Estimating & Tender Pricing
Risk mitigationFixed FeeFor Subcontractors & Main Contractors10 working days
I price your tender from first principles: net cost built from your real costs, preliminaries and terms priced for what they will actually cost, and margin applied only on your written instruction. The submission goes in under your own name, with a basis-of-tender note that says what the price contains, what it relies on and what it excludes.
The problem
Most tenders from smaller contractors are priced by the owner at night, after the day's work: rates copied from the last job, preliminaries guessed as a round sum, and the contract terms, the part that decides whether the price survives contact with the project, priced at nothing because nobody had time to read them. Winning the wrong job at the wrong price is slower ruin than losing the tender. The price needs building the way the loss would later be found: item by item, from what the work will actually cost you.
The solution
I build the price from first principles. Net cost first, from your real costs: your labour, your material and plant quotes, your subcontract prices, never book rates presented as fact. The preliminaries and the proposed terms are priced for what they will cost, including the financing cost of the payment terms. Overheads and margin go on last, on your written instruction: the margin is always your decision, shown separately, never buried. You get the submission in the buyer's format and a basis-of-tender note recording what the price contains, relies on and excludes, and you submit it in your own name.
Estimating & Tender Pricing and Tender Pricing Review are alternatives on a given tender, not a sequence. If I build the price, I do not then review it: the review's value is that it is independent.
What you receive
A completed submission in the buyer's format, priced from your costs rather than habit, with the terms costed instead of discovered later. The basis-of-tender note survives the levelling meeting: when the buyer asks what the number covers, the answer is already in writing. And because the margin went on separately, on your instruction, you know exactly what the job carries before you commit to it. Win or lose, you know what the number was made of.
The Handover Pack accompanies the work with its dates and sources, likely outcomes and responses, scope boundaries and ready-to-send correspondence where needed.
Turnaround: ten working days.
The working days start when the agreed scope and required inputs are available. Optional items do not hold the start unless the agreed scope says otherwise.
How it works
You tell me about the tender
One call: the job, the return date and what winning it needs to do for the business. The first conversation is free.
You send the pack and your costs
Everything below in one go. The pricing basis and the quantity source are fixed in writing before any rate is built, and if quantities are missing, measurement is agreed first.
- A
Full tender pack
EssentialWithout it: The price is built without knowing the terms it has to carry, and a term found late can turn a competitive number into a loss
Where to find it: The tender portal or the invitation email.
Why I need it: The terms are as much a part of the price as the drawings
- B
Quantities
ImportantWithout it: The tender has to be measured first, which adds time and cost before a price can even start
Where to find it: Your estimating file, or nowhere yet, which is also an answer.
Why I need it: The frame the rates hang on; the relevant service if absent
- C
Your real cost data: wages, employment on-cost percentage, quotes and plant rates, plus records of outputs achieved and waste lost on comparable work
ImportantWithout it: Rates cannot be checked against what you actually pay. Missing employment on-costs leave labour rates incomplete; missing output and waste records leave those cost multipliers unsupported. Affected items must be identified as allowances instead of presented as established prices.
Where to find it: Wage records, recent invoices, the quotes folder, your accountant's last summary. On-costs: the payroll summary or the accountant's figures for NI, holiday, pension and insurances against gross wages. Outputs and waste: the last comparable job's site records, day sheets or delivery and wastage records, or nowhere yet, which is also an answer.
Why I need it: An estimate built on book rates is fiction with formatting, and output and waste move a net cost further than any single rate does
- D
Margin instruction
EssentialWithout it: The build-up stops at net cost, with no final number to submit
Where to find it: Yours alone: no book and no benchmark can supply it.
Why I need it: Your decision; the build-up stops at net cost without it
- E
The bid risk register, from the relevant service
ImportantWithout it: Risk allowances are derived here from the tender pack alone, so anything found in a review that is not repeated in the pack is priced at nothing
Where to find it: The relevant service report and its bid risk register, where the enquiry was reviewed before pricing. Where it was not, say so and the risks are read from the pack.
Why I need it: It lists what has to be allowed for and what the allowance is for, so the risks reach the price instead of being noticed and lost
- F
Your financing rate and expected cashflow profile
ImportantWithout it: The financing cost of the payment cycle cannot be computed, so a long payment term is either carried at nothing or qualified rather than priced
Where to find it: Your bank facility or overdraft letter gives the borrowing rate. Send the cashflow profile you expect for this package. If you have none, I will build a proposed profile from net costs spread across the tender programme and ask you to confirm it.
Why I need it: The review prices the payment cycle at what carrying the work actually costs you to borrow, and only you know that rate
- G
The return date and time, and the method the buyer requires the submission in
EssentialWithout it: I cannot confirm that the completed tender will reach you before the submission deadline. A price finished after tender closing cannot be used.
Where to find it: The invitation to tender, the covering letter or the portal listing. Asked for with the pack at item 1 of the email above.
Why I need it: Every date in the commission is set back from the return; the method decides what has to be assembled, in what format, and how long uploading it takes
Copies are fine. Send what you have and I'll tell you what's missing. Download the client request PDF or editable Word version to pass to whoever holds the files.
- A
I read the whole pack for cost
Preliminaries, payment terms, retention, damages, amendments: every term with a cost consequence is priced, qualified or excluded in writing, never ignored.
I build the net cost
Item by item from your real costs and live quotes: labour, materials, plant, subcontractors. Book rates never stand in as fact.
I price the preliminaries and the terms
The site running costs built up properly, and the conditions priced for what they will cost you, including the financing cost of the payment terms.
You set the margin
I present the net cost and what the terms add. Overheads and margin are your decision, taken with the true cost in front of you and applied on your written instruction.
Margin On Your Instruction
Overheads, risk and margin go on only against your written instruction; without it the build-up stops at net cost and the return deadline is restated to you.
I assemble the submission
Your price in the buyer's format, with the basis-of-tender note: what it contains, what it relies on, what it excludes. You submit it in your own name.
Price Proven to Recompute
The submission figure must recompute exactly from the build-up, with every priced item present and every qualification in the basis note, before it reaches you.
I hand back a price you can win with and live with
Free Service Pack
A step-by-step Handbook, with the templates and working documents you need to carry out the work it covers yourself. You supply your own project information and records.
Follow the Handbook's scope and stopping points, and obtain independent advice where required. The pack is not project-specific advice or independent sign-off.
Tips that raise your odds of success
Where the pack arrives without quantities, Measurement & Bills of Quantities measures the package this service then prices.