Why does bid-hit rate matter?
Every bid spends estimating time, and most bids lose. A survey of 2014 UK construction bids by MarketingWorks, a work-winning consultancy, with Professor Will Hughes of the University of Reading, put bid costs at 0.57 percent of project value across winning and losing bids, based on 118 respondents with cost data. The median job drew five bidders, so four firms priced work they did not get. Bid cost ran highest as a share of value on projects under £5 million. The authors say the sample supports general statements only.
Few contractors measure the rate. George Hedley, a consultant who sells bidding training to contractors, reported in a 2008 column posted by the Mason Contractors Association of America that fewer than 6 percent of more than 2,000 construction and design-build companies he surveyed knew and tracked their ratio. He gives no survey date or method. A company that does not count its bids cannot see where its estimating hours go.
What questions raise your bid-hit rate?
Six questions, and one that sits under all of them.
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Which jobs did we bid last year that we had little chance of winning, and why did we bid them?
Long shots get priced for reasons that have little to do with winning. The estimators had open time, or an invitation arrived and nobody said no. Crowded jobs lengthen the odds. In a 2013 survey of 442 heavy civil contractors by HCSS, an estimating software vendor polling its own customers, 60 percent said a typical 2012 bid drew six to ten bidders, and 40 percent said bidder counts had risen from the year before. Listen for a reason written next to each long shot. A reason that names the customer is a decision. A reason that names the estimators' workload is a habit.
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What do the jobs we win have in common?
Start with the won jobs and let them describe what the company is built to win. In a 2017 peer-reviewed study of 39 building bids at one Danish general contractor, Baris Bekdik and Christian Thuesen found that work with the same client in the previous ten years was part of both combinations of conditions they linked to winning. By itself it was never enough, and the authors warn that their results are "very much context dependent." Listen for an answer built from the record, sorted by customer, type of work, job size and the person who owned the relationship. Answers from memory tend to describe the jobs the team wishes it won.
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Do we know who decides on the customer side before we price?
A bid lands with a person who has a reason to change contractors or a reason to stay put. In Cleaning & Maintenance Management magazine's 2017 benchmarking survey, 91 percent of 270 building service contractors said their new accounts typically came from replacing another janitorial firm. A bid to a new customer asks someone to reverse a choice they already made. Listen for a name and a role for the person who awards the work, and for what that person wants changed. A facility manager and a procurement office can read the same bid in different ways.
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Why did we lose the last five bids we lost?
Price is the most common answer. In the 2014 UK survey, price-related reasons made up about half of the reasons given for losses and almost a third of those given for wins, and the reason was unknown for 15 percent of losses. The authors grouped open-ended answers into categories themselves. Listen for whether each reason came from the customer or from the team's own guess. On public work, compare your number with the published bid results before settling on price as the cause.
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How much estimating time goes to bids we never had a chance at?
Many companies cannot say. In the same UK survey, 61 of the 179 participants supplied detailed bid data and still could not estimate the time or cost of their bids. Losing bids averaged 0.48 percent of project value in bid cost and winning bids 0.65 percent, an association the survey did not test for cause. Listen for hours recorded by bid as the work happens. Then listen for how many of those hours went to the jobs named in the first question.
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Do we count the rate the same way in every branch and type of work?
One company-wide rate blends work that behaves differently. In that 2008 column, Hedley gives general contractors separate ranges for public bid work, private bid work, negotiated work and design-build work, labeled as averages he observed and published without a method. On his figures, public bids win far less often than negotiated work. Some branches count jobs while others count dollars, and some treat a renewed service agreement as a win while others leave renewals out. Listen for one definition used everywhere, with the rate reported by type of work and by customer.
"Which of the bids on our list this month would we decline if we were honest?"
This question sits under the others because it turns last year's record into this month's choices. The answers above name the kinds of jobs the company wins and the kinds it prices out of habit. A team that can spot those jobs on this month's bid list, and still bids them all, has learned something about how it decides.
What are the signs your bid list is disciplined?
Good signs
- Every job on the bid list has a written reason for pursuing it before estimating starts.
- The team can name the person who awards each job.
- Lost bids carry a reason from the customer, kept with the bid results.
- The rate is reported by type of work and by customer, under one definition across branches.
- The company looks as hard at its customers as those customers look at contractors during prequalification.
Warning signs
- Estimators decide what to bid based on their own workload.
- Price is the only loss reason anyone records.
- The company reports one hit rate for all of its work.
- Nobody knows how many hours went into last quarter's lost bids.
- The same owner has received bids for years with no award and no conversation.
Case study Fictitious numbers
A PE-backed commercial mechanical contractor runs service and project work out of three branches. Last year its estimators priced 140 bids, and the company won 21, about one in seven. The owner sorted the full list by one fact, whether anyone on the team had spoken with the person who would award the work before the job was priced.
The split was plain to see. Fifty bids had that conversation behind them, and the company won 16 of them. Ninety came from plan rooms and bid invitations with no contact, and it won 5. That second group made up nearly two-thirds of everything the estimators priced.
- Won
- Lost, with a reason from the customer
- Lost, reason recorded as price
Nearly two-thirds of the estimators' work went to bids that won 5 jobs.
The loss reasons told the same story. On the 90, the only reason anyone recorded was price. On the 50, the losing bids carried reasons from the customer, such as a scope the team had read differently or an incumbent the facility manager wanted to keep.
Nobody set a new target rate. The owner put the month's bid list on the table and asked which jobs the team would decline if it were honest. The estimators started naming them before the meeting ended.
FAQ
What is a bid-hit ratio?
It is the number of bids a company submits for each one it wins. George Hedley, writing in ForConstructionPros in March 2012, explains that a 5:1 ratio means one award for every five jobs bid or proposed, which is a 20 percent hit rate. Some companies count jobs and some count dollars, so check how a number was counted before comparing it with your own.
What is a good bid-hit ratio for contractors?
No audited benchmark exists. The most repeated ranges come from consultant George Hedley's 2008 and 2012 columns, labeled as averages he observed. For general contractors he lists one win in six to ten public bids and one in four to six private bids. Negotiated work runs one in two to four. He cites thousands of companies surveyed and no method. A 2010 ENR column credited similar ranges to unnamed reports, and data vendor ConstructConnect called them directional guidance in 2026.
Does bidding fewer jobs raise the hit rate?
It can, if you drop the long shots. In a May 2025 survey of nearly 700 North American architecture and engineering firms, Deltek found proposal volume down 38 percent and the value of awarded work up 52 percent from the year before. The median win rate rose to 50 percent, and "fit for the type of work" overtook relationships as the top factor in pursuit decisions. Deltek is a software vendor, and the survey does not test cause.
Can you find out why you lost a public bid?
Often, yes. Under the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR 14.402-1), federal sealed bids are opened in public and read aloud when practical, and interested persons may examine them. On negotiated federal contracts, FAR 15.506 lets an offeror request a debriefing in writing within three days of award notice, covering significant weaknesses in its proposal and a summary of the rationale for award. State and local rules vary, so check the owner's procurement code.
Is a higher hit rate always better?
A rate on its own says nothing about whether the work was worth winning. Hedley notes that negotiated work brings higher hit rates but more spending on preconstruction and customer development, and he says the trade-offs usually balance out at the bottom line. The 2010 ENR column advises tracking the ratio alongside profit data. A rate that climbs while margins fall points at pricing.
Sources
- Bid Cost Survey Blog 1: Bid Cost as % of Project Value (Philip Collard, MarketingWorks, a work-winning consultancy, on Constructing Excellence, January 2016, 2014 UK data) checked 10 Oct 2026
- Bid Cost Survey Blog 2: Improving the win rate (Philip Collard, MarketingWorks, on Constructing Excellence, February 2016, 2014 UK data) checked 10 Oct 2026
- 2013 State of Estimating survey (HCSS, vendor research, 442 heavy civil contractors among its customers, 2012 bidding) checked 10 Oct 2026
- Untangling the Complexities of Successful Tendering Practices (Baris Bekdik and Christian Thuesen, Engineering Project Organization Journal, peer-reviewed, October 2017) checked 10 Oct 2026
- 2017 BSC/Contract Cleaning Benchmarking Survey (Kelly F. Zimmerman, Cleaning & Maintenance Management, trade magazine survey, 2017) checked 10 Oct 2026
- How is Your 'Bid-Hit' Ratio? (George Hedley, consultant column, Mason Contractors Association of America, 2008) checked 10 Oct 2026
- Is Your Bid-Hit Ratio OK? (George Hedley, consultant column, ForConstructionPros, March 2012) checked 10 Oct 2026
- Bid-Hit Ratios Provide Valuable Road Map (Leslie V. Guajardo, CPA, ENR, January 2010) checked 10 Oct 2026
- What Good Bid-Hit Ratios Look Like for Commercial GCs in 2026 (ConstructConnect, vendor, August 2026) checked 10 Oct 2026
- What the 46th Annual Deltek Clarity A&E Study Reveals About the Industry (Deltek, vendor research, May 2025) checked 10 Oct 2026
- FAR 14.402-1, Opening of bids (Federal Acquisition Regulation) checked 10 Oct 2026
- FAR 15.506, Postaward debriefing of offerors (Federal Acquisition Regulation) checked 10 Oct 2026