QuoteXai: An AI-Assisted Quotation Tool Concept Project
Note: QuoteXai was an internal concept project, not a released product. We were exploring how AI could help service businesses (like agencies, contractors, and freelancers) create quotes. We made UI designs and front-end samples, but never launched it commercially.
The Problem
Agencies and other service businesses spend a lot of time on quotes and proposals. They usually take notes from a discovery call, estimate hours, apply their rates, write a justification, format a PDF, and send it out. Many teams do this every week, and it can take a few hours to draft each quote. This process was a big bottleneck we wanted to address.
The QuoteXai Concept
QuoteXai is all about building the quoting tool around the actual workflow. We thought: what if AI did most of the drafting and a person just reviewed it? This could save a lot of time. The idea is that AI learns from past quotes and suggests draft line items, and the user simply edits them instead of starting from scratch.
How It Works
- Start with the discovery call transcript: You paste or upload the transcript. The AI reads it and pulls out the scope, deliverables, and timeline. You check and correct this information. Then the software does the estimates, applies your rate card, and prepares the quote based on the confirmed scope.
- Structured quote editor: Instead of asking AI to write an entire proposal in one go, it breaks the quote into pieces. For each item, it suggests the estimated hours, rate, and a justification note. You can edit each piece. This way, the AI’s suggestions are clear and easy to fix. We found that “AI drafted, human reviewed” beats a black-box AI output because it’s more transparent.
- Learning from past quotes: The system looks at quotes you’ve approved before. If a new project matches something you’ve done before, it suggests similar pricing. Over time, this makes your pricing more consistent. In effect, the AI builds an “institutional memory” of how your team prices things.
- Human-like output: We wanted the final PDF to look and sound like it came from your team, not a robot. So the quotes use your branding and plain professional language. We ran the AI prompts a few times to get a neutral, polished tone instead of the overly eager style AI sometimes gives.
What We Built
We didn’t just sketch ideas on paper. We built real mockups and code samples:
- A UI design system for the quote editor, rate cards, quote browser, and PDF preview.
- HTML/CSS samples showing how the drafting workspace and final PDF might look.
- React component samples to show how you can edit structured line items that the AI has suggested.
- Detailed prompt designs for the AI parts of the system.
Why It Never Launched
Two main reasons:
- Market changes: By the time we were deep into this concept, other proposal tools (like PandaDoc, Better Proposals, and Bonsai) started adding AI quote features. Our idea felt less unique in a fast-moving market.
- Business reasons: The economics didn’t make sense for a standalone tool at this price point. In other words, making it a product would have been expensive and hard to sell profitably.
We kept our design work, though. The pattern of “AI drafts, humans refine in a structured editor” became part of how we build other tools for clients.
Interested in Something Similar?
EtherLabz can run paid concept design projects if you want to explore ideas without building everything right away. Feel free to Book a discovery call to discuss what makes sense for your business.
Concept project by Sanya, Mradul, and the EtherLabz team. QuoteXai is an internal concept, not a commercial product.