A Tender Price Has to Survive Being Read by Someone Else

A tender estimate gets read by people who were not on the walk round with you. It gets compared line by line against other contractors' numbers, and it gets picked apart if it looks thin anywhere. That means a tender price has to do more work than a straightforward job quote, and it has to be built to hold up under scrutiny before it is built to win.

Start from the information you were actually given

Price against what is in the tender documents, not what you assume is probably there. Gaps and ambiguities in drawings or specifications should be flagged as qualifications rather than quietly priced around, because an assumption that turns out wrong after the contract is signed comes straight off your margin, not the client's budget.

Structure the number so it can be checked

A single lump sum invites suspicion. Break the price down along NRM2 lines so a client, or their advisor, can see where the money sits without having to ask you to justify it line by line after the event. A tender that is easy to check is also easier to win, because it looks like the work of someone who actually knows the job.

Where tenders go wrong

The same mistakes turn up again and again. Risk gets allocated vaguely instead of priced explicitly, so nobody knows who is carrying it until a problem shows up on site. Running costs and maintenance implications of a specification get ignored because the tender only asks for a capital number. Programme risk gets left out entirely, even though a tight programme is a cost in itself.

The tender is the start of the relationship, not just a number

However the process is run, treat the tender stage as the first chance to show a client how you actually work: plain pricing, clear qualifications, and a number you can defend line by line if asked. That reputation follows you into the next tender list a lot more reliably than being the cheapest number on the page.

A tender priced properly protects your margin before the job even starts, and it gives the client a number they can actually trust when they are comparing contractors side by side.

Send your drawings and specification and we will put together a tender estimate built to be checked, not just accepted.

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