Travel Proposal Software for Agencies and DMCs: A Buyer's Guide

Agencies and DMCs searching for proposal software usually want two things: to build a trip quickly, and to send something that looks professional. Most tools on the market deliver both. The differences that matter show up elsewhere: in how prices are calculated, what happens when the client asks for a change, and how much re-typing is left once the client accepts.

This guide is about choosing the tool. For writing the proposal itself, see our guide to building trip proposals that clients actually buy.

What a proposal tool must do

• Itineraries from saved content. Descriptions, photos, durations and inclusions stored once and dropped into any trip. A tool that starts every proposal from an empty page is a document editor.
• Pricing that calculates itself. Your cost and markup per line, totals in the client's currency, and discounts shown clearly. The client should never see your costs, and you should never have to add up a total by hand.
• Branding. Your logo, colors and contact details on every proposal. DMCs selling through agencies may need the agency's branding instead of their own, so ask whether that is possible.
• Approvals on both sides. Inside the team, a way to check margin and content before a junior consultant sends a quote. With the client, a recorded acceptance of the price and your terms.
• A format clients can open. Most clients read proposals on a phone. A mobile-friendly link sells better than a twelve-page attachment, though a PDF copy is still useful as a record.

How the saved content should be organized, and how to keep costs out of client documents, is covered in our guide to streamlining multi-supplier itineraries.

From proposal to booking and payment

Many proposal tools are excellent up to the moment the client says yes, then hand the work back to you. Someone emails an invoice, waits for a bank transfer, types the trip into the booking system and tells the operations team. Each step is a chance to get a date, a name or a price wrong.

Ask every vendor to show what happens after acceptance:

• Can the client accept your terms and pay a deposit or the full amount from the proposal itself?
• Does acceptance create a booking, or only change a status on the proposal?
• If the trip includes your own tours or transfers, does it reduce availability for those dates?
• Do pickup details, participant names and documents the client adds carry through to the people running the trip?
• What does the payment cost you: card processing, a booking fee, or both?

The answers decide whether the proposal tool is the start of your workflow or a separate island you copy from.

Versions and client communication

Custom trips rarely sell on the first draft. The client swaps a hotel, drops a day, adds two travelers. By the third round, the risk is no longer a slow reply but a wrong one: an old price confirmed, or a removed excursion still on the voucher.

• One live link or numbered versions. Either the client always sees the current proposal, or each version is labeled and the accepted one is clear. Both work; a folder of attachments named "final-v3-updated" does not.
• A validity date on every quote, so a price from six weeks ago cannot be accepted at today's costs.
• History in one place. Messages, changes and the accepted version attached to the client record, so a colleague can pick up the trip without reading a long email thread.

Ask vendors to show a proposal on its third revision, not their demo trip.

Small agencies vs large DMCs

• Solo advisors and small agencies need speed and presentation more than structure: good templates, a content library, a mobile itinerary for the traveler and a low monthly cost.
• Operators and small DMCs that run their own services need proposals built from products they actually deliver, with live prices, and a clean handover to the people who run the trip.
• DMCs selling to the trade need net and retail prices kept apart, proposals an agency can forward to its own client, and a record of which agent sent which request.
• Large DMCs with contracted rates, allotments and supplier payments need a system that loads rates and handles accounting. Proposals are one module of that system, not a separate purchase.

Our guide to booking software for DMCs and travel agencies explains where a booking platform ends and a full DMC system begins.

The options compared

Prices below are from each company's own pricing page in October 2026, in US dollars. Some are quoted before tax, so check what your country adds.

• Travefy is built for travel advisors and agencies and also lists DMCs and tour operators among its users. Core is $39 a month billed annually and includes the itinerary and proposal builder, a CRM, invoicing and commission tracking, and a traveler app with live flight updates and offline mode. Premium is $59 a month billed annually; agency seats are $20 a month each. There is a 10-day free trial.
• Tern is aimed at advisors. It costs $49 a seat per month billed monthly, or $35 billed quarterly or annually, for solo advisors and teams of one or two; larger agency tiers are priced on request. Its site lists interactive proposals, PDF exports, custom brand colors, integrated client checkout and card authorization forms.
• Safari Portal describes itself as "NOT just for safaris" and is designed for DMCs, advisors and tour operators. Essentials is $299 a month for one user; Pro is $399 a month with three users; extra users are $50 a month. Plans include a content library, forms and e-signatures, invoicing and payments. Enterprise adds white labeling for B2B partners.
• Tourwriter targets luxury inbound operators and DMCs selling tailor-made trips. Pro starts at $149 per user a month billed annually for teams of two to five and up to 50 itineraries a year, with setup from $1,199. Our comparison of multi-day and DMC software covers it in depth.
• Travelity is a tour booking and operations platform with a Trip Proposal Builder on every plan, from $39 a month for up to five users. It charges 1.9% on bookings paid online and nothing on offline bookings.

For a three-person team on published rates, Safari Portal Pro is $399 a month and Tourwriter Pro $447 a month billed annually plus setup. Travefy's and Tern's totals depend on how their agency seats are structured, so ask for a quote. Travelity Starter is $39 a month, but the 1.9% matters on high-value trips: a $8,000 trip paid online costs $152 in fees, while a booking taken offline and paid by bank transfer carries no Travelity fee.

Price is not the main difference, though. Travefy, Tern and Safari Portal are proposal-first: rich content and traveler apps, aimed at selling trips made from other companies' services. Tourwriter is built around supplier rates and contracting. Travelity starts from the products you run yourself.

Where Travelity fits

The Trip Proposal Builder sends the client a shareable link showing the itinerary and a transparent total, with the original price, discounts and savings. From that link the client can add pickup and drop-off locations, change add-ons, add participants, accept your terms, upload documents, and confirm or pay. The inquiry becomes a confirmed booking in the same system that schedules your guides, drivers and vehicles and keeps availability in sync with GetYourGuide, Viator, Trip.com and Google Things to Do. Professional adds the Tour Package Builder and inquiry management; Enterprise adds an AI itinerary builder and a partner portal for agencies.

It suits operators and DMCs whose proposals are built mostly from their own tours, transfers and stays. If you sell flights, need a global hotel content library or want live flight updates in a traveler app, a proposal-first tool will serve you better. If you load contracted rates from dozens of suppliers, look at a dedicated DMC system. Plans and fees are on our pricing page.

How to test a proposal tool

1. Take last month's most complicated request and build it in each tool. Time it.
2. Send it to your own phone and read it as the client would.
3. Change a hotel and a traveler count, and send the revision.
4. Accept it and pay a small deposit with a real card.
5. Check what your operations team sees afterwards, and what you had to type twice.

Steps four and five separate the tools far more clearly than any feature list. Travelity's trial runs for 21 days with no card, and setup is free.

Frequently asked questions

What is travel proposal software?

Software that builds a priced, branded trip proposal for a client and sends it as a link or document. Better tools reuse saved content, calculate totals from your own costs and markup, keep each version, and let the client accept and pay without the agency re-typing anything.

What is the fastest way to build travel proposals for clients?

Build from saved components rather than a blank page: stored descriptions, photos and prices for the hotels, tours and transfers you sell most. Then send a link the client can open on a phone. Speed comes from reuse, not from typing faster.

Should a proposal be a PDF or a link?

A link is usually better for selling, because it opens well on a phone, can show live totals and lets the client accept and pay in one place. A PDF is still useful as a record of exactly what was offered. Many tools produce both.

Do I need proposal software if I already have booking software?

Check whether your booking software includes a proposal builder first. If it does, an accepted proposal can become a booking without re-entry. If it does not, a separate proposal tool works, but plan how accepted trips get into your booking and operations system.

How much does travel proposal software cost?

Published prices range from about $35 a seat per month for advisor-focused tools to several hundred dollars a month for DMC-focused platforms, and some vendors add setup fees or booking fees. Compare the total for your team size and how your clients pay, not the headline price.

Bottom line

Every serious proposal tool can make a trip look good. Choose on what happens around the proposal: how prices are calculated, how revisions are controlled, and whether the client's yes turns into a paid booking without anyone re-typing it.

If you sell other companies' services, a proposal-first tool fits. If you load contracted rates at scale, a DMC system fits. If you build trips mostly from services you run yourself, a booking platform with a proposal builder keeps sales and operations in one place.

Related guides

• Tour booking software for small operators: a complete guide
• How to build trip proposals that clients actually buy
• Booking software for DMCs and travel agencies
• How DMCs can streamline multi-supplier itineraries
• Multi-day tour and DMC software compared