How to write a good RFP document (that gets useful bids)

A weak RFP is expensive twice over: you get proposals you cannot compare, and the good suppliers do not bid at all. Most of that damage is done at the drafting stage, before a single supplier sees the document. This guide covers what to put in an RFP, in what order, and the choices that decide whether the responses are useful.

1. Decide what you are actually buying

Write the outcome before the specification. “Reduce claim-processing time from 14 days to 3” invites suppliers to bring approaches you had not considered; “supply twelve workstations and a case-management module” only invites them to quote your own assumptions back at you. Specify inputs when you genuinely know the answer, and outcomes when the supplier knows the field better than you do.

Be explicit about what is out of scope. Ambiguity there is the most common source of variation orders later, and bidders price uncertainty as risk — you pay for the vagueness either way.

2. A structure bidders can answer

1. Background and objective — why this work exists, what success looks like.
2. Scope of work — deliverables, milestones, and explicit exclusions.
3. Eligibility — the minimum a bidder must prove to be considered at all.
4. Evaluation criteria and weights — stated numerically, before bids open.
5. Submission format — what files, in what structure, by when.
6. Contract terms — payment schedule, IP, liability, termination.
7. Timetable — clarification deadline, submission, evaluation, award.

Keep eligibility and evaluation strictly separate. Eligibility is pass/fail — turnover, registrations, prior similar contracts. Evaluation is comparative. Mixing them produces the familiar failure where a technically excellent bidder is disqualified on a formality that had nothing to do with delivery.

3. Write criteria that actually discriminate

If every compliant bidder scores 85–90 on technical merit, your criteria are decorative and the award collapses to price. Good criteria describe observable differences:

• Not “relevant experience” but “number of comparable deployments at this scale, with references”.
• Not “quality of methodology” but “how the approach handles the three risks named in section 2”.
• Not “team strength” but “named personnel, their committed time, and who is replaceable”.

Publish the weights, and choose the split deliberately — it decides the kind of supplier you attract. QCBS and tender evaluation methods sets out how the common scoring models behave in practice, and how bidders respond to them is worth reading before you finalise the criteria.

4. Give bidders time, and a real clarification window

A two-week window on a complex assignment selects for suppliers who recycle old proposals, not those who think about your problem. Set the clarification deadline far enough before submission that answers can still change a bid — a Q&A closing 48 hours before the deadline is theatre. Publish all answers to all bidders, unedited.

5. Say how you will pay

Payment terms are part of the price. A supplier facing 90-day payment prices in the financing cost; one facing an unspecified schedule prices in the risk of never being paid. State the milestones, the retention if any, and the invoice-to-payment window.

Common drafting mistakes

• Copying last year’s RFP. Requirements that no longer apply become traps that disqualify good bidders.
• Over-specifying a brand. Name a product and you have either allowed equivalents explicitly or run a single-source purchase.
• Asking for everything. Every extra required document narrows the field toward large firms with bid teams.
• Silent weights. Unpublished criteria are the most common ground for a successful procurement challenge.
• No named contact. If nobody can answer a question, the ambiguity is priced in or the bidder walks away.

Before you publish

Read the document once as a bidder who has never met you. Can they tell what is being bought, what would disqualify them, how they will be scored, and what they must send? If any of those four is unclear, fix it now — it is far cheaper than a re-tender.