RFPs — soliciting bids from subcontractors and vendors

An RFP (Request for Proposal) is how you ask subcontractors or vendors to price a scope of work. You issue a bid package, invite the vendors you want, each vendor gets a private portal to download the package and upload their bid, and the bids come back to one place with their times stamped. Everything is kept on the record: what you issued, who you invited, what came back, and when.

RFPs live under Construction Flow → Business Operations → RFPs, beside Proposals. A Proposal is what you send to a client; an RFP is what you send to the people you want to buy from.

The five steps

1. Create the RFP — pick the project, give it a title and a short scope summary, and set the bids-due date. The RFP starts as a draft. RFP numbers run per project and per year and are never reused.
2. Issue the bid package — click Issue version 1, then Add file for each drawing, spec, or form the bidders need. Version 1 is what everyone bids against.
3. Invite vendors — Invite vendor with a name and a contact email. Then Open portal: this creates the vendor's private portal and emails them the link (the invite shows the due date and the package version). Use Resend invite any time; Copy portal link if you would rather send it yourself.
4. Open for bids — Open for bids moves the RFP from draft to open. The terms (title, scope, due date, sealed-or-not) are locked once open, because that is what the vendors are bidding against.
5. Receive and open bids — each upload appears under Bids received with the vendor's name, the file, the time, and on time or late. Click Open bid to read it. When you have what you need, Close bidding, then Mark awarded.

Changing the package after vendors have seen it

Once a vendor has looked at a package version, that version can neither gain nor lose files. Any change is an addendum: Issue addendum creates version 2, and every vendor's portal switches to it. Removing a file works the same way (Remove retires it into the next version). The version each vendor answered is stamped on their bid, so you always know which package a price was based on.

Sealed bids or read-as-they-come

Most contractors read bids as they arrive. That is the default: every bid is readable the moment it lands.

If you tick Seal bids until the due date when creating the RFP, the bids stay unreadable until the bids-due date you set. That is the public-agency style. Opening them earlier is possible with Open bids early, but it asks for a reason and records who opened them, when, and why on the RFP. Sealed or not can only be changed while the RFP is still a draft.

Late bids and the due date

The due date is shown to every vendor on their portal. A bid uploaded after it is still received — it is marked late, never turned away. The platform never slams the door on its own; you decide when to Close bidding.

What the vendor sees

The portal link opens a page with the RFP number and title, the bids-due date in plain sight, the current package files to download, and an upload area for their bid. Vendors never see each other, never see your other RFPs, and never see a bid but their own. If a vendor uploads twice, the newest upload is their bid; the earlier one stays on the record as superseded.

Listing an RFP on the bid board

By default an RFP is private: only the vendors you invite can see it. On the RFP page, Bid board listing → Listed on the board makes the title, scope summary, due date, seal state and site visible to registered Bidding Members (contractors who signed up free to bid) and gives you a shareable listing link you can post or email. The link shows the listing to anyone; the bid package is never on the listing.

Who is admitted is your choice per RFP:

• I admit each bidder (default) — members who enter appear under Requests to bid; nobody receives the package until you click Admit & send package, which creates their portal and emails them the link.
• Any registered Bidding Member — anyone with a free bidding account is admitted at once and emailed the package. Choose this knowingly: the package may contain your client's plans and specifications.

You are emailed when a bid arrives (with the file name and whether it was late), when a member requests entry, and when a member is admitted automatically. The same three events appear in the app under the header bell: the count includes unread notices, and the Notices tab in My Items lists them. View opens the RFP; Mark read clears the notice. The RFP list shows "N to admit" while requests wait.

Listing and delisting are recorded on the RFP; the record of listings begins September 10, 2026. The board shows open RFPs only. Admitted members use the same portal and the same rules as invited vendors, and the guide's rules still hold: bidders never see each other's bids.

Bidding as a contractor

Register free at /bid/register (name, email, phone, business, trade, a human check, a password). Then Open RFPs lists every RFP buyers have listed; Bid on this enters it. My bids shows each RFP you entered, the buyer's decision, and Open package & submit once admitted. Your bid is received on the buyer's portal with the time and the package version stamped.

What a free account can do

A free (Personal) account can issue one RFP every 30 days, with any number of bidders, a bid package of up to 100 MB, and up to 25 invited or admitted vendors on it. Listing on the board, sealed bids, addenda, and reading bids are all included. A second RFP inside 30 days, a larger package, or a 26th vendor opens the upgrade to Solo ($85 a month; $65 as a founding member), which removes all three limits. Bidding is never limited: registering, browsing, entering, downloading a package you are admitted to, and submitting are free for every Bidding Member. See /compare/bidding for how this compares with other services.

The bid schedule — what every vendor prices

Under Bid schedule on the RFP, add the items you want priced: an item number, a description, a quantity and a unit, and (optionally) your own estimate. Your estimate is private; vendors never see it. Items are added into the current package version and never change once added — to correct one, issue an addendum, retire the item, and add its successor, so every vendor prices the same schedule for the version they are answering.

Vendors price the schedule on their portal: a unit price per item, an optional note per item, and a box for inclusions and exclusions. The extended amounts and total are computed from what they type. Submitting again replaces the earlier priced schedule (the earlier one stays on the record as superseded). A priced schedule is a bid like any file: the due date, late, and the seal apply to it.

No schedule? The bid form, or the contractor's own format

You do not have to itemise. With no schedule, contractors bid in their own format — a PDF, Excel or Word file uploaded on the portal or attached to a reply to the invitation — and you open the bids and record the award. To compare totals side by side, Key a bid total from a file bid on the tabulation types each vendor's total from their file, recorded as keyed by you.

Or offer the platform's bid form: Download bid form (Excel) on the RFP (and on every vendor's portal) gives a workbook pre-filled with your schedule and unit-price cells to fill — or, with no schedule, an open itemised sheet. A vendor who fills it and uploads it (or attaches it to an email reply) has their prices and total read from it exactly as they saved them; nothing is guessed from a PDF.

The tabulation, levelling, and the award

Bid tabulation shows every vendor's priced schedule side by side, with the bid totals, your estimate, the low bid and the average. If a vendor sent a bid as a file instead, Key prices from a file bid lets you type its prices — they are recorded as keyed by you, not as the vendor's own entry. Sealed RFPs show the tabulation only once the due date passes or you open the bids early.

To make bids comparable, add levelling adjustments: a signed amount against one vendor, for one item or as a lump sum, with a kind (plug, exclusion, inclusion, correction, alternate) and a reason. Adjustments are recorded, never edited — retract one and the retraction is its own row. The levelled totals are what you decide on.

Record award stores the decision — the vendor (or no award), your reason, and the tabulation exactly as it stood, with its fingerprint — and closes bidding. Every bid and the tabulation are filed into the project's Procurement folder, and the vendors are told: the awarded vendor that they won; the others that the work went to another bidder (never who, never how much). An RFP cannot show awarded without this record. Export downloads the tabulation as an Excel workbook at any time it is readable.

Questions from bidders

Vendors ask on their portal, or by replying to the invitation email — either way the question lands under Questions from bidders on the RFP and you are emailed. Answer once; publish the answer so every bidder is told the same thing (bidders are never named to each other), or keep it private to the vendor who asked. You can also post a clarification nobody asked for. Once published, an answer stays published — it is part of what every bidder was told.

A bid file attached to a reply email is received as that vendor's bid.

Voiding an RFP

An RFP can be voided at any point before award, with a reason. Void is final and the RFP number stays used — the record shows the RFP existed and why it was stopped.

Statuses at a glance