Bid or no bid is the decision that quietly sets your win rate before you write a word. Most SMEs get it wrong in the same direction: they bid everything that looks winnable and wonder why they win one in ten. The maths is unforgiving. A serious tender response costs 30 to 60 hours. Bid ten contests at a 10% win rate and you have spent 500 hours winning one contract. Bid four well chosen contests at a 50% win rate and you have won two contracts with a third of the effort. The firms that seem to win everything are not better writers. They are better quitters.
This is the 20 minute bid or no bid framework we recommend, built for UK public sector tenders and sharpened by what the award data actually shows, July 2026.
Why you need a written bid or no bid rule
Because the alternative is mood. Without a rule, the decision gets made by whoever is most excited in the room, usually about revenue, never about probability. A written scorecard does two jobs: it kills doomed bids on Tuesday instead of after 50 hours of writing, and it forces you to collect the intelligence that wins the bids you do enter.
The test is simple. If you cannot answer the questions below in 20 minutes, that is itself the answer: you do not know this buyer or this contract well enough to win it this cycle. No bid, and start preparing for the next cycle instead.
The seven questions that decide it
Score each from 0 to 3. Under 14 total, walk away.
1. Did you know this was coming? If the tender surprised you, you are already behind the suppliers who saw it forming. Contracts telegraph themselves months out, which is the entire argument of our guide to finding contracts before they are tendered. Surprise is a 0. Six months of warning and a prepared case is a 3. 2. Do you know the incumbent and their score? Every contract has a story: who holds it, what they charge, whether the buyer is happy. Finding the incumbent takes ten minutes on public data. Bidding without doing it is fighting blindfolded. 3. Can you evidence every requirement, today? Not "we could get the accreditation." Have it, or have the named subcontractor who has it. Evaluators score evidence, not intentions. 4. Is the value band yours? Buyers score credibility against scale. If the contract is £2 million a year and your turnover is £800,000, financial assessment will hurt you regardless of quality. As a working rule, chase contracts up to roughly half your annual turnover. The median award in cleaning and facilities is around £160,000, which is why we call it SME sized money. 5. Do you have a real differentiator? "Quality service and competitive price" is what all ten bidders say. A 3 means you can complete this sentence: "We are the only bidder who..." If the sentence has no honest ending, the evaluators will notice too. 6. Is the social value case ready? At 10% to 20% of the score, social value swings tight contests. Commitments you can evidence score; commitments invented at 11pm on deadline night do not. 7. Can you deliver it profitably at a winning price? Model the price that wins, not the price you want. If winning requires a margin you cannot live with, the win is a loss with paperwork.
The three no bids that feel like yes
Some contests fail the scorecard in ways that specifically seduce SMEs. Name them so you can dodge them.
- The prestige bid. A famous buyer, a big number, a story for the website. Prestige does not compound; capability does. If you score 9 on the card, the logo on the tender does not change the maths.
- The incumbent's coronation. Ten year incumbent, satisfied buyer, spec written around their delivery model. Some retenders are genuinely open. This one is a procurement formality, and everyone knows except the bidders. The tell: a spec so specific only one firm on earth matches it.
- The desperation bid. Pipeline is thin, so standards drop. This is exactly backwards. Thin pipeline means your hours are scarcer, so the bar should rise. Fix the pipeline problem with better deal flow, not worse bets.
No bid does not mean goodbye
The most valuable output of a no bid is the diary entry. This contract will retender in three or four years, and now you know the buyer, the incumbent, the value and the award date. That is everything you need to win it next time, if you start early: meet the buyer at month minus nine, build the pre tender relationship, get the evidence and social value receipts in place, and walk into the next cycle as the prepared challenger instead of the surprised outsider.
Firms that run this loop convert no bids into future wins at a rate that embarrasses their old scattergun numbers. The no bid is not lost revenue. It is deferred revenue with a date on it.
Frequently asked questions
What win rate should an SME target?
Above 30% on submitted bids. Below 20% means your bid or no bid filter is broken, not your writing. Tighten the filter before you hire a bid writer.
How long should the decision take?
Twenty minutes with the scorecard, once you have the incumbent and buyer intelligence to hand. Gathering that intelligence is the real work, and it is reusable across every future decision on that buyer.
Should I bid to "get on the buyer's radar"?
No. A weak bid tells the buyer you produce weak bids; evaluators remember names. Meet buyers through engagement events and pre market conversations instead. Losing deliberately is the most expensive marketing there is.
Who should make the final call?
Whoever owns the delivery P&L, using the scorecard, in writing. If sales enthusiasm can override the score, you do not have a framework, you have a suggestion box.
Does this apply to frameworks and DPS applications too?
Yes, with one twist: framework places are four year assets, so score them on the pipeline they unlock, not the first contract. A marginal single tender is a no bid; a marginal framework place can still be a yes.
What does a good bid or no bid meeting look like?
Fifteen minutes, three people maximum, scorecard on screen, decision minuted with the score attached. Review the scores quarterly against results: if bids scoring 16 keep losing, your scoring is flattering you somewhere, usually on question five. The discipline compounds fast. After two quarters you will have a private dataset showing exactly which buyers, values and contest types you convert, which is intelligence no competitor can buy.
Sources and references
- Contracts Finder and Find a Tender award histories
- AtlasRevenue desk award data, July 2026
- Cabinet Office guidance on procurement evaluation under the Procurement Act 2023
Question one is the whole game: did you know it was coming? AtlasRevenue's desks track live tenders, incumbents and contract end dates, so the next contest arrives with your name already in the diary. Run a scan and stop being surprised.
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