Insights
What a bid/no-bid decision actually looks like
The most expensive thing a company does in public procurement is write a bid it was never going to win. It costs $1,500 to $6,000 in direct labor, it consumes the week that a winnable bid needed, and it teaches the team that bidding is a lottery. It is not a lottery. Most losses are decided before the first word is written, in the choice to bid at all.
This is the decision as we actually make it: the questions, the weights, a worked yes, a worked no, and the win-rate tiers that tell you whether your own decisions are working.
On this page
The short version
- A bid/no-bid decision is made in the first hour with the full document, not from the listing. Half the solicitations we read needed a partner or carrier to bid at all.
- Three win-rate tiers: bid-everything companies win around 12 percent, selective ones around 28 percent, and disciplined ones 40 percent and up. The difference is not writing quality, it is what they decline.
- At a 12 percent win rate a $3,500 bid costs $29,000 per contract won. At 40 percent it costs $8,750. Saying no is what makes the yes affordable.
- The framework is eight questions. Any hard fail on the first four is a no regardless of the score.
Why saying no is the product
Cost per win is the only bidding metric that matters, and it moves with selectivity, not effort.
| Win rate | Bids per win | Cost per win at $3,500 a bid | Who this is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 percent | 8.3 | $29,200 | Bids everything the notifications send; no debriefs; blames price |
| 28 percent | 3.6 | $12,500 | Declines the obvious misfits; bids where it has done the work before |
| 40 percent and up | 2.5 or fewer | $8,750 or less | Reads every page first, bids only where it can name the reference and the evaluator's concern, requests every debrief |
Those tiers are the pattern we see across trade and service contractors. Loopio's cross-industry benchmark puts the average at 45 percent, but that population responds to only 55 percent of the RFPs it receives: the average team already declines nearly half. The cost model is in how much does it cost to bid on a government contract?. A company that moves from the first tier to the third does not write better; it writes less, and every bid it writes has already passed the questions below.
The framework
Eight questions, answered from the full solicitation and its attachments, not from the summary. The first four are gates: any hard fail ends the decision. The last four are scored and the total has to clear 70 of 100.
| Question | Type | Weight | What a pass looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Can we be responsive? | Gate | n/a | Bond capacity, insurance limits, licenses, mandatory pre-bid still attendable, certifications required are held. See bid bonds and performance bonds explained |
| 2. Can we perform the scope as written, alone or with a named partner? | Gate | n/a | Every line of the scope maps to a crew, a subcontractor or a carrier we already have |
| 3. Do we have the references they ask for? | Gate | n/a | The reference form's exact requirement: number, sector, size, recency |
| 4. Is the deadline achievable with the questions window still open? | Gate | n/a | Enough days to build the matrix, ask questions, receive addenda and assemble |
| 5. Do we know why the buyer is buying, and from whom they buy now? | Scored | 25 | Incumbent identified, contract history read, reason for the solicitation understood |
| 6. Does the rubric favor what we are good at? | Scored | 25 | Weight on experience and approach where ours is strong; price weight we can live with |
| 7. Is the contract worth it over its full term? | Scored | 25 | Base plus options, escalator, payment terms, prevailing wage and bond cost in the price. See government contract renewals and option years: why public work compounds |
| 8. Does it fit the geography and the calendar? | Scored | 25 | Sites inside the service radius; start date matches crew availability; summer window for schools |
A worked yes
A county in Ohio issues an RFP for grounds maintenance at 14 sites, three years plus two one-year options, estimated $210,000 a year, price weighted 35 percent, experience 30, approach 25, small business participation 10. Our client is a landscaping company doing $6 million a year with two school district contracts and a city parks contract.
- Gates. No bond required; insurance limits met; pre-bid is optional; the two district contracts and the parks contract satisfy the three-public-reference form. Pass.
- Question 5. Board minutes show the incumbent was awarded in 2021 and had two change orders for irrigation repairs the county disputed; the new scope carves irrigation out into a separate unit-price schedule. The county is buying its way out of a dispute. Score 22.
- Question 6. Experience and approach are 55 percent; formula-scored price is 35. Our client's references are the same scope at the same scale. Score 22.
- Question 7. Five-year value about $1.1 million with a CPI escalator capped at 4 percent; net 30 payment; no prevailing wage on maintenance. Score 23.
- Question 8. All 14 sites within 25 miles of the yard; April 1 start matches the season. Score 24.
Total 91. Bid. The response leads with the two district references, an irrigation section that shows exactly how change orders will be avoided, and a price built from the client's real production rates at the sites, which they drove that week.
A worked no
A state agency issues an ITB for interior painting of 40 buildings across six counties, one year plus four options, estimated $480,000 a year, low bid, 5 percent bid bond, performance bond at 100 percent, prevailing wage, mandatory pre-bid in four days. The bidder is a painting contractor of the kind described in how to get government painting contracts: $3 million a year, one housing authority contract, bonding capacity $500,000 single.
- Gate 1. A 100 percent performance bond on $480,000 is inside single capacity but consumes it, and the surety wants the housing authority contract closed out first. Marginal.
- Gate 2. Six counties, three of them four hours from the shop. Performable only with a second crew that does not exist. Fail.
- Gate 3. The reference form asks for three state or local government painting contracts over $250,000 in the last five years. The client has one, at $180,000. Fail.
No, in about forty minutes, before anyone opened a pricing sheet. The note in the file says: revisit when the second crew exists and there are two more public references over $250,000. Meanwhile the same afternoon goes to a $95,000 school district repaint 20 miles away with a July start, which the client wins.
That is the trade. The no did not cost a contract; it bought the yes.
Making it a habit
Three rules make the framework stick.
- Decide from the document, in the first hour. Listings lie by omission: in what 197 public-sector RFPs reveal about how agencies actually buy, 55 percent of solicitations needed a partner and 56 percent demanded a full technical questionnaire, none of it visible in the title. See how to respond to an RFP.
- Write the no down. A one-line reason and a revisit condition. After a quarter, the no file tells you what to build: bonding capacity, a second crew, a partner, two references of a certain size.
- Score every loss against the decision. If you lost on something the framework should have caught, the framework changes. If you lost on execution, the response changes. why you lost the bid, and how to find out for sure covers how to find out which.
The companies with 40 percent win rates are not braver or better writers. They have a no file, and it is longer than their bid file.
Want these found and written for you?
Most of what we do for a client is say no. We find every solicitation in your trade and region, read the full document, run this decision, and bring you only the ones that pass, with the reason. Then we write the response and you price it and sign it. Every response is built for one company and never reused. Book a fit call and we will run the framework on whatever is on your desk right now.
Common questions
What is a good win rate on government bids?
For trade and service contractors, 28 percent is respectable and 40 percent and up is the mark of a disciplined bidder. Below 15 percent almost always means the company is bidding too much rather than writing too badly. Cross-industry benchmarks such as Loopio's 45 percent average include private-sector proposals and teams that already decline nearly half of what they receive.
Should I bid to get experience even if I will probably lose?
Rarely on a formal bid. A loss teaches you something only if you request the debrief and act on it, and a bid you cannot be responsive on teaches nothing. Build experience below the threshold instead: quote small work, get the reference, then bid the formal solicitation you can pass the gates on.
What if the incumbent is clearly going to be renewed?
Then the solicitation is often a formality and the right move is to decline, note the term, and position for the next recompete by quoting the agency's below-threshold work now. The exception is when the board minutes show the agency is unhappy: disputed change orders, complaints, a rewritten scope. That is when a challenger wins.