How to Write a Bid or Tender
A tender isn't a quote with a cover page. It's a submission that has to be compliant, comparable and convincing — and most trade businesses lose on the first of those before anyone reads the price.
The first time you go after a job through a tender rather than a phone call, the rules change. Someone you've never met reads your submission next to four others, scores it against criteria you were given, and the cheapest number doesn't automatically win — but a non-compliant submission automatically loses. This guide covers how to decide which ones to chase, how to structure a bid so it's easy to score, what to put in the price, and how to follow up without being a pest.
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How a bid differs from a quote
A quote answers one question: what will this cost? A bid or tender answers four — can you do it, have you done it before, how will you do it, and what does it cost. The price is usually the last thing scored and rarely the whole score.
- It's competitive and blind. You're not the only one submitting, and you don't get to read the room.
- It's scored against stated criteria. Read them. They tell you exactly where the marks are, and most submissions ignore them.
- Compliance is pass or fail. Missing insurance certificates, a late submission or the wrong form can knock you out before the price is opened.
- The client's terms usually apply, not yours. Which means reading them before you price, not after you win.
- It costs you real time. A serious submission is a day or more of unbilled work, which is why choosing what to bid on matters more than how you write it.
Deciding which ones to chase
The most expensive mistake in tendering is bidding on everything. Every submission costs you a day you could have spent on work you'd actually win. Qualify hard, and be willing to walk away:
- Have you done this before? If you can't name three similar jobs, your submission will score badly on experience no matter how good the price is.
- Can you carry the cash flow? Commercial payment terms plus retention plus a long defects period is a lot of money sitting somewhere other than your account.
- Do you meet the mandatory requirements? Insurance levels, licence classes, prequalification, safety systems. These aren't negotiable and they're stated up front.
- Is the timeframe real? If winning means dropping existing clients, the job costs more than the price you'd submit.
- Do you know who else is bidding, and why they invited you? Being the third quote so someone can meet a procurement rule is a day of your life you won't get back.
Track your win rate by client type. Most trade businesses discover they win a high share of the tenders in one narrow lane and almost none outside it. Bidding only in that lane raises your win rate and lowers your cost of sale at the same time.
How to structure the submission
If a format is specified, use theirs — exactly, in their order, with their headings. Where it isn't, this structure is easy to score and hard to fault:
- Cover letter. One page. The right person's name, the correct project title and reference, what you're submitting for, and a single sentence on why you're a good fit. Get the name and the project title right — it's the cheapest signal of care there is.
- Understanding of the job. Prove you've read the documents and been to the site. Name the specific constraints: the staged handover, the occupied floors, the crane access, the heritage overlay. This is the section that separates people who read the brief from people who skimmed it.
- Scope and methodology. What you'll do and in what order, with your assumptions and exclusions stated plainly. The exclusions belong here, not buried under the price.
- Programme. Start, key stages, completion, and what your dates depend on — approvals, lead times, other trades, access. A programme with dependencies stated reads as experienced; one with just an end date reads as optimistic.
- Your team and capability. Who's on it, their licences and tickets, and three comparable jobs with contactable referees. Relevant beats impressive: three similar jobs outscore one large unrelated one.
- Compliance and safety. Licences, insurances with expiry dates, your safety system, SWMS approach, any prequalification you hold. Attach the certificates rather than promising them.
- Price and payment schedule. Broken down the way the client asked for it, with GST treatment stated once and clearly, and payment stages tied to milestones.
- Terms and clarifications. Any departures from their conditions, listed openly. Burying a qualification is how a win turns into a job you regret.
Pricing a tender
Build the number from your own costs, then check it against the market — never the reverse. Tender jobs carry costs that residential work doesn't, and they're the ones people forget:
| Cost | Why it lands on a tender job |
|---|---|
| Site inductions and permits | Unbillable hours before anyone touches a tool |
| Restricted working hours | Occupied buildings, noise limits and night work all cut your productive day |
| Supervision and coordination | Site meetings, other trades, programme changes — real hours somebody has to cover |
| Documentation | SWMS, ITPs, progress claims, as-builts, handover packs |
| Retention and payment terms | Money withheld and money paid late are both financing costs you carry |
| Defects liability period | Return visits long after the job is off your books |
| Prelims and establishment | Fencing, amenities, traffic control, scaffold, waste — priced separately or absorbed by you |
Then decide the margin deliberately rather than by habit. A job that ties up your crew for months, carries retention and comes with a long defects period is riskier than your normal work, and the margin should say so. If the only way to win is to price below what the risk deserves, that's a signal to walk, not to sharpen the pencil.
Never submit a price you can't reconstruct. When the client comes back asking to remove a section or add another level, you need to be able to reprice in minutes — which means the submitted number has to be built from itemised rates, not from a total someone eyeballed.
Submitting and following up
- Submit early. Portals fail, files are too large, and a late submission is usually not accepted at all regardless of the reason.
- Check the compliance list twice. Every attachment they asked for, in the format they asked for, with in-date certificates.
- Confirm receipt. A short email a day or two later asking that it arrived is not pushy; it's the same thing every other bidder does.
- Offer to answer questions rather than asking whether you've won. It gives the client a reason to reply and keeps you visible during assessment.
- Ask for feedback either way. A losing submission that comes with a reason is worth more than a win you can't repeat. Most clients will tell you where you sat if you ask politely once.
Keep every submission. The second tender for the same kind of client takes a fraction of the time, because the capability statement, the safety documentation and the methodology are already written — you're only rewriting the parts that are actually specific to the job.
ServiceYak keeps your rates, standard line items and reusable job bundles in one kit, so the itemised build behind a tender comes together from numbers you've already proven on real jobs rather than being reconstructed from scratch under a deadline.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a bid, a tender and a quote?
A quote is a price offered directly to a client who asked for one. A tender is a formal submission against a documented brief, usually scored against stated criteria alongside other bidders. "Bid" sits in between and gets used for both. The practical difference is that a tender has compliance requirements you can fail on before the price is even read.
Should I submit my lowest price to win a tender?
No. Price is one criterion among several, and the lowest bid often loses to a submission that demonstrably understood the job. More importantly, a job won below the margin its risk deserves is a job that costs you money for months. Price it properly, and if that means losing, you've saved yourself the worse outcome.
How long should a tender submission be?
As long as their requirements demand and no longer. If they've specified a page limit or a form, that's the answer. Where they haven't, five to ten well-organised pages plus attachments beats thirty pages of filler — someone is scoring this against a rubric, and they need to find each answer quickly.
How do I get invited to tender in the first place?
Register with the buyers who run them — councils, government panels, head contractors, facilities managers — and complete any prequalification they use. Most of them maintain a list, and getting onto it is paperwork rather than a pitch. Then deliver well on the first small one, because tender lists run heavily on who performed last time.