Six factors, fixed weights, an arithmetic total
The Bid Score reads the tender analysis, your company profile, the files in your Evidence Vault, including what is inside the ones switched on for bids, such as financial statements, plant lists, CVs and past projects, your approved library content and your record of bids won and lost. Bidligence's Super Intelligence then scores each factor from 1 (strongly against bidding) to 5 (strongly in favour) and lists the signals it used:
The total is arithmetic, not a model's opinion. Bidligence computes it from the six factor scores at these fixed weights, so the same factor scores always give the same Bid Score. It recommends bid at 65 or more, conditional from 45 to 64 and no-bid below 45. On a fresh score the recommendation can be stricter than the total when a single fatal gap exists, such as a missing mandatory licence; the scorer is told to explain why in its rationale. A re-score anchored to an earlier one cannot be stricter than its total.
| Factor | Weight | What it weighs |
|---|---|---|
| Client & relationship | 15 | The client's payment record and credibility, where the money comes from, your relationship with the client and the chance of repeat work. |
| Project fit | 20 | The scope against your specialisations, the contract size against your turnover, and the site against the regions where you work. |
| Capability & resources | 20 | Key personnel, certifications, plant and past-project evidence, checked against the tender's mandatory requirements. |
| Competition | 15 | The likely number of bidders, any incumbent, local preference rules and the evaluation method: a lowest-price contest counts against you more than a quality-based one. |
| Profitability | 15 | Margin potential, payment terms, the currency of payment, escalation, liquidated damages and the cost of bonds. |
| Risk & conditions | 15 | The contract's risk flags, whether the programme is realistic, site access, security and logistics, and environmental, social and local-content obligations. |
How it works
The Bid Score is the Decide step of the bid wizard, after Upload and Analyse. In order:
- 1Upload and analyse the tender. The score reads the analysis, so it cannot run before it.
- 2Run the Bid Score. One click on the Decide step. Bidligence scores the six factors, computes the total and the recommendation, and estimates the hours a compliant bid of this size takes to prepare.
- 3Read the reasons. Each factor shows its weight, its score out of 5, the rationale and the signals behind it, alongside an overall rationale for the recommendation.
- 4Check the money. The estimated hours become a cost to bid in your home currency, and the break-even calculator divides it by the expected profit at your margin. Overwrite the cost with your own figure if you know better.
- 5Close the gaps, if you choose. Upload the missing evidence or record a commitment against a weak factor, then re-score.
- 6Record your call. Bid — proceed moves the bid on to Configure; No bid — pass files it as passed. Add a note either way, such as "Bid, but only if the JV partner confirms by Friday".
What you get on the Decide step
Everything the decision needs sits on one screen, and the result stays on the bid:
- A score out of 100 and a recommendation: bid, conditional or no-bid, with the overall reasoning beneath it.
- Six factor rows, each with its weight, a 1-to-5 bar, the rationale and the signals the scorer used, so you can see which factor is holding the score down.
- A cost to bid: the estimated hours at a default blended bid-team hourly rate, converted into your home currency. When there is no exchange rate into your home currency that day, Bidligence fills in no estimate and asks you to enter the cost yourself, rather than showing a figure in the wrong currency.
- A break-even win rate: the cost to bid divided by the expected profit, which is the tender's estimated value times the bid's profit margin, both in your home currency. It turns red above 25%, one win in every four bids.
- The figures the last score recorded: cost, expected profit and break-even, kept beside the calculator so your what-if never overwrites them.
- The score on the bid itself: in the bid's header and key facts, and in the Bid Score column of your bids list. Each score and each decision is also logged in the bid's activity feed with the name of the person who ran or recorded it.
The break-even win rate
The score tells you whether a job fits. The break-even win rate tells you whether bids like it can pay for themselves: required win rate = cost of bidding ÷ expected profit if won. If you win less often than that on comparable work, the tender needs a better reason than its size.
On the Decide step the calculator is filled in for you. The contract value is the bid's estimated value, the margin is the bid's profit margin and the cost is the Bid Score's estimate; change the cost or the margin and the break-even follows. When the bid is priced in another currency, the expected profit is converted into your home currency at the exchange rate pinned to the bid, so both sides of the sum are in one currency.
Try the same sum here with your own figures, in any one currency. It runs in your browser, and nothing you type leaves this page. The bid/no-bid guide explains what to count in the cost of bidding.
Break-even win rate
Any currency, as long as all three are the same. Nothing you type leaves this page.
You need to win at least 9.4% of bids like this one — about 1 in 10 — for them to pay for their own preparation. If your record on this kind of work is lower, this tender needs a better reason than its size.
Close the gaps, then re-score
A conditional score is a list of things to fix, not a soft yes. For every factor scored 3 or lower, the Decide step offers two ways to move it:
Commitments go to the scorer as forward promises for partial credit: they can reduce a gap, not erase it, and the scorer is told to name the ones it counted. They are also passed to every document generator with the instruction to state them, where relevant, as forward commitments, such as "will recruit" or "commits to engage", never as staff, plant or experience you already have. That follows the evidence rule evidence-locked AI gives every generator.
Re-scores are anchored so the number does not wander from click to click. If all you have done since the last score is add evidence or commitments, a factor can rise but never fall. If anything else the score reads has changed, such as the tender analysis after a re-analysis, a hand edit or an addendum, your company profile, your approved library or your bid record, or you withdraw a commitment or remove, replace, edit or switch off a vault file, the tender is scored afresh, because then a lower score is real information. If nothing has changed at all, the stored score stands and no credits are spent.
- Upload the missing evidence, such as CVs, certificates, past projects or financial statements, to the Company Vault. The score reads the vault.
- Record a commitment, such as forming a joint venture, subcontracting a specialist scope or recruiting key personnel before mobilisation. Ready-made commitments are offered for every weak factor except competition, or you write your own; a bid can hold up to 30.
A record of every tender you pass on
No bid — pass deletes nothing. The bid keeps its analysis and its Bid Score, its status becomes Passed, your note is added to the bid's notes, and a lesson marked passed is filed under Lessons learned in the Bid Library, carrying your note, or "Passed at bid/no-bid stage" if you leave none. Over time that record shows you what you turned down and why:
- The Passed tab of your bids list shows every tender you have passed on, with its Bid Score.
- The dashboard shows your win rate with the number of bids won, lost and passed, on every plan.
- On Pro, pipeline analytics add your bid-hit ratio (bids submitted per win), cost per win from the costs to bid recorded on your bids, your average Bid Score, and a Bid Score vs outcome chart that counts bids, wins and losses in the no-bid, conditional and bid bands, so you can test whether your screening predicts the bids you win.
How it connects to the rest of the bid desk
The Bid Score sits between finding a tender and writing the bid, and reads from and feeds the products around it:
- The tender feed turns a notice into a bid with one click; upload the pack, and the tender analysis supplies everything the score reads about the job.
- The Company Vault holds the certificates, CVs, plant lists, financial statements and past projects the capability and fit factors are judged on.
- Hunter, the bid agent, can run the Bid Score from a chat and explain it, and can record your bid or no-bid call for you; it is instructed to do so only once you have clearly decided.
- Bid — proceed opens Configure, where you set the margin, the team and the documents; from there the priced BOQ, the Mock Evaluator and the Submission Guard take over.
Its limits, and your control
The Bid Score is advice built from the documents and evidence it can read. Know where that stops:
- It advises; you decide. It never records a decision by itself. Members with the Finance, Technical lead, Bid manager or Admin role run the score and record the call; Viewers and Reviewers cannot.
- It can only count what is in Bidligence. A capability you hold but have not recorded in your profile, vault or library cannot raise a factor, and a vault file you have switched off is not read: only its title, dates and description count.
- Factor scores are judgements. Bidligence's Super Intelligence reads the tender and your evidence to score each factor; the weights, the total and the thresholds are fixed arithmetic. A high score is not a prediction of a win: the evaluation belongs to the procuring entity.
- The cost to bid is an estimate from hours and a default rate. Replace it with your own figure when you record your decision: the cost saved on the bid is what cost per win in Pro analytics uses, until a later re-score, run after something it reads has changed, replaces it with a fresh estimate.
- It uses credits. Each fresh score or re-score draws on the workspace's credits for the work it does; a re-score with nothing changed costs nothing.
A strong Bid Score is not a promise of a win, and a weak one is not a ban. Read the reasons, fix what you can and make the call on purpose.
Which plans include it
The Bid Score runs on any credits the workspace holds. A new account's free workspace gets 500 welcome credits once your e-mail is confirmed, enough to analyse a tender, get its Bid Score and see its BOQ priced. Generating the bid documents needs Starter (US$399 a month) or Pro (US$799 a month), each starting with a 3-day free trial. Pipeline analytics, including the Bid Score vs outcome chart, are Pro and Enterprise. See pricing.
Questions
- How is the Bid Score calculated?
- Each of the six factors is scored from 1 to 5, multiplied by its fixed weight (client 15, project fit 20, capability 20, competition 15, profitability 15, risk 15), added up and scaled to 100, so the total runs from 20 to 100. It recommends bid at 65 or more, conditional from 45 to 64 and no-bid below 45.
- Does Bidligence make the bid/no-bid decision for us?
- No. The Bid Score recommends and explains; a member of your team records the decision with Bid — proceed or No bid — pass, with a note if they wish. Hunter, the bid agent, can also record the call from a chat, and is instructed to do so only once you have clearly decided.
- Why did my score not change when I re-scored?
- If nothing the score reads has changed, the stored score stands and no credits are spent. If you only added evidence or commitments, a factor can rise but never fall, so a gap the new item does not close keeps its score. Change the analysis, your profile or your library, or remove a commitment or a file, and the tender is scored afresh.
- How does it work out the cost to bid?
- It estimates the hours a compliant bid of this size takes and multiplies them by a default blended bid-team hourly rate, converted into your home currency. You can overwrite the figure on the Decide step, and the break-even win rate follows.
- What happens to the tenders we pass on?
- They stay. A passed bid keeps its analysis and Bid Score, appears under the Passed tab of your bids list, is counted beside your win rate on the dashboard, and files a lesson with your note. On Pro, pipeline analytics also count passed bids and compare Bid Score bands with outcomes.
- Can I try the Bid Score on the free plan?
- Yes. The 500 welcome credits a new account's free workspace receives once your e-mail is confirmed cover analysing a tender, its Bid Score and a priced BOQ. Generating the bid documents needs Starter or Pro.