How tender evaluation and scoring actually works: weighted criteria, price and non-price
Tender evaluation usually runs in three stages: a conformance check, then scoring against non-price criteria, then price, combined into a weighted total that ranks the bidders. Bids that fail the conformance check can be set aside before anything else is read.
The weights are the whole game. A tender weighted seventy per cent price rewards a different submission from one weighted forty, and the conditions of tender usually publish either the weights themselves or the criteria in descending order of importance. Reading that before writing a word of response is what separates a bid written to the criteria from a bid written to impress.
Extracting the criteria, their weights and every stated requirement into one structure is reading work Elora Grid returns cited to source. What you choose to emphasise against each criterion is a bid strategy decision.
What is a weighted evaluation?
A weighted evaluation scores each bidder against published criteria, multiplies each score by that criterion's weight, and sums the result into a single comparable number. Non-price criteria commonly cover technical capability, methodology, programme, experience, resourcing, safety and quality systems.
Price is then scored on its own scale and folded in at its weight. The mechanics vary by client and jurisdiction, but the shape is consistent enough to plan a submission around.
How do price and non-price interact?
Price is usually scored relative to the other bids rather than in absolute terms, so your price score depends on numbers you cannot see. A common approach gives the lowest conforming price the maximum score and scales the others down from it.
The practical consequence is that non-price points are the ones you control completely. A criterion you score poorly on because your answer was thin is a self-inflicted loss, whereas a price gap may simply be a competitor's different risk appetite.
What does a scoring scale actually reward?
Evidence. Most scoring scales move from an answer that asserts capability, through one that describes an approach, to one that demonstrates it with specifics: named methods, worked examples, a programme that reflects the actual scope, resources with the right qualifications attached.
Evaluators score what is in front of them, not what they assume you can do. An answer that says "we have extensive experience" and an answer that says "our proposed testing regime is the ITP at Schedule 6, with hold points at these four stages" do not score the same, even when the second is written by the less impressive company.
Where do bids lose points without failing?
In the gap between the criterion and the answer. A response that covers the subject but not the question asked scores partial marks, and there are usually more of those than there are outright failures.
The other quiet loss is the unanswered sub-criterion. A criterion with four parts and an answer covering three is not an eighty per cent answer in most schemes; it is an answer with a hole the evaluator has to score against you.
What moves each kind of score
| Type | Typically covers | What moves it | How much you control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-price | Technical approach, methodology, programme, experience, resourcing, safety and quality | Evidence, specificity, and answering every sub-criterion | Almost completely |
| Price | The tendered sum, often assessed on a relative scale | Your number against the other conforming bids | Partly; the scale depends on bids you cannot see |
| Conformance | Presence, completeness and form of the submission | Following the instructions exactly | Completely, and it gates everything else |
- 01Extract the criteria and weights before drafting. Including sub-criteria, which are where most of the detail and most of the lost marks sit.
- 02Build the response structure from the criteria. One section per criterion, in the client's order and using the client's headings.
- 03Allocate effort by weight. The heaviest criterion gets the most senior input, not the most familiar one.
- 04Answer every sub-criterion explicitly. Even briefly; an unanswered part is scored as absent rather than assumed.
- 05Attach evidence to each claim. A document reference, a named method, a worked example, a qualification held by a named role.
- 06Have someone score it against the criteria. At the Red Team review, using the client's scale rather than an opinion about quality.
Common questions
How are tenders evaluated and scored?
Usually in three stages: a conformance check that can set a bid aside outright, scoring against published non-price criteria, and a price score, combined into a weighted total that ranks bidders. The conditions of tender state the criteria, and often the weights or their order of importance.
Are the weights always published?
Not always. Public tenders commonly publish weights or at least the criteria in descending order of importance; private clients may publish neither. Where they are not stated, the order in which criteria are listed and the space allocated to each in the returnables are the best available signal.
Does the lowest price always win?
Only where price carries all or nearly all the weight. In a weighted evaluation the lowest conforming price often takes the maximum price score while still losing on the total. Which is why the non-price sections are worth the senior time they rarely get.
What is the most common scoring mistake?
Writing about the subject rather than answering the criterion, and leaving one sub-criterion unaddressed. Both score partial marks quietly, and both are found by having someone score the draft against the client's own scale before it is submitted.
Can Elora Grid extract the criteria and weights?
Yes. Hand it the conditions of tender and the returnables, and it returns every criterion and sub-criterion with its stated weight and the schedule that answers it, cited to source, along with any criterion your draft has not yet addressed. The bid strategy stays with your team.