A couple of percent apart

Anyone who's awarded a close one knows it. The low bid has qualifications a few pages in, written as terms rather than amounts: an escalation clause, a labor rate for changes, an exclusion. Pricing them takes your own change order history, the week of award.

One case on our Try page: electrical bids, 2.0% apart. Yesper priced the lower bid's qualifications. The change order labor rate flipped the ranking, and the low bid came out $118,360 higher. It also listed the fire alarm as complete and excluded the controls.

You award on comparable price, terms included. The rate gets settled while there's still a second bidder, and the exclusion becomes a written question instead of a change order. Same for the rest of the Try page: tenders against the scope split, a scope matrix for a bid invitation, vendor quotes on their own terms.

Try it yourself →