Online Proposal
Definition
An online proposal is the same document you would have emailed, living at an address instead of inside a message. It might be a PDF served in the browser's viewer, or an HTML page with the sections laid out and a PDF appendix linked from it. The practical differences from an attachment are three. It does not run into the email attachment limit, which is 25 MB at Gmail and often 10 MB inside corporate mail systems. It can be corrected after it is sent, because the file behind the address can be replaced. And it can be gated — a password, an expiry date — which an attachment cannot be once it has left your outbox. What it does not become is a contract system: a static page cannot collect a signature or take a payment on its own.
Why It Matters
The version problem is the one that bites. Send a PDF to four people at a firm, spot a wrong figure on page six, and there are now five documents in circulation and no way to withdraw four of them. With a link there is one document and one correction. The follow-up problem is the second: attachments tell you nothing, whereas a published address tells you the proposal was opened eleven times over three days, which is a far better moment to ring than a guess. And a 30 MB deck that silently bounces at the client's mail gateway has cost you the pitch without anyone telling you it happened.
How It Works
Publishing is the ordinary static path: upload the PDF or the HTML file, pick a name, and the address is live. Requests for it are answered from the edge cache, so a client on the other side of the world opens it as fast as one down the road. Replacing the file keeps the address, and version history means a bad edit can be rolled back in one click rather than re-sent. Put a password on it when the numbers are commercially sensitive, and set an expiry when the quote genuinely lapses — a proposal that stops resolving after 30 days makes the deadline real without a chasing email. For anything requiring a legal signature, link out to a proper e-signature service from the page; 99helpers serves files and does not run a signing workflow.
Real-World Example
An agency sends a 28 MB pitch deck to a prospect and hears nothing for a week, because it never arrived — the client's mail server rejected anything over 20 MB. They republish it at meridian-pitch.99helpers.site, password protected, and send four lines of email with a link. It opens on the prospect's phone in the taxi. The dashboard later shows 22 views across two days, including a burst on the morning of the client's internal meeting, and the agency calls that afternoon rather than the following week.
Common Mistakes
- ✕Quietly swapping the numbers behind a link after the client has read it — correcting a typo is fine, changing a price without saying so is not
- ✕Leaving a proposal at a guessable address such as client-name-proposal with no password — competitors and journalists both try the obvious
- ✕Expecting the page itself to capture agreement — a static page can show terms but cannot record a signature or take a deposit
Related Terms
Client Deliverable
The finished thing you hand over at the end of a piece of work — a report, a set of files, a built site, a brand pack. Handing it over well means a stable address, a clear name and a version anyone can identify.
Document Tracking
Recording what happens to a document after you send it — whether it was opened, how often, and sometimes how far it was read. The techniques run from ordinary counting to covert per-person surveillance, and the two are not the same thing.
Email Attachment Limit
An email attachment limit is the largest message, attachments included, that a mail provider will accept. Gmail caps it at 25 MB and most Outlook accounts at 20 MB, and the real ceiling for a file is lower than either figure.
Password-Protected Link
A hosted address that asks for a shared secret before it will show the file or site behind it. One password covers everyone who has the link; there are no individual accounts.
Expiring Link
A shareable address that stops serving its file after a set moment — a date, a number of days, or a number of downloads. The file stays stored; only the route to it closes.
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