What is bid-hit rate?
Bid-hit rate is the share of submitted bids that are won, counted by number of bids or by dollar value. Contractors often state it as a ratio instead: a 5-to-1 bid-hit ratio means one award for every five bids, a 20% hit rate. It applies to construction bids, retrofit proposals and agreement tenders alike.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
Every bid costs estimating hours, site walks and seller time, so hit rate measures how well the company chooses what to chase as much as how well it prices. Construction business coach George Hedley recommends tracking it by customer, job type and size, and in dollars as well as counts, because a blended number hides where the company wins. For a revenue leader, a falling hit rate with steady bid volume usually points to weaker qualification, thinner relationships or pricing drift, and it shows up before backlog shrinks.
How to calculate it
Bid-hit rate = bids won ÷ bids submitted and decided, for the same period. Dollar version: value won ÷ value bid.
Common mistake: leaving pending bids or cancelled projects in the denominator, which makes the rate look worse than it is.
Example
Fictitious numbersA mechanical contractor submitted 120 bids last year and won 24, a 20% hit rate. By dollars it bid $36 million and won $4.5 million, a 12.5% rate. The gap shows the team wins smaller jobs and loses most of the large ones.
"Which customers have we bid five or more times without a win, and why do we keep bidding them?"
Sources
- You Must Know Your Bid-Hit-Win Ratio (Metal Construction News) checked 9 Oct 2026
- Use Your Bid as Bait To Win More Work! (STI/SPFA) checked 9 Oct 2026