Comparing and awarding
What arrives while a tender is open, how shortlisting narrows it, what to compare beyond price, and what happens at the moment you accept a bid.
Bids arrive in the structure you defined. What you do with them is the part that justifies having run a tender at all.
While it is open
Bids come in and only you can see them. Bidders cannot see each other's prices, which is what stops a tender from becoming a reverse auction you did not ask for.
You can leave the window to close on its own, or close it yourself when you have enough. Closing early is fair if the deadline was honest; extending it because a particular bidder has not responded is not, and bidders notice.
Shortlisting
Marking a bid as shortlisted says it is still in contention.
On a tender with a dozen bids this is what makes the comparison tractable — it separates the three you are seriously weighing from the nine that are out, without declining anyone before you are sure.
Several bids can be shortlisted at once. It is not a promise, and bidders are told it is not.
Comparing on more than price
The cheapest bid wins by default only if you compare nothing else. What is actually in front of you:
| Price | The amount, and the rate and unit it resolves to |
| Their specifications | Answering the fields you set — this is the comparable part |
| Payment terms | What they propose, against what you asked for |
| Their description | Everything the fields could not carry |
| Their standing | Rating and completed engagements on the platform |
Compare the specification fields first, price second
A price is only meaningful once you know it is for the same thing. Two bids differing by thirty percent usually differ by scope, and the field-by-field comparison is where that shows up.
Reading a suspiciously low bid
It is usually one of four things, and only one of them is good news:
- They are genuinely more efficient. It happens. Their specification answers will match yours in full.
- They priced a smaller scope. Check the fields, not the total.
- They intend to make it up in variations. Common on fixed-price work with a soft specification.
- They cannot deliver at that price and do not know it yet. The most expensive outcome available to you.
The specification comparison distinguishes the first from the rest.
Awarding
Accepting a bid is the moment the relationship becomes real:
- Contact details are exchanged. Not before.
- The decision is on record, along with the criteria that were fixed before any bid arrived.
- The other bidders are declined, and most of what they spent bidding is refunded.
Declining well
Declining costs the bidder little and costs you nothing, but how you decline decides whether they bid on your next one.
You do not have to publish a scoring matrix. A decision made against criteria set beforehand is defensible on its own terms, and saying so is enough.
Not awarding at all
A tender can close with nothing awarded. The requirement changed, the budget went, or nothing that came back was acceptable.
That is a legitimate outcome, and it is better than awarding something you do not want because you feel obliged to have a winner. Close it and say so.
After the award
The commercial relationship is yours from here — contract, delivery, payment. What Bidancer established is that both sides are verified, that the criteria were fixed in advance, and that the award is recorded.
Closing it, and saying how it went
When the engagement is finished, close it and rate the supplier you dealt with. They rate you back.
Submitting that earns credits into your wallet, and the same for them — each side earns for its own feedback, independently. Only the two of you can give it: a declined bidder never transacted with you, which is what keeps the ratings worth reading.
It is also the thing that makes everyone else's eligibility rules work. Minimum rating and minimum completed engagements are only meaningful because hosts and bidders actually close and rate their work. See Costs.
Budget and payment
Whether to show your budget, what each visibility option actually does to the bids you get, and how the pricing model and payment terms shape what comes back.
Overview
Bidding on someone else's tender — checking you actually qualify, deciding whether it is worth the fee, and what comes back when you lose.