How to Evaluate Software Development Proposals: A UK Buyer's Guide

We write a lot of software development proposals. We've also seen proposals from other agencies when clients have shared them for comparison. The variation in quality — and the potential for confusion — is significant.

This guide is written from the buyer's side. If you're receiving proposals for a software development project and trying to evaluate them fairly, these are the dimensions that actually matter.

What You're Actually Evaluating

When you evaluate a software development proposal, you're not primarily evaluating a document. You're trying to answer these questions:

1. Does this team understand my problem? (Or are they proposing a generic solution?)
2. Is their proposed approach sound? (Are there obvious technical risks they haven't addressed?)
3. Is the scope realistic? (Are they promising everything or making hard choices?)
4. Is the pricing fair and transparent? (Can I understand what I'm paying for?)
5. Can I trust this team to deliver? (What evidence do they provide?)

A well-presented proposal can mask poor understanding. A plain proposal can represent deep thinking. Train yourself to look past presentation quality to substance.

Section 1: Problem Understanding

The best indicator of a team's capability is how accurately they reflect your problem back to you in the proposal.

Look for: specific references to your industry, your users, your existing systems, and the specific challenges you described. A phrase like 'a system that handles your complex multi-step assessment workflow with SITS integration' is far more confidence-inspiring than 'a bespoke software solution for your requirements'.

Red flag: proposals that are clearly templated with your company name inserted. These signal that the team didn't engage deeply with your problem.

Good questions to ask yourself: Does this section describe the problem I actually have, or a generic version of it? Does it show any domain knowledge, or just technical vocabulary?

Section 2: Proposed Solution

The solution section should explain what they're building and why, not just what it will do.

Evaluate: Does the architecture make sense for this problem? Are there alternative approaches they've considered and rejected (and explained why)? Are there obvious complexities they've addressed?

What you want to see: technology choices with brief rationale, data model or architecture diagram (even a rough one), how they'll handle the integration challenges specific to your situation, and any explicit trade-offs they're making.

What you don't want to see: technology buzzwords without substance ('leveraging cutting-edge AI and cloud-native microservices architecture'), or no architecture discussion at all ('we'll figure out the details in the discovery phase').

Section 3: Scope Definition

The scope section is the most commercially important part of the proposal. It defines what you're buying.

A good scope section:

• Lists specific features and user stories included in the price
• Explicitly states what is NOT included (e.g., 'admin panel', 'multi-language support', 'integrations beyond those listed')
• Describes what happens when you want something outside the defined scope
• Distinguishes Phase 1 (included) from future phases (not included)

Red flags: vague scope statements ('all features discussed in our meeting'), no exclusion list, or scope that matches everything you mentioned without any apparent prioritisation.

A proposal that includes everything you mentioned without questioning anything is dangerous. Good agencies make hard choices about what belongs in Phase 1 — and explain why.

Section 4: Timeline

Evaluate the timeline not just for the end date but for the structure:

• Are milestones defined? What deliverable is associated with each?
• What are your review and sign-off points? When can you provide feedback?
• Is there a launch date commitment, or just a 'target'?
• What happens to the timeline if requirements change?

A timeline without milestones is nearly meaningless — it tells you when they expect to finish but nothing about progress along the way.

Be sceptical of unusually fast timelines. If one agency proposes 8 weeks and two others propose 16–20 weeks for the same scope, that's a significant discrepancy worth exploring. Either the fast proposal has an undisclosed reason for confidence, or it's underscoping.

Section 5: Pricing

Software proposals use several pricing models, each with different risk profiles:

For well-defined projects, fixed price is preferred from a buyer's perspective — you know what you're spending. For exploratory or research-heavy projects, T&M with a cap is often more appropriate.

Evaluate the rate breakdown: a proposal with a single lump sum tells you less than one that breaks down design hours, development hours, project management, and QA separately. The latter lets you compare like-for-like and spot anomalies.

Section 6: Team and Process

A proposal should tell you who will be working on your project. Named individuals with their roles and relevant experience are better than 'our experienced team'.

Evaluate the process description: how does the agency manage work? What's the sprint structure? How will they communicate progress? What project management tool will you use, and will you have access?

Also look for: how they handle bugs and defects during development, what the QA process is, and how they manage deployments.

Section 7: References and Evidence

What specific evidence do they provide that they can do what they're proposing?

• Case studies with specific outcomes (not just screenshots)
• Named clients in relevant industries (or plausible reasons they can't name clients)
• Willingness to provide reference contacts
• Links to live software they've built

Generic testimonials without specific outcomes are weak evidence. A named client in your industry who can be called for a reference is strong evidence.

Comparing Multiple Proposals

When comparing proposals, don't compare total prices directly. Compare scope-adjusted prices: what is each agency proposing to build, and what is the price for that specific scope?

Build a comparison matrix:

The agency with the lowest price is rarely the best value. The one with the strongest evidence of understanding your specific problem is usually the safest bet.