Should my proposals have an expiry date?

Yes, every proposal should carry an expiry date, written as an exact “valid until” date rather than “valid for 30 days”. For most high-ticket service proposals, 14 to 30 days is enough: in Proposify’s analysis of 742,137 proposals sent in 2025, deals that closed as won did so an average of 2.5 days after the buyer opened the proposal.

Rules of thumb for proposal expiry dates

Proposal expiry dates follow five rules of thumb, each sourced inline or taken from the worked example further down this page.

• The decision is fast once the proposal is read: Proposify’s State of Proposals 2026 reports 34 minutes on average from send to first open and 2.5 days from open to closed-won for won deals, so a 30-day window is about twelve times the average open-to-close time.
• Write a date, never a duration: “valid until 4 December 2026” answers the question “30 days from when?”, the same point Taskip’s quote-validity guide makes.
• Check your software’s default before you send: PandaDoc’s help centre says documents expire after 60 days by default, and on its Free eSign and Starter plans that 60 days cannot be changed.
• An open-ended proposal can lock in an old price: in the worked example below, a 40-day engagement accepted after a 10% day-rate rise costs $6,000 at the old rate.
• Decide expiry day in advance: before you send, choose whether a lapsed proposal will be extended once, re-quoted or closed out, using the three tests in the extend, re-quote or lapse section below.

FAQ: proposal expiry dates

Should a proposal have an expiry date?

Yes. An expiry date protects your price and your start slots, gives the buyer a decision point, and gives your follow-up a fixed anchor. Write it as an exact date with a time zone, not as a number of days.

How long should a consulting proposal be valid?

For consulting priced on your own time, 14 to 30 days suits most proposals. Use 30 to 60 days when three or more people must approve, and expire the proposal before any rate change you have already planned.

Does a short expiry date pressure buyers into saying no?

A short expiry date rarely forces a no on its own; a date with no visible reason can read as a sales tactic. Tie the date to something real, such as a held start date or a scheduled price review, and offer one dated extension to buyers who are clearly working through approvals.

What default expiry does proposal software set?

It depends on the tool, so check before you send. PandaDoc’s help centre says documents expire after 60 days by default, that only Business and Enterprise plans can change the period, and that signers can get a warning one day before expiry.

Can a client accept a proposal after it expires?

A client can ask to, and you can choose to accept, but an expired proposal is a reason to re-confirm price and start date first. Whether a late acceptance binds you depends on your wording and your jurisdiction; this is general information, not legal advice.

The Proposal Validity Table: how long should my proposal be valid?

A proposal’s validity window should be set by two inputs, how fast your own costs and capacity change and how many people must approve the buyer’s decision.

The bands below are LeadsNow’s decision bands for service businesses, not a measured market benchmark. They broadly agree with Taskip’s published guidance (14 to 30 days for most service businesses, 7 to 14 when costs or capacity move fast, 30 to 60 for complex projects with long approval cycles), though Taskip puts consulting and professional services at 30 to 60 days where this table uses 14 to 30 for one or two decision-makers; the table adds the decision-cycle input and the first follow-up anchored to each window.

The quotable rule: the window should be as long as the buyer’s approval path needs and no longer than your price stays true. If they conflict, keep the shorter window and offer one dated extension.

Write the date, not the duration

A proposal expiry should be written as a calendar date with a time zone, because “valid for 30 days” leaves the start point open to argument.

The dated-wording rule has three parts. Put the date near the top and beside the signature block. Say what happens after it: “After 4 December 2026 we will re-confirm price and start date before accepting.” Add the time zone when the buyer is in another country (“5pm AEDT”, “5pm ET”).

• Weak: “This proposal is valid for 30 days.”
• Better: “Valid until 4 December 2026.”
• Best: “Pricing and the 12 January start date are held until 5pm AEDT on 4 December 2026. After that we will re-confirm both before accepting.”

The best version names what is held, so the expiry has a visible reason: a date tied to a start slot or a price review reads as scheduling, not a sales tactic.

What an open-ended proposal costs: a worked example

An open-ended proposal costs you the difference between the old and new price on any engagement accepted after your costs or rates change.

The inputs below are labelled assumptions for illustration, not LeadsNow figures or market rates; replace them with your own. A consultancy proposes a 40-day engagement at $1,500 a day ($60,000) and plans a 10% day-rate rise to $1,650 in 45 days.

The arithmetic: 40 days x ($1,650 minus $1,500) = $6,000. The capacity cost is harder to price: with no end date you either hold 40 days free for a buyer who may never sign, or fill them and cannot deliver when the late acceptance arrives. If you are planning a rise, the page on how to raise consulting rates without losing clients covers the notice and the maths for existing clients; the expiry date is what protects new proposals.

The expiry-anchored follow-up cadence

An expiry-anchored follow-up cadence schedules every chase relative to the proposal’s expiry date, so the last message has a real reason to exist.

The cadence below counts days from the send date (day 0) to the expiry date. It is LeadsNow’s operating schedule, not a measured benchmark. It differs from the silence rules on why prospects ghost after a proposal, which count from the buyer’s last reply; use that page when a buyer has gone quiet, and this schedule from the moment you send.

Taskip’s guide recommends a reminder three days before expiry, which matches touch 3 on the 14-day and 30-day windows. Doing this by hand takes a few minutes per proposal per touch plus a reliable reminder system; a lead follow-up automation setup can schedule the touches from the expiry date. LeadsNow books calls using AI calling, SMS and DM follow-up, paid as a revenue share, a fee per appointment, or a mix of both; its AI appointment setting page describes how.

Does an expiry date make my proposal binding until then?

An expiry date in a proposal generally limits how long the offer can be accepted, but it does not automatically stop you withdrawing the offer earlier.

This is general information, not legal advice, and contract law differs between countries. In US law, Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute explains that a promise to keep an offer open is an option contract, and most option contracts require consideration to be enforceable. The exception is the Uniform Commercial Code’s firm-offer rule in section 2-205: a merchant’s signed written offer to buy or sell goods that assures it will be held open cannot be revoked for lack of consideration during the stated time, but never for more than three months. Section 2-205 covers sales of goods, not service engagements. If your proposals include goods, or you sell in Australia, the UK or elsewhere, ask a lawyer in that jurisdiction how your wording is read.

The practical point: treat a late acceptance after the expiry date as a reason to re-confirm terms before you accept, and say so in the proposal itself.

When to extend, re-quote or let a proposal lapse

An expired proposal should be extended only when costs, capacity and the buyer’s engagement have all held, re-quoted when any of them changed, and closed out when the buyer has gone silent.

• Extend in writing with a new date when the buyer is visibly working through approvals and nothing in your price or diary has moved.
• Re-quote when your rate, a third-party cost or the start date changed. In the worked example, that is the $6,000 decision.
• Let it lapse when there has been no reply through the whole cadence. Move the record to a dormant list and treat it as reactivation later; the quote decay ladder for quotes nobody replies to shows what a silent quote is worth by age.

If proposals are expiring unaccepted at a high rate, the expiry date is rarely the cause. Check your acceptance rate on a send cohort against the published figures on good proposal acceptance rate benchmarks before changing the window.

Sources

1. Proposify, State of Proposals 2026: 742,137 proposals; 34 minutes send to open; 2.5 days open to closed-won (read 5 November 2026).
2. Taskip, How long should a quote be valid?: 14 to 30 days for most service businesses; exact-date wording; reminder 3 days before expiry (read 5 November 2026).
3. PandaDoc help centre, Auto expirations: 60-day default, plan limits, one-day warning (read 5 November 2026).
4. Cornell LII Wex, Option contract (read 5 November 2026).
5. Cornell LII, UCC section 2-205 Firm Offers (read 5 November 2026).