What's a good win rate for public tenders?

There's no universal number. A 10% rate earned with low-cost bids can be more profitable than a 50% rate earned at the price of enormous effort per file. What counts isn't the rate alone, but the margin on the contracts you win measured against the total time invested across your bids.

How do you increase your win rate on public tenders?

By acting upstream first: choosing the calls for tenders you respond to more wisely (a go/no-go process), concentrating on the contracts where you have a real edge. Then comes flawless compliance, then adjusting price and quality to the award method. Screening upstream is by far the most effective lever.

Should you bid on as many calls for tenders as possible?

Not necessarily. Bidding on everything scatters your effort and often drags down profitability. The right question isn't "is this contract winnable?" but "is it the best use of my bidding hours?". For many businesses, responding to fewer but better-chosen calls for tenders improves both the win rate and the profit.

How do I find out why I lost a bid?

Start with the opening and award results on SEAO: they name the tenderers and, for price-only calls for tenders, the amounts submitted. If your bid is rejected for ineligibility or non-compliance, the public body must tell you why. For calls for tenders with a quality evaluation, request feedback within the set deadlines: you can obtain your results by criterion and the reasons you weren't retained. Ranking isn't guaranteed feedback in every file, but a few losses analyzed beat a year of intuition.

What Tender Win Rate Should You Aim For? The Real Question Isn't the One You Think

The essentials in 30 seconds

There's no universal 'ideal' win rate: a low rate on many low-cost bids can be more profitable than a high rate earned by holding back.
The real metric isn't the win rate alone, but profitability measured against bidding effort: what each hour you invest brings back.
You improve your rate less by bidding better than by choosing better: a solid go/no-go screen beats any writing trick.

Plenty of tenderers hunt for the magic number: "what win rate should I aim for?" It's a trap question. A win rate can't be judged in a vacuum: it means nothing without the strategy that produces it.

Why there's no universal "good" rate

Picture two businesses. The first bids on 40 calls for tenders a year and wins 4: a win rate of 10%. The second targets 8, carefully chosen, and wins 4: a win rate of 50%. Which one performs better?

Impossible to say without the rest. If the first company's bids cost it little effort, its 4 contracts are pure profit for a low prospecting cost. If the second spent considerable time on each of its 8 bids, its flattering rate may hide a high cost per bid. On its own, the win rate is a misleading indicator.

Info

Two legitimate philosophies, two very different rates:

Volume: bid often, on standardized files that are cheap to produce. Low win rate, but profitable at scale.
Selectivity: target few contracts, where you have a clear edge, with heavy effort per file. High win rate, profitable through concentration.

Neither is "the right one". Yours depends on your cost structure and your competitive advantage.

The metric that actually counts

Rather than the win rate on its own, track the return on your bidding effort: the margin generated by the contracts you win, measured against the total time invested across all your bids (won and lost). That's the measure that answers the real question ("is bidding paying off for me?") and tells you whether to bid more, less, or differently.

This logic sheds light on a counterintuitive decision: turning down a contract you could win, because the effort it demands is better spent elsewhere. The right call is never "is this contract winnable?" but "is this contract the best use of my bidding hours?".

Where to act: choose better before bidding better

Most businesses try to raise their win rate by improving their bids. That helps, but it's secondary. The most often neglected lever sits upstream: choosing the calls for tenders you respond to more wisely.

A rigorous screen (a genuine go/no-go process) weeds out the contracts where you have no edge, where the competition is too entrenched, or where a single requirement puts you at a disadvantage. Concentrating your effort on the files where you're genuinely competitive mechanically raises both your rate and your profitability. To build that screen, the public record of past awards is your best ally: it reveals who wins what, at what price level, and in which sectors the competition is manageable. That's the whole point of our article on how to analyze the competition before bidding.

The three levers of improvement, in order

Checklist

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The screen (go/no-go): only respond to contracts where you have an identifiable edge. This is lever number one.
Compliance: a file rejected on an administrative ground is a win rate thrown away for nothing. Start by eliminating the mistakes that get bids rejected: it's the easiest gain of all.
Positioning: tailor price and quality to the award method. Playing the value card on a lowest-price contract, or slashing your price on a quality-price contract, wastes effort without serving the deciding criterion.

Notice the order: you screen first (respond only to what's relevant), you secure compliance (don't lose foolishly), and only then do you fine-tune the offer. Reverse that order and you'll be polishing bids you should never have submitted.

Learning from your losses

Every lost bid is data. Start with the opening and award results published on SEAO: they name the tenderers and, for price-only calls for tenders, the amounts submitted. If your bid was rejected because it was ineligible or non-compliant, the public body must tell you why. And when a quality evaluation is involved, you can, in the cases provided for, request feedback on your own evaluation: your score, results by criterion, and a brief statement of why you weren't retained. Your exact ranking, though, isn't guaranteed feedback in every file. A few losses analyzed tell you more about your positioning than any hunch. Keep a log of your bids: over a few months, the recurring patterns show you exactly where to act.

Tip

Measure first, judge second. Many businesses don't even know their real win rate. Start by tracking it, along with the time invested per file and the margin on the contracts you win. You can only improve what you measure, and the simple act of measuring already changes your bidding decisions.

What to remember

Don't chase the "ideal" win rate: it doesn't exist. A low rate can be highly profitable; a high rate can hide wasted effort. Track the return on your bidding effort instead, and improve it first through a better screen of the calls for tenders, then through flawless compliance, and finally through positioning tailored to the award method. The tenderer who progresses isn't the one who responds to everything, it's the one who knows what not to respond to.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Principles of public-tender bidding strategy (selecting calls for tenders, return on effort, post-mortem analysis).
Act respecting contracting by public bodies (CQLR, c. C-65.1): award methods and information to tenderers.
Electronic tendering system (SEAO), seao.gouv.qc.ca: public award results (source for competitive analysis).

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