Bid due dates and estimating workload: planning the week

A commercial bid has more deadlines than its due date: the pre-bid meeting or site walk, the question deadline, the last addendum, your own supplier quote requests, the time the GC wants subcontractor numbers — often hours to a day before its own deadline — and how long your price must stay valid. Plan estimating work backward from the earliest of these, and cap how many bids you take on each week.

By Michael Reddy, IntelBid

After this lesson you can

List every deadline on a commercial bid, not just the due date
Plan takeoff and pricing backward from when the GC needs your number
Match the bids you accept to your real estimating capacity

What dates matter on a commercial bid?

Date	Why it matters	Where to find it
Pre-bid meeting or site walk	Some are mandatory — skipping one can disqualify your bid	Invitation or instructions to bidders
Question (RFI) deadline	After it, you can't get official answers — only qualify your assumptions	Instructions to bidders or invitation
Last addendum	Can change the scope after your takeoff	The addenda; the platform's project page
Your supplier quote requests	Material pricing, lead times and freight take days to come back	Your own schedule — you set it
Sub bid due time	When this GC wants your number, often earlier than its own bid	The GC's invitation
GC bid due to owner	The project's hard deadline; late GC bids are usually rejected	Instructions to bidders
Bid validity period	How long your price must stay open for acceptance	Bid form, instructions, or your proposal

Check the time and the time zone, not just the date

“Due 2:00 PM” means 2:00 PM where the project is. On an out-of-state job that may not be your office's clock. Platforms usually show the local time; emails often don't say.

How do you plan backward from the due time?

Start from the moment the GC needs your number and work back through each step:

Submit with a buffer
Aim to send your proposal a few hours before the GC's subcontractor deadline. Numbers that arrive late often don't make the bid tab.
Final review
Scope, exclusions, addenda acknowledged, math checked. Block real time for it — it's where expensive mistakes get caught.
Pricing
Labor, material, overhead and profit (Modules 5 and 6). It depends on supplier quotes being back.
Supplier quotes
Request them as soon as products and quantities are known. They're often the longest wait in the whole process.
Takeoff
Measure the job (Module 4), after the bid decision and a first read of the documents.
Document review and questions
Read the finish schedule and specs early enough to ask questions before the RFI deadline.

Working back from a Thursday 2 PM deadlineWorked example · illustrative numbers

GC wants sub numbers by: Thursday, 2:00 PM
Your submit target: Thursday, 10:00 AM
Supplier quote turnaround: About 2 business days
Takeoff time for this job: About half a day

Final review and send: Thursday morning.
Pricing: Wednesday afternoon, once supplier quotes are back.
Supplier quote requests out by Monday afternoon, to be back Wednesday.
Takeoff finished by Monday midday, so quantities can go to suppliers.
Document review, bid decision and questions: the Friday before.

A bid due Thursday needs to start the previous Friday. If the invitation shows up Tuesday, you're already late on supplier pricing — and that belongs in your bid-or-no-bid decision.

Start herePlanned backward from the deadline ←

Friday before
- Read the documents
- Bid or no-bid
- Send questions
Monday
- Takeoff done by midday
- Supplier quote requests out
Tuesday
- Quotes out — about 2 business days
Wednesday
- Quotes back
- Price the job
Thursday
- 10:00 AM review and send
- 2:00 PM GC's sub deadline

Supplier quotes are the longest wait, so they decide when you have to start. An invitation that arrives Tuesday is already late.

The same Thursday 2 PM deadline, planned backward day by day.

How many bids can you take on?

Estimating capacity is finite. Compare the bids due each week with the hours your estimators actually have after site walks, change orders, submittals and everything else they do.

Measure your own takeoff and pricing time for small, medium and large jobs for a month. Use your numbers, not a rule of thumb.
Look a week or two ahead, not just at today. Four large bids due the same Thursday is a problem you can see coming on Monday.
When a week is full, decline early instead of rushing everything. A rushed bid that wins can lose money for a year.
Protect bids for your best GCs. When capacity is short, your bid-or-no-bid scores decide what gets cut.

Bid validity: your price has an expiry date

Bid forms often state how long a price must remain valid — 30, 60 or 90 days are common choices. If the award comes later than that, material prices and your schedule may have changed. State a validity period on your own proposals, and when a GC comes back after it has lapsed, re-confirm your pricing before accepting.

What is a bid validity period?

It's how long your bid price must remain open for acceptance, usually stated on the bid form or in your proposal. After it expires you can re-confirm or revise your price.

Why do GCs want subcontractor bids before their own deadline?

They need time to compare subcontractor numbers, fill gaps and assemble their own bid, so many set a subcontractor deadline hours to a day ahead of their bid to the owner.

How far ahead should I start a bid?

Work backward from the GC's subcontractor deadline through final review, pricing, supplier quotes, takeoff and document review. Supplier quote turnaround is often what sets the real start date.

Key points

The sub deadline and the question deadline matter as much as the bid date.
Plan backward — supplier quotes usually set the real start date.
Match accepted bids to measured estimating capacity.

In IntelBid · Intake and bids

Due dates pulled out for you

IntelBid reads the bid due date out of each invitation as it arrives — including invitations relayed through bid platforms — so deadlines sit on the bid instead of buried in individual emails. The proposals and follow-ups for that bid live in the same place, so what's due and what's already sent are never in two systems.

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About the author. Michael Reddy builds IntelBid, bid management software for commercial flooring subcontractors. These lessons come from the bid desk: how the work is priced, won and paid for.