Our quotes are free - unless you would prefer to pay instead!

Dear prospect,
thanks for inviting us in to discuss your development requirements, we would love to do the work, the next stage is for us to put together a proposal.
Now where's that cheque book of yours?
Why? - Because we want paying for providing you with the quote.

Does the above sound normal or odd? Would you pay for a development proposal to be provided (or have you paid) by the companies that you invited in to quote for the job?

Whilst visiting a company recently to discuss their requirement, it was remarked that of the companies that had been invited in, one had stated that they would require paying before they started assembling the development proposal.
Pushing your luck a bit I thought - pushing it a bit too far as it turned out, because they were declined the opportunity to quote!

Hopefully their loss will be our gain, we have provided the company with a development proposal with detailed quote - free of charge!
In fact we have never entertained the idea of charging and I haven't heard of other companies that do either, but it did get me thinking! I wonder if they would have been cheaper than everyone else?

Let's assume hypothetically, that we all suggested an identical proposal and all built the development to the same standard, would their actual development quote be cheaper (I would like to think that our standard would always be better, but this is hypothetical!).
It should be cheaper. As they would have already been paid for putting together the proposal, they wouldn't have to factor in the preparation cost for the proposal into the overall development charges. Additionally, if they were charging for every proposal, they wouldn't have to the cover the cost of time spent on proposals for other companies that they didn't go on to win. Our success rate at winning business has always been very high and I am sure this is why our quotes are far more attractive than our competitors.
Somehow, I doubt if the other developers would have been cheaper and I'd love to know how many quotes they actually do win!

The good news is our quotes will remain FREE.