How to write a winning bid
Everything in this guide is the process we use on paid engagements, written up properly. It assumes no bidding experience, works for public and private tenders alike, and is honest about the parts most guides skip — including when not to bid.
1. Decide whether to bid at all
The most expensive bids are the ones you were never going to win. Before any writing, answer four questions honestly: Can we actually deliver this contract? Do we meet the pass/fail selection criteria — turnover thresholds, insurances, accreditations? Do we have relevant, recent, evidenceable experience? And is there a reason the incumbent should lose? If you can’t answer all four positively, your bid budget is better spent on the next opportunity. We’ve published our full scoring matrix for this in the bid/no-bid decision framework.
2. Read the documents properly
Tender packs are repetitive, badly ordered and occasionally contradictory — read them anyway, all of them, before planning anything. You’re looking for four things: the questions and their weightings, the pass/fail requirements, the contract terms that affect your price, and the buyer’s underlying anxieties (always visible in the specification’s emphasis). Know the vocabulary too:
| Term | What it is |
|---|---|
| SQ / PQQ | Selection (or pre-qualification) questionnaire — the filter stage about your business: finances, insurance, experience, exclusions. Covered in depth in PQQ vs ITT explained. |
| ITT / RFP | Invitation to tender — the scored stage where you propose how you’d deliver and at what price. |
| MEAT / MAT | The award basis: “most economically advantageous tender” (now “most advantageous tender” under the Procurement Act 2023) — a weighted blend of quality and price rather than lowest cost. |
| Framework / DPS | Multi-supplier purchasing vehicles — you bid for a place, then compete for call-offs. See our framework guides. |
| Clarification questions | Your formal channel to query ambiguities before the deadline. Use it — unasked questions become assumptions, and assumptions lose marks. |
3. Plan every answer before writing
This single habit separates professional bids from amateur ones. For each scored question, write a one-page plan before drafting: the requirements hidden in the question (there are usually several), the marks available, the points you’ll make in order, and the evidence attached to each point. Planning exposes gaps while there’s still time to fix them, lets the right expert review the argument in minutes rather than wading through prose, and stops the classic failure — a beautifully written answer to a question that wasn’t asked.
Where bids lose marks
The most frequent issues we find when reviewing unsuccessful client bids — share of reviewed bids showing each problem. Illustrative of our review work, not an industry statistic.
4. Evidence beats adjectives
“We are committed to the highest standards of quality” earns nothing. “98.6% of our 1,400 monthly inspections passed first time across our three council contracts in 2025” earns marks — because an evaluator can defend that score to a moderation panel. Audit your claims: every sentence asserting you’re good at something should be followed by a number, a named example, or a mechanism that makes it true. If you have none of the three, cut the sentence. Case studies are your densest evidence — keep three to five written up in a consistent format (situation, what you did, measured results) and tailor them per bid.
5. Write for the evaluator
Your reader is marking dozens of responses against a scoring rubric, often in the evenings. Help them give you marks:
- Answer first. Open each response with the direct answer, then explain how. Never make a marker hunt.
- Mirror the question’s structure. If it has three parts, use three labelled sections — you’re filling in their marking sheet for them.
- Plain English. Short sentences, active voice, no “best-in-class synergies”. If a claim survives translation into plain words, it was real.
- Specifics over scope. One named, relevant example beats four vague ones. Word limits are a discipline, not an obstacle.
6. Get social value right
Most public tenders now weight social value at around 10% or more — frequently the gap between first and second place. The rules of scoring well: commit to things that are additional (caused by this contract, not your existing CSR), local (named places, partners and programmes), measurable (numbers and dates a contract manager can monitor) and proportionate (you will be held to them). Our dedicated guide to social value in tenders covers the national themes and how to cost commitments safely.
7. Understand price vs quality
Check the weightings before you decide how to compete. On a 70/30 quality/price split, a sharpened pencil cannot rescue a mediocre submission — the marks live in the writing. On 40/60 the reverse applies. Also check how price is scored: formulas that score against the lowest bid behave very differently from those scoring against the mean, and pricing without reading the formula is gambling. Quality scores are the part you fully control; that’s why this guide exists.
8. Review like a marker
Before submission, have someone who didn’t write the bid score each answer against the published criteria, coldly. Would this answer get top marks, or merely a pass? Is every requirement addressed? Is every claim evidenced? This is exactly what our bid review and critique service does with fresh eyes — but even internally, a structured scored review catches what proofreading never will. Leave 48 hours between final draft and review; familiarity hides faults.
9. The submission checklist
- Every question answered, within word/page limits, in the required format
- All pass/fail documents attached — insurances, accounts, policies, certificates
- Pricing schedule complete, arithmetic checked, no qualifying caveats that void compliance
- Named references warned and willing
- Portal upload tested at least 24 hours early — portals fail at 11:55 every deadline day
- One person owns the final “submit” click and confirms receipt
A note on timing. Almost every weak bid we review was started too late. The work in sections 1–4 — qualifying, reading, planning, evidence — should consume half your timeline before sustained writing begins. If you’re reading this with five days to a deadline, focus ruthlessly on the highest-weighted questions, or consider whether bringing in a bid writer changes what’s achievable.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a bid take to write?
For a typical single-contract tender with five to ten scored questions, allow two to three weeks elapsed: roughly a third on reading and planning, a third on drafting and evidence, a third on review and polish. Compressing the first third is what damages quality most.
Can I reuse answers from previous bids?
Reuse your evidence, never your answers. Case studies, statistics and policies belong in a library; the response itself must be rebuilt around each buyer’s question, weightings and specification. Evaluators spot recycled content instantly — it’s the third most common fault we find.
What win rate is realistic?
It depends on how well you qualify. Bidding everything that moves yields very low win rates; a disciplined go/no-go process means entering fewer, better-chosen competitions. Treat win rate as a measure of your qualification discipline as much as your writing.
Is it worth hiring a professional bid writer?
Run the arithmetic: contract value × realistic uplift in win probability vs the fee. For contracts worth six figures and up, professional support usually pays for itself if — and only if — you’d struggle to give the bid proper time internally. A one-off review is the cheap way to test the difference before committing.