Costs
Hosting a tender is free, bidding costs credits and unsuccessful bids are largely refunded, and both sides of an awarded tender earn credits back for giving feedback.
Figures live on the pricing page
Rates are configured centrally and change, so no amounts are printed here. The current figures for every action are on the pricing page.
Per action
| Action | Party | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting a tender | Host | Free |
| Placing a bid | Responder | Charge |
| Lost bid | Responder | Refund |
Rates resolve at the moment of charge, so a change never reprices a bid already placed.
What gets earned back
Credits also run the other way, and here both sides earn the same way.
| Action | Who earns |
|---|---|
| Giving feedback when the engagement closes | The host |
| Giving feedback when the engagement closes | The awarded bidder |
When an awarded tender is closed, each side is asked to rate the other. Submitting that earns credits into your wallet, whichever side you were on, and you earn for your own feedback whether or not the other party submits theirs.
Only the two parties who actually dealt
Feedback comes from the host and the bidder who won. A declined bidder never transacted with the host, so there is nothing to report and nothing to earn — which is exactly what stops the rating from being farmable.
Feedback is work, and it is asked at the point where there is nothing left in it for you: the contract is done and the commercially interesting part is over. That is precisely when people stop, and a platform whose reputation data depends on goodwill collects only the delighted and the furious. So the effort is paid, and what you earn funds the next thing you do here.
The credits are for submitting feedback, not for what it says. A rating inflated to be kind earns exactly the same and is worth nothing to the next host reading it.
Why hosting is free
The constraint on private procurement is not that hosting is expensive — it is that nobody bothers to run a structured process at all. Charging to host would make the informal three-phone-calls version cheaper, which is the behaviour this tool exists to replace.
Why bidding costs, and mostly refunds
A bid that costs nothing is a bid worth nothing: the host ends up comparing speculative submissions from businesses that will not do the work. A charge filters that.
Refunding most of it when the bid is not accepted keeps the net cost of losing low. Bidding here is not a lottery ticket you buy each time — the cost falls mostly on engagements that actually happen.
Compared to EMD
Public tenders use EMD — a refundable deposit, often a percentage of contract value, which ties up working capital for the length of the process, plus a non-refundable tender fee just to see the document.
Here there is no tender fee, no charge to view, and no deposit to arrange with a bank. Credits do the same job — making a bid cost something — without an instrument.
How a tender progresses
A tender moves from draft to open to closed, and each bid on it has its own life — submitted, shortlisted, accepted, declined or withdrawn. What each state means for both sides.
FAQ
Common questions about hosting and bidding — who can take part, what it costs, and how awards are recorded.