Conevs
Ignition
Ignition: The established proposal to payment product for accounting practices, with deeper integrations and a longer record
Cone
Proposal to payment software for accounting and bookkeeping firms, with engagement letters and direct debit
As of 31 August 2026, Cone's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. Cone is built for accountancy practices specifically, so proposals carry engagement letter wording, scope creep flags and recurring fee schedules that a generic proposal tool has no concept of. Softwr lists it under Proposals. Cone is available on Web.
Overview
What Cone does
Cone produces proposals and engagement letters for accounting, bookkeeping and advisory firms, collects electronic signature, and sets up recurring billing including direct debit mandates so that an accepted proposal becomes a payment schedule rather than a document in a folder. It also covers practice side workflow such as client onboarding tasks and proposal templates by service line. The specialism is the point. A general proposal tool treats a proposal as a sales document; an accountancy practice treats it as an engagement letter with regulatory wording, a defined scope, and a recurring fee that must be collected without chasing. Cone models all three, and it also flags work performed outside the agreed scope, which is the single largest source of unbilled hours in a small practice. Recovering that is a revenue change, not a software saving, which is why practices adopt it. The buyers are small and mid sized accounting and bookkeeping firms, and increasingly other professional services firms with recurring engagements. The trade offs are that the fit narrows sharply outside professional services, that recurring collection depends on the supported payment rails in your country, and that as a younger vendor it has less integration depth into practice management software than the incumbents it competes with.
What people use it for
- A bookkeeping practice moving clients from ad hoc invoicing onto signed recurring fee agreements
- An accountancy firm that needs engagement letter wording attached to every proposal for compliance reasons
- A practice losing revenue to out of scope work that is never billed because nobody notices it
- Standardising pricing across a firm so that partners stop quoting the same service at different rates
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Cone.
- The product is shaped around accountancy engagements, so a freelancer or agency outside professional services pays for engagement letter and compliance features they will never open.
- Recurring collection depends on which payment rails are supported in your country, and direct debit coverage varies enough that the headline benefit may not apply to your client base.
- Practice management integration is shallower than the incumbents, so client records often exist in two systems and have to be reconciled.
- Pricing is not published, which makes it hard to compare against a general proposal tool without entering a sales process first.
- As a younger vendor in a market that consolidates through acquisition, roadmap continuity carries more risk than choosing an established practice software supplier.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Cone
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- ConevsPractice
Practice: Client management and scheduling for coaches and consultants where engagement letters are not required
- ConevsBetter Proposals
Better Proposals: A general proposal tool if you do not need engagement letters or recurring collection
Pricing
What Cone costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Cone
On request
- Proposals and engagement letters
- Electronic signature
- Recurring billing and direct debit mandates
- Scope creep flagging
- Service line templates
Capabilities
Features
Engagement letters
Proposal templates carrying engagement letter wording and scope definitions
Electronic signature
Client signs the proposal and engagement letter in one flow
Recurring billing
Accepted proposals create a recurring fee schedule automatically
Direct debit collection
Mandates collected at signature so recurring fees are taken without chasing
Scope creep flagging
Work outside the agreed scope is surfaced for billing rather than absorbed
Service line templates
Reusable pricing and scope blocks per service, priced once and reused
Client onboarding tasks
Post acceptance checklists so engagement setup does not depend on memory
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is this only for accountants?
It is designed for accounting and bookkeeping firms. Other professional services firms use it, but general freelancers will find most of it irrelevant.
Does it handle recurring fees?
Yes, and that is the main reason firms adopt it. Acceptance creates the fee schedule and the collection mandate together.
How are payments collected?
Through supported card and direct debit providers, whose processing fees apply on top of the subscription.
What is scope creep flagging?
It compares work performed against the scope agreed in the proposal and surfaces the difference so it can be billed rather than absorbed.
Is pricing published?
Not in a form that can be quoted reliably. Expect a sales conversation before you can compare it on cost.
Keep looking
Where to go from Cone
- Cone alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Cone pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Cone badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Proposals softwareThe full category
- Best Proposals softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Proposals software for
Compare Cone with
- Bidsketch
- Paperbell
- Prospect
- GetAccept
- HelloSign
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Responsive
- Dubsado
- HoneyBook
- Nutshell
- 17hats
- Indy
- RFPIO
- Subskribe
- Nusii
- Prospero
- Paperbell
- Prospect
Other Proposals software
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Pricing on request12 researched notesSmall, independent proposal tool for freelancers and agencies, metered by active proposals rather than by send volume
From $29/mo12 researched notesSingle-plan proposal writer built for freelancers rather than sales teams
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Pricing on request13 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Cone, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Cone
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Best Proposals software alternatives
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