noticeable difference in integrated software processing speeds.

Incentivized

Although I didn't need to reach out to support much, they seemed to do a very good job. I've also heard great things about the team through people I've talked to so I wouldn't expect anyone to run into issues with regards to their support. Their support definitely was not a factor in my ultimately not sticking with the product.

Incentivized

I'd give them a 10, but there has been 1 or 2 small cases that seemed to fall to the wayside, but I was able to call them up and get them resolved. We were having a bad implementation night (after midnight) and we needed assistance from Docusign. They were able to get an engineer to help us in the early morning hours

Incentivized

Docusign is super easy to use, and apart from a few administration details, there was really nothing to train on. Post implementation, there were issues with configuration of auto-filled documents with the integrating 3rd party. That training required some time, because the DocuSign expert took the time to walk me through the 3rd party's configuration (how often does that happen?) so I could see how DocuSign should be best used to overcome weaknesses in the 3rd party platform. 10/10 expert care.

Incentivized

Until you get the hang of it, I recommend doing several internal tests before sending a document to a client. As I mentioned earlier, you have to go through a bit of trial and error at first to verify that the workflow works as expected.

We used DocSend to track our outgoing proposals but after testing Bidsketch we never returned back. It is simply better suited for us as we send out tens of proposals every week and the professional output and management of proposals won us over.

Incentivized

There has never been anything that we could really compare to Docusign. We have tried sending documents in a PDF version, but that was not nearly as efficient. DocuSign saves your signature in the system and uses that as it goes through your documents.

Incentivized

In my years of using DocuSign, I have never had an outage. I haven't even encountered a bug.

Incentivized

• The proposals do look professional (even if you can't fully customize to your brand) and make a great impression on the potential client.
• The cost of Bidsketch is prohibitive if you don't do a lot of proposal writing on a regular basis.

Incentivized

• Less paper use, faster signature times, less time standing at the printer/scanner to send documents to yourself
• Security over your signature! Security over your company's signature and authorization to approve projects, cash flow etc
• Love audit trails and the seamless tracking of the status of the document

Incentivized