Bid triage for public-sector suppliers

Before you give a tender a week, find out whether you can win it.

Bidwright reads the tender document and hands back the first day’s work: a go/no-go call on the opportunity, a checklist of every mandatory requirement that would disqualify you, and a response outline mapped to the way the buyer actually scores it. For construction, facilities and IT firms of 10 to 200 people, bidding without a bid writer on staff.

Hand us a tender ($149)

$149 per tender, one-off. Published price, no quote, no sales call.

01Go / no-go: A straight call, with the reasons behind it, not a scoring rubric you have to interpret.
02Mandatory checklist: Every pass/fail requirement, quoted with the page it came from.
03Scored outline: Each question broken into the points the buyer is awarding marks for.

A tender costs you a week, and you still don’t know if you were ever going to win.

The ITT lands on a Friday. By Monday someone has to decide whether to chase it, and the answer is usually whoever has the capacity that month.

Eighty pages of terms and conditions, a specification split across three appendices, and a set of mandatory requirements that live in the middle of a form nobody reads closely. Miss one (the right insurance, a certificate date, a named supervisor, a page limit) and a perfectly good bid is thrown out before anyone scores a word of it.

Then the writing: six thousand words against an evaluation matrix you’re inferring from a two-column table. The same three people do it after hours, alongside the day job, and the price is going in last because the price always goes in last.

Bidwright doesn’t write the bid for you. It finishes the part that eats the first day, so the week you spend is spent on a bid that has a reason to exist.

How it works

Three steps, in the order you already work. The output is a working document, not a report.

1
Drop in the tender
The ITT, the specification, the question set: whatever the buyer published, in whatever shape they published it. There is no template to fill in first, and no long setup.
PDFs, Word files and the buyer's own portal exports all go in the same way.
2
Go/no-go and the mandatory-requirements checklist
You get a straight call on whether this tender fits what you do and how it's scored, plus every pass/fail requirement pulled out, quoted, and tied to the page it came from.
Insurances, accreditations, turnover thresholds, certificates, submission rules. The things that disqualify a good bid.
3
A response outline mapped to the scoring
Each scored question is broken down into the points the buyer is awarding marks for, in the order they're weighting them, with a word budget and the evidence you'll need to bring.
So the person writing it starts on the answer the buyer is marking, not on a blank page.

Worked example: a live tender

One real tender, worked through the way Bidwright works it.

Bron Afon Community Housing’s open framework for repairs and maintenance capacity, published on Sell2Wales on 10 November 2026, deadline 7 December 2026. Judged against one example firm, stated below. Every requirement and weighting quoted here comes from the published notice, with its section given.

The example firm

A 60-person mechanical and electrical contractor in Bristol, $18.5m turnover, working on commercial plant rooms, public buildings and reactive M&E maintenance. Holds CHAS, Constructionline Gold, ISO 9001 and 14001, $13.2m public liability. Does not hold Gas Safe registration and runs no domestic out-of-hours rota. Illustrative firm, used so the tender has something concrete to be judged against.

At a glance

Buyer: Bron Afon Community Housing Ltd (notice published by Barcud Shared Services)
What they are buying: An open framework for extra contractor capacity to support Bron Afon's in-house Direct Labour Organisation (DLO). Nine lots: general repairs, gas/heating/plumbing repairs, heating installation, roofing, and others.
Notice: Sell2Wales NOV675639 · OCID ocds-h6vhtk-06f9ca · UK4 (above threshold)
Published / deadline: 10 November 2026 / 07 December 2026
Total value (est., excl. VAT): about $45.3m, framework-wide across all nine lots
Lot 1 value (est.): $2,204,500 excl. VAT ($2,645,400 incl. VAT)
Contract term: 1 April 2027 to 31 March 2030, extendable to 31 March 2035 (open framework scheme, 8 years max)

How it is scored

Cost70%

Costing Element: 70% of the score on every lot in the notice

Quality30%

Quality Element: 30%; the quality sub-questions are in the ITT pack, not the notice

Go / no-go

Verdict: no-go

Not for this firm as it stands. The two lots worth having are gated on domestic gas capability it does not hold, the score is 70% price on every lot, and appointment buys a place in a rotation rather than a volume of work.

01
Price carries 70% of the score on every lot
The notice sets cost at 70 and quality at 30 for the lots it details. For a firm with no domestic gas history, the only way to move a 70%-price score is to sharpen the rates, and the rates are fixed by the buyer's pricing schedule.
Notice, per-lot "Award criteria": Type: cost, Weighting: 70.00 (percentageExact); Type: quality, Weighting: 30.00.
02
Being on the framework guarantees no work at all
Call-off work is allocated on rotation between the firms appointed to each lot, and the buyer reserves the right to withhold allocations. There is no minimum spend to bid against, so the win is a place in a queue, not a contract.
Notice, "Framework operation description": "Appointment to the framework does not guarantee any minimum level of work, spend or number of Call-Off Contracts."
03
The biggest lots want domestic gas capability the firm does not hold
Lot 2 asks tenderers to show they can deliver gas, heating and plumbing repairs including out-of-hours, and Lot 3 covers heating installation. The example firm is commercial M&E, with no Gas Safe registration and no domestic out-of-hours rota.
Notice, Lot 2 "Conditions of participation": "...technical and professional ability, experience, resources, competence and appropriate qualifications necessary to deliver gas, heating and plumbing repair and maintenance works, including out-of-hours services."
04
You may only be appointed to two of the nine lots
Bidding across all nine is pointless: tenderers must rank lots by preference and are capped at two appointments. That turns a broad framework into a decision about which two lots the firm can actually win.
Notice, "Description of how multiple lots may be awarded": "...may be appointed to a maximum of two Lots... it will be appointed to its two highest-preference Lots..."
05
Three weeks to a pack you cannot read yet
The deadline is 7 December 2026 and the ITT documents are released only to suppliers who note interest on Sell2Wales. Everything that decides the quality score (sub-questions, word limits, insurance levels) is in that pack.
Sell2Wales notice page: "Documents for this notice are only available to suppliers who have noted interest."

Mandatory checklist

Every pass/fail requirement the published notice sets out, quoted, and marked against the example firm.

Legal and financial standing, answered pass/fail
To confirm
“Tenderers must satisfy the legal, economic and financial standing requirements set out in the procurement documents and complete the relevant foundation questions on a pass/fail basis.”Notice, Lot 1 "Conditions of participation"
The thresholds are in the procurement documents, which are gated. Two years of filed accounts are needed before this can be answered.
Gas, heating and plumbing repairs including out-of-hours
Gap
“Tenderers must demonstrate the technical and professional ability, experience, resources, competence and appropriate qualifications necessary to deliver gas, heating and plumbing repair and maintenance works, including out-of-hours services.”Notice, Lot 2 "Conditions of participation"
Example firm holds commercial gas tickets but not domestic Gas Safe registration, and runs no domestic out-of-hours rota.
Heating installation capability
Gap
“Tenderers must demonstrate the technical and professional ability, experience, resources, competence and appropriate qualifications necessary to deliver heating installation works.”Notice, Lot 3 "Conditions of participation"
Plant-room and commercial heating yes; domestic boiler replacement programme experience, no.
General repairs and maintenance capacity for the DLO
Met
“Provision of general repairs and maintenance works to provide additional capacity and support to Bron Afon Community Housing's Direct Labour Organisation (DLO), as required.”Notice, Lot 1 description
The firm's reactive M&E maintenance work fits, subject to the standing questions above.
Evidence available on request before award
To confirm
“Evidence may be requested from successful tenderers before contract award.”Notice, Lot 1 "Conditions of participation"
Certificates, insurance schedules and references must be current at the date they ask, not at submission.
Subcontracting or consortium arrangements permitted
Met
“Reliance on other entities, consortium arrangements and subcontracting are permitted, subject to the requirements of the procurement documents.”Notice, Lot 1 "Conditions of participation"
The route to Lot 2 is a named gas subcontractor. That is permitted here, but it has to be evidenced.
Rank lots by preference; two appointments maximum
Met
“Tenderers bidding for more than two Lots must rank the Lots in order of preference... it will be appointed to its two highest-preference Lots.”Notice, "Description of how multiple lots may be awarded"
A submission decision rather than a qualification: bid two lots, ranked, not nine.
Access to the ITT documents
To confirm
“Documents for this notice are only available to suppliers who have noted interest.”Sell2Wales notice page
Note interest on Sell2Wales to release the pack. Until then the quality sub-questions and word limits are unknown.

Response outline

Mapped to the criteria in the notice. Where the detail sits in the ITT pack rather than the notice, it says so rather than guessing at a word count.

Cost: 70% (every lot)

Word limit not stated in the notice; the pricing schedule is in the ITT pack

Price is scored on the buyer's own pricing schedule, so the mark is made in the rates for the DLO's actual job mix: emergency call-outs, out-of-hours attendance and follow-on repairs.
The notice says call-offs are allocated on rotation and can be withheld where KPIs are not met. Price the response times you can genuinely hold, because the rate is scored once and the KPI is enforced for eight years.
Nothing in the notice sets a minimum spend, so do not build a mobilisation cost into the rate: there is no guaranteed volume to recover it from.

Quality: 30% (every lot)

Sub-questions and word limits are in the ITT pack, not published in the notice

The notice names a single Quality Element at 30%. Until the pack is released, assume the sub-questions sit on the three things the notice keeps returning to: DLO support, out-of-hours response, and KPI performance.
Write to the DLO: the framework exists to add capacity to Bron Afon's own workforce, not to replace it. Give evidence of working alongside a client's direct labour, with the handover discipline that implies.
Out-of-hours is called out explicitly for the gas and heating lots: name the rota, the response time and the escalation, or the 30% is lost on the first paragraph.

Worked by hand from the published notice for this page. The ITT pack itself is released on Sell2Wales to suppliers who note interest, so the quality sub-questions, word limits and insurance levels are marked “to confirm” rather than filled in. Bidwright does this same triage on a customer’s own tenders, from the documents they drop in.

Money values were converted from the notice’s pounds sterling at $1.32 to the pound on 13 November 2026.

Pricing

$149 per tender. That is the whole price list.

$149per tender, one-off

The price is published, in full, on this page. No quote to request, no discovery call, no sales conversation, no “it depends on the size of the document”. Bid consultancies quote per project and the AI bid tools won’t tell you what they cost until you talk to them. You should be able to read the number and decide.

There is no subscription. A firm that bids five times a year should pay for five tenders, not twelve months.

Pay $149 and start my triage Or hand us the tender first

Payment is by card on Stripe. Pay first and reply with the tender, or send the tender and pay from the confirmation. Either order works, and the price is the same.

What’s included

The go/no-go call
A straight verdict on whether this tender fits what you do, with the reasons behind it: scope, scale, geography, accreditations, the way it's scored.
Every mandatory requirement
Each pass/fail requirement quoted word for word, with the page it came from. Insurances, certificates, turnover thresholds, named staff, page limits, submission rules.
The response outline, mapped to the scoring
Every scored question broken into the points the buyer is awarding marks for, in their weighting, with a word budget and the evidence you'll need to bring.
A document you can work from
Delivered by email as one written triage. Not a login, not a dashboard, not a chat transcript to copy out.

What’s not included

Writing the bid response. We finish the first day; the week is still yours.
Your price, your commercial strategy, or the final submission.
Uploading to the portal, answering clarifications, or attending the buyer's sessions.
More than one tender. Each tender is a separate $149.
A subscription, an account to log into, or ongoing support.

$149, one tender

Hand us a tender.

Give us the notice link or paste the tender text in, with the deadline. We read it, and you get the go/no-go, the mandatory checklist and the scored outline back by email.

· One tender, $149, no subscription.
· Pay by card on Stripe, before you send or after.
· No file uploads: a link or the text is enough.
· No card details on this page. Payment happens on Stripe’s own checkout.

We use your email for this tender and nothing else. No newsletter, no sales sequence.