Moment 0101 / 04
The brief is bigger than your usual scope
The opportunity is real — but it's at the edge of what your team has shipped before, and the estimate keeps moving every time you review it.
Solution 01 · Proposal Rescue Desk
Technical pre-sales support for US agencies
Use AgencyRelay's Proposal Rescue Desk to shape scope, solution direction, estimates, and delivery thinking before you commit to work your team isn't ready to price or promise confidently.
- Mutual NDA before any brief is shared
- Founder-led on every engagement
- Cycle in days, not weeks
What a Proposal Rescue Desk cycle looks likeCycle
- FormatOne proposal cycle, fixed price
- StartsWithin 48 hours of NDA
- EndsProposal-ready written summary + 1 revision
- Starting at$950 / cycle
Final SOWs are scoped per opportunity. Pricing is a starting point, not a quote.
The wobbly proposal moment
Most opportunities you lose late aren't lost on price — they're lost on technical confidence.
These are the four moments that quietly turn a winnable opportunity into a deal you have to walk away from. Proposal Rescue Desk is built for exactly these.
Moment 0202 / 04
The technical question went past your comfort zone
There's a piece of the build — an integration, an AI workflow, a data model — that no one on your team can confidently scope in a half-day call.
Moment 0303 / 04
The estimate range is too wide to commit to
You can quote a low number and bleed on delivery, or a high number and lose the deal. You need a third option — a range you can defend.
Moment 0404 / 04
The proposal needs a credible delivery story
The client wants to know how it'll be built, who'll build it, and what could go wrong. Without that, the proposal reads like a price sheet.
What it is — and what it isn't
Proposal Rescue Desk does the technical thinking that makes a proposal defensible. It does not run your sales cycle.
What it covers
- Solution architecture input on RFPs and discovery briefs
- Technical scoping and estimation against a real assumption set
- Risk-spotting before commitment — integrations, data, AI, infra
- Reviewer pass on draft proposals before they go to the client
- Proposal-ready written summary your team can paste into the deck
- One revision pass after your internal review
What it doesn't do
- Replace your account executive or own the sales conversation
- Speak to your client directly during pre-sales (NDA-bound by default)
- Build or design before a kickoff SOW is signed
- Issue fixed-bid quotes on opportunities that aren't fully briefed
- Provide legal, tax, or commercial-terms review on the contract itself
How a cycle runs
From wobbly brief to proposal-ready in four moves
A typical Proposal Rescue Desk cycle runs three to seven business days end-to-end, depending on the depth of the technical question and your client's deadline.
- Step 01Day 0
Brief us
Send the RFP, the deck, the call transcript — whatever you have. We sign mutual NDA before reading it. No call required to start.
- Step 02Day 1–2
Discovery + technical review
A 60-minute working session with your team. The founder and a delivery lead — never a junior coordinator — pull apart what's clear, what's missing, and where the real risk lives.
- Step 03Day 3–5
Solution direction + estimate range
We return a written technical summary: solution direction, architecture sketch, scope assumptions, an estimate range with stated confidence, and the top three risks worth pricing in.
- Step 04Day 5–7
Proposal-ready hand-off + revision
You take it into your proposal as-is, paraphrase it under your brand, or workshop it on a final call. One revision pass is included before the cycle closes.
Speed-critical opportunities can run a compressed cycle. If we don't believe a deadline is realistic, we'll say so before the SOW is signed.
What we can scope
Capabilities behind the desk
The desk leans on Salt's full delivery bench — so the scoping you get reflects what we actually build, not a sales pitch.
Capability
Web Development
Marketing sites, portals, dashboards, custom CMS work, and headless builds.
Capability
App Development
iOS, Android, and cross-platform — from MVP scoping to migration estimates.
Capability
AI Implementation
Agents, RAG over knowledge, workflow automation, and LLM integrations into existing stacks.
See the full benchBrowse all capabilities
Best-fit partners
Two agency profiles use this most
Proposal Rescue Desk is most useful where the proposal carries technical weight — and where losing the deal late costs more than the cycle itself.
Most common entry point
For HubSpot Agencies
Custom integrations, CRM data models, and AI-assisted workflows where the technical estimate decides the deal.
Read the hubspot agencies fit
Pre-build scoping
For Design Agencies
Design-led teams pricing larger build engagements where the engineering scope is unfamiliar territory.
Read the design agencies fit
Pricing
One proposal cycle, one fixed price
Proposal Rescue Desk is the only AgencyRelay solution priced per cycle rather than per week. You know the cost before you brief us — and the cycle ends with a written deliverable, not an open retainer.
- Discovery session with your team
- Technical scope review
- Solution direction & architecture sketch
- Estimate range with stated assumptions
- Proposal-ready written summary
- One revision pass
Operating principles
Partner-safe by construction
Every Proposal Rescue Desk engagement is contracted through Salt Technologies, Inc. The same rules apply whether it's a single cycle or an ongoing relationship.
Principle
NDA before any brief is shared
Mutual NDA is signed before we read the RFP. The brief never sits in a folder we don't have a contract over.
Principle
No client-facing footprint
We don't email your client, join their calls, or appear in the proposal — unless you explicitly white-list it.
Principle
No-poach / non-solicitation
We don't approach your team and we don't accept introductions to your client off the back of a cycle.
Principle
Contracted through Salt
MSA, NDA, and the cycle SOW are all issued by Salt Technologies, Inc. — the legal entity behind AgencyRelay.
The same operating principles apply across all four AgencyRelay solutions — including how communication boundaries hold up once a cycle extends into delivery.
Take it further
Use these alongside the desk
Operational resources written for the same situation Proposal Rescue Desk is built for.
Playbook · Gated
Proposal Rescue Playbook
The internal playbook our team uses to triage a wobbly proposal — what to ask, what to flag, how to defend the estimate.
Template · Gated
Technical Proposal Template
A reusable structure for the technical section of an agency proposal — assumptions, risks, architecture, estimate range.
Guide · Free
How agencies can sell more technical projects
Why technical proposals lose late, and the specific moves agency founders use to make them defensible at the bid stage.
Pre-sales FAQ
What agency owners ask before booking a cycle
Direct answers to the questions that come up on almost every first call.
- Q.01
Is Proposal Rescue Desk the same as technical pre-sales support?
Yes — Proposal Rescue Desk is the AgencyRelay branded container for technical pre-sales support. The generic phrase describes what it does. The branded name is the offer you book.
- Q.02
Can you talk to our client during the cycle?
Not by default. Every cycle is white-label safe — we work behind your team and the proposal goes out under your brand. If you want us joining a client call as a named technical lead, we can do that, but it has to be explicitly white-listed in the SOW.
- Q.03
What if our opportunity is too early to scope?
That's the most common starting point. We can run the cycle on a partial brief — the deliverable then includes a discovery plan, a list of clarifying questions for the client, and the technical questions worth resolving before pricing the work.
- Q.04
Do we have to commit to delivery if we win the deal?
No. The cycle is standalone. If you win and want us to deliver, the work moves into Invisible Delivery Team or Overflow Pods on the same MSA — no second sales cycle. If you'd rather deliver in-house, you keep the technical summary either way.
- Q.05
How fast can a cycle start?
Once mutual NDA is signed, a cycle typically starts within 48 hours and runs three to seven business days end-to-end. Faster turnarounds are possible when there's a hard client deadline; we'll tell you up front if a deadline isn't realistic.
- Q.06
Is the estimate range fixed-bid?
The cycle itself is fixed-bid. The estimate we produce inside it is a defensible range with stated assumptions — not a fixed-bid for the build. Fixed-bid for delivery is quoted separately, only on narrowly defined scopes.
- Q.07
Who actually does the work on our cycle?
The founder leads every cycle, paired with a delivery lead from the relevant capability — web, app, or AI. You're not handed to a junior coordinator. The same people show up if the engagement extends into delivery.
Bring the brief
Send us the opportunity. We'll tell you whether a Proposal Rescue Desk cycle is the right next step.
Mutual NDA before any brief is shared. Founder-led on every cycle. A clean read on whether the deal is winnable — and what it takes to scope it defensibly — within the first call.
Operating principlesMSA / NDA / SOW issued by Salt Technologies, Inc.US-aligned working hoursNo-poach commitmentsWhite-label safe by default