The bid-day matchup

The bid-day matchup (Estimating Intelligence > Competitors) compares the rivals you expect against your company's recorded bid tabs: how often each one beat you, by how much, and what markup gave you a fair chance. It is a modelled comparison from history, not a verified outcome.

Run a matchup#

1. Competitors: type every rival you know of, separated by commas. Aliases resolve against your competitor history ("Rival A Inc" and "Rival A" are the same firm once merged; see Data quality).
2. Your cost basis (optional): your estimated cost before markup.
3. Cost-basis source: Estimate (real cost basis), when the number comes from your estimate, or Budget-grade placeholder, a stand-in for scale. With a placeholder the dollar figures are hidden; the win odds do not depend on the dollars.
4. Bidder-list source: where the rival list came from.
   • Confirmed bidders or Plan-holder list: a document names them.
   • Estimator supplied: you named the field.
   • Proxy from history: assembled from the region and building-use history. It is marked ASSUMED wherever it is used, and it can never be the reason for a no-go.
5. Building use (optional): for example school or office, to lean on comparable jobs.
6. Click Run matchup. Clear empties the form.

With a real cost basis, the comparison uses past bids where your cost was between half and double it.

Reading the result#

• The chart and the verdict card: the modelled chance of beating the whole field at each markup, the markup crux would carry if one clears every rival, and the rival that binds (the one hardest to beat). If no profitable markup clears every recorded rival, the recommendation is refused, and the card says why. If the answer does not add up, it is withheld.
• The rival table: each rival's threat, its history against you and the evidence behind it.
• Full modelled curve: for each profit carried (from −8% to +15%), the modelled bid, the field probability and the expected margin.
• Two labels say which bidder-list source and cost basis the result used.

Careful: A matchup is historical evidence, budget-grade. It informs your markup; it never sets it. The markup is your call.

Competitor history#

Below the matchup, Competitor history lists every rival on file: bids, jobs won (recorded awards, not a matchup percentage) and their average bid against yours, with how many comparable bids that average rests on. Search competitors filters the list; click a column to sort.

Click a rival to open its competitor profile:

• bids on file, how many were shared with you, and how many carry cost evidence;
• its threat level;
• Carry to beat them: Safe (would have won about 3 of 4 past jobs), Even odds (about half) and Stretch (about 1 of 4). Shown once there are at least three shared jobs;
• its aliases, its bid history against you, and carry to beat, job by job: our bid, what we carried, their bid, and the most profit we could have carried and still been below them on that job.

In chat#

"Who bid against us on the clinic?", "read the field for Friday's bid": the competitor-intel playbook answers from the same history, with the sample size.