Bid Pricing Mistakes That Lose Contracts
Most lost bids are not lost on price alone — they are lost on the bid pricing mistakes hiding inside the price. A bid can be too high, too low, or internally inconsistent, and each of those failures traces back to a small number of repeatable errors. The good news is that these errors are […]
What Are Indirect Rates? A Beginner’s Guide
Ask a new federal contractor what their bid price is made of and they will usually talk about salaries and hours. Ask an experienced one and they will talk about rates — because in government contracting, the indirect rates you apply to your direct costs can add half as much again to your price, or […]
How to Price a Government Contract Bid
Pricing is where many small contractors lose a contract they were otherwise qualified to win. Price too high and you are out on value; price too low and you either lose money on every hour of the contract or get flagged as unrealistic and lose on technical risk. Learning how to price a government contract […]
How to Use Past Award Data to Price Your Bid
Pricing is where most new federal contractors lose money — either by bidding too high and losing, or by bidding too low and winning a contract that bleeds cash for years. The antidote is past award data: the prices the government has actually paid for similar work, published for free in FPDS and USAspending.gov. A […]