The Construction Bid Prep
Checklist: 12 Things to Confirm.

Most lost bids aren't lost on price. They're lost — or won ugly, at a margin that hurts — on something that slipped through prep. Run this list before you hit submit.

1. Confirm you're bidding the current addendum set. Cross-check every addendum against your takeoff. A missed addendum is the single most common source of last-minute scope surprises.
2. Reconcile drawings against specs. When they disagree — and they eventually will — know which one governs and document the assumption you priced.
3. Verify your takeoff quantities against the plan markup. Don't just trust the spreadsheet total; spot-check a sample of line items against the actual sheets.
4. Check waste and overage factors are applied consistently. Different trades carry different standard waste percentages — make sure they weren't left at a generic default.
5. Confirm sub and vendor quotes are current, not stale. Material pricing moves. A quote pulled three weeks ago may no longer reflect what you'll actually pay.
6. Apply your markups deliberately, not by habit. Overhead, profit, and contingency should reflect this project's actual risk — not just "what we always use."
7. Verify bonding and insurance requirements are met. A technically low bid that's disqualified on a bonding technicality is worse than not bidding at all.
8. Confirm the submission format matches what's required. Sealed bid, electronic portal, specific form — an otherwise-winning bid can be thrown out on a formatting miss.
9. Double-check the deadline — time zone included. "5:00 PM" means the owner's time zone, not yours.
10. List every exclusion and clarification explicitly. Anything you assumed but didn't price should be written down, not left implied.
11. Get a second set of eyes on the final number. A colleague who didn't build the estimate will catch things you're now too close to see.
12. Keep your backup documentation organized and dated. If you're asked to justify the number post-bid, you want your takeoff, quotes, and markups ready to hand over — not reconstructed from memory.

Most of this list exists because estimating errors compound under deadline pressure — see why bids actually get lost for the patterns behind each of these. If step 3 is the one that eats your time every bid cycle, that's exactly the piece our estimating service is built to take off your plate.