Both are "AI for proposals." That's where the resemblance ends. Runable is a generalist AI agent (slides, docs, sites — $25/mo) you prompt per pitch. Bidsmith is an autonomous artifact shipper that reads a public brief and ships a deployed page before any pitch goes out. They serve overlapping but distinctly-shaped buyers, and the honest read is that one is right for you depending on a single variable: whether your buyers' briefs have a public surface to read.
An autonomous agent reads public brief signal (Show HN, GitHub, Upwork, HN hiring threads) and ships a deployed artifact (page, dashboard, comparison) before any pitch goes out. The artifact is the proposal.
General-purpose AI agent. Prompt-driven slides, websites, videos, docs. The user iterates with the agent until the doc is good. Replaces ChatGPT + Canva + design tools.
Template-driven proposal documents with e-sign, pricing tables, and a CRM-ish review workflow. The classic "make my SOW prettier and trackable" tool. Well-suited to RFPs.
End-to-end freelancer ops: contract, invoice, time-track, proposal — all in one. The proposal is one tab. Adoption tends to come from invoicing pain, not proposal pain.
They sound similar on a landing page ("AI does your proposal"). The mechanism difference matters because it determines per-pitch time, the personalization ceiling, and whether the artifact survives a skeptical reader.
| Dimension | bidsmith | Runable | Proposify | Bonsai (proposals tab) | Manual (you + Claude) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it produces | a deployed working artifact — landing page, dashboard, comparison page, SEO content piece (live URL) | A document, slide deck, video, or website draft (in-tool, exportable) | A proposal document (PDF or web-viewable) | A proposal doc + linked contract template | Whatever you decide to write |
| Who decides what to build | the agent — reads the public surface (Show HN, GitHub, Upwork brief), infers the missing artifact | the user — you prompt per pitch ("make a 6-slide proposal for X") | the user picks a template | the user fills the form fields | You |
| Time per output | 15–60 min end-to-end — including research + build + deploy. Mostly autonomous. | 30+ min iterating — prompt → review → re-prompt → polish | 20–45 min if the template is right; longer otherwise | 15 min for the doc; the integration with contract + payment is the value | 2–4 hours per real proposal |
| Personalization source | public surface signal — actual quotes, GitHub commits, README gaps, thread-commenter complaints | your prompt — as good as the context you paste in | Variable substitution into a template | Form fields | As good as your research time |
| Output the recipient sees | a live URL — opens to a working artifact named for them | A PDF / slide deck / video / web preview | A web link to a proposal doc with sign + pricing | A web/PDF proposal | A doc, deck, or PDF |
| Hosting | free GitHub Pages — the URL is permanent, not gated by a subscription | In-tool; export to your hosting | Hosted on Proposify (the link gates retention) | Hosted on Bonsai | Wherever you put it |
| Multi-doc workflow | no — bidsmith is single-artifact-per-pitch; not built for multi-page bid docs | yes — that's its core surface | yes — sections, signature flow, pricing tables | yes-ish — one proposal doc, no deep section logic | As complex as you want |
| Hybrid mode (research auto, send manual) | native — agent ships the artifact; the human writes the cover + clicks send. Default mode, not opt-in. | possible but manual — you prompt the research, then prompt the doc, then send | N/A — research is upstream | N/A | By definition |
| Pricing | free during this experiment — operator-run; not yet a SaaS | $25/mo standard, $1/mo promo | $35–$65/mo per user | $25–$80/mo per user | Your time |
Honest recommendations. The honest read is that bidsmith and Runable have small overlap and are mostly suited to different bid contexts. Below names the cohort each one is correct for, including the one where you should use neither.
Your prospects are visible: they posted on Show HN, posted in the HN "Who is hiring" thread, made public a Github repo with an obvious README gap, or got their bid trashed in a public r/Upwork thread. The artifact you'd ship to win their work is inferable from what's public — the buyer has already named the brief, even if not to you yet.
The buyer asked for a proposal document, deck, or 1-pager. You have the brief privately (RFP, intro call notes, NDA-protected scope). The product needs to be a polished multi-page doc with visual design, not a deployed page.
Enterprise RFPs, formal SOWs, or any deal where the proposal is part of a procurement workflow. The "brief" is highly structured; the proposal is a contract precursor. Bidsmith and Runable both lose to a tool that nails sign-off + pricing tables.
You're solo, you bill hourly, and your real pain is the invoice + contract + scope chase, not the proposal layer. Adopting one of these three for proposals is reasonable because the proposal is part of a flow that ends in payment. As a stand-alone proposal generator they're outclassed; as part of a billing stack they're the path of least friction.
Above ~$50K, the proposal is the relationship. Don't outsource it to a doc generator. Spend the time, write the actual scope, and let the doc reflect the depth you're going to bring. The "AI for proposals" category is for the long tail of $1K–$30K deals where the proposal layer is overhead, not deal-defining.
If you're three referrals deep and they trust you, the proposal is a formality. A 200-word email naming the scope, the price, and the timeline beats any AI-generated doc. The "tools for proposals" category is shaped to the world where you're cold; the world where you're warm punishes over-formalization.
This page exists because of one substantive r/SideProject comment. TitleLumpy2971's reply on the bidsmith experiment thread asked five specific questions about how the agent decides what to build, post-reply autonomy, and the trade-off between targeting and artifact quality — plus a direct comparison to Runable, which they had previously tried for proposal generation. Bidsmith's answer to "why are you the right tool" is to build the comparison page they were asking for, by name.
"how does the agent decide what to build? like does it scan their profile or past work? or just guess based on job title? cause if the artifact feels generic it might not land. but if its super specific like 'i saw you posted about x so i made y' that hits different."
"what happens when someone replies? does the agent handle that too or does it hand off to you? cause if someone says 'cool but i need this instead' and the agent cant adapt, you might lose them."
"honestly 0 replies but 6 artifacts built is still data. means the problem isnt the artifact quality maybe the targeting or the ask. are you asking for something? like a call? or just here's a thing hope you like it."
"i tried something similar once with runable for proposal generation. built a custom doc for each lead. took forever. worked better when i automated the research part but kept the final send manual. hybrid approach."
"you gonna keep this running or tweak it after seeing the first results?"