How to create and send order proposals in WooCommerce
WooCommerce does not include a dedicated order-proposal workflow. For a simple quote, create a manual order with negotiated prices, leave it pending payment, and email the customer the payment link. For formal proposals with PDFs, expiry dates and tracking, use a proposal plugin.
- 01Prepare the proposal details
- 02Create a manual order
- 03Leave the order awaiting payment
- 04Send the proposal payment link
- 05Check customer access and email delivery
- 06Use a proposal plugin for formal quotes
What you need
- A WooCommerce store on WordPress 6.0 or later
- Administrator or Shop Manager access
- Products, prices and customer details
- A configured payment gateway
Prepare the proposal details
Decide which products, quantities, custom prices, shipping charges, taxes, discounts and payment terms belong in the proposal. Check the customer’s billing email carefully because WooCommerce uses it for the order and payment instructions.
WooCommerce does not create a separate native proposal record. Its manual-order workflow is suitable for a simple quote that the customer can accept by paying, but it does not provide built-in proposal revisions, expiry dates or approval tracking.
Create a manual order
Go to WooCommerce > Orders and select Add order. Enter the customer, add the products, adjust quantities and prices, then add any fees, discounts or shipping details required for the agreed offer.
Use the order totals controls to calculate the final amount, then save the order. WooCommerce allows administrators and shop managers to create orders for phone sales and other manually arranged purchases.
Leave the order awaiting payment
Set the order status to Pending payment if the customer must review the offer and pay online. Do not set it to Processing or Completed before payment, because those statuses imply that payment has been received or the order has been fulfilled.
Review the line items, tax, shipping and total before sending anything. If you change the store’s tax-entry settings later, that will not change how tax was recorded on this existing order.
Send the proposal payment link
Open the saved order and use the Order actions menu to select Send order details to customer. WooCommerce sends order details and a link to the order payment page, allowing the customer to pay through your configured gateways. You can also copy the customer payment page link from the order screen and send it with your own proposal message.
Include the scope, delivery terms and any deadline in your message. The native email is an order-payment email, not a branded proposal PDF.
Check customer access and email delivery
If you assigned the order to a registered customer, that customer generally needs to log in before paying. A store administrator testing the link may see “This order cannot be paid for” because the administrator is not the assigned customer.
For a payment link that does not require login, leave the customer unassigned or choose a guest order, then enter the correct billing email. If the email does not arrive, check the order status, WooCommerce email settings and your site’s mail delivery system; a pending payment order does not automatically trigger every normal order email.
Use a proposal plugin for formal quotes
Use WooCommerce Order Proposal when the manual order route is too limited. A proposal-focused plugin can provide branded templates, product and pricing details, downloadable PDFs, expiration dates, status tracking and customer-interaction records.
This is the fast route for repeated custom or negotiated sales: create a proposal from a template, set its expiry, send it for review, and convert or connect the accepted offer to the WooCommerce payment process. Keep the manual route for occasional, straightforward quotes where a pending order and payment link are enough.
Let WooCommerce Order Proposal do it
Proposal-focused workflow with templates, PDFs, expiration dates, and tracking for custom or negotiated WooCommerce sales.
Sources
- woocommerce.com /document/managing-orders/view-edit-or-add-an-order/?utm_sou…
Questions
- Can WooCommerce create a proposal without a plugin?
- WooCommerce can create a practical quote using a manually added order, but it does not provide a separate native proposal object. Add the negotiated products and prices, set the order to Pending payment, and send the customer the order details or payment link. This works for simple offers, but you must manage proposal wording, revisions, expiry dates and follow-up separately.
- What status should a WooCommerce proposal use?
- Use Pending payment while the customer is reviewing the offer and has not paid. This keeps the payment page available and shows that the order is unpaid. Do not use Processing or Completed before payment. Use On hold only when payment has been made through a method that requires you to confirm it manually, such as certain offline payment methods.
- Why does the payment link say the order cannot be paid for?
- The usual reason is that the order is assigned to a registered customer and you are testing it while logged in as a different user, including an administrator. Ask the assigned customer to log in, or create a guest order if the buyer should pay without an account. Also confirm that the order is still Pending payment and that a payment gateway is enabled.
- Can I send a PDF proposal from WooCommerce itself?
- Not as a complete native proposal workflow. WooCommerce can email order details and a payment link, while invoice or document extensions can generate invoices and PDFs. If you need a branded proposal with custom terms, templates, expiry dates and proposal-status tracking, use WooCommerce Order Proposal or another quote-focused extension rather than treating a standard order email as the proposal.