PRICING RISK INTO YOUR BID.
Every construction bid has risk. The question is whether you're pricing it systematically or by gut feel. A risk-based bid rates the specific risks on each project and prices them openly rather than hoping one blanket markup covers whatever happens. A GC who consistently pays in 75 days instead of 30 is financing $50K to $100K of your working capital per $1M of contract, and that cost belongs somewhere in the bid.
A blanket 5% contingency is a bet that every job has the same risk, and no contractor believes that when you ask him directly. The interior finish job with complete drawings and a GC who pays in 30 days isn't the same bet as the civil job with two borings and a GC on his third lawsuit. Pricing them the same way means you win the dangerous work and lose the easy work, because your number is too high on the safe jobs and too low on the risky ones.
Want Josh to check your own numbers? Financial Health Snapshot, $1,500 one time. Your last 12 months read against your trade's benchmarks, with a 60 minute readout.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Bid risk pricing is the practice of rating each specific risk on a project and putting a dollar figure on it inside the bid, instead of covering everything with one blanket contingency percentage.
WHERE THE RISK GOES UNPRICED.
You add the same contingency to every job
A 5% contingency on a well-defined interior finish job and a 5% contingency on a complex civil project with limited geotechnical data are two completely different levels of coverage. Blanket contingency leaves you under-covered on the high-risk jobs and over-priced on the low-risk ones. The result is that you lose the easy bids and win the dangerous ones.
You're not pricing GC payment risk
A GC with a history of slow payment, disputes, and lien activity creates working capital risk that a GC with a clean payment record doesn't. Most subcontractors price the project scope and never price the GC. The cost of financing a slow payer, meaning the working capital you advance and the credit line you draw, belongs in the bid price.
You don't know what your actual risk exposure is
Site conditions, design completeness, schedule risk, material price exposure, and lower-tier sub reliability all create financial risk you can put a number on. Most contractors estimate these by instinct without a structured framework. The result is contingency that changes from job to job and doesn't reflect the risk profile of any of them.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
A GC who consistently pays in 75 days instead of 30 is financing $50K to $100K of your working capital per $1M of contract, and that cost belongs somewhere in the bid. On a $1M contract with 60-day payment terms and an 8% line of credit, you're financing approximately $130K at 8%, which is about $10,400 in annual financing cost on that one contract. That number is either in your price or it's out of your margin.
HOW THE RISK GETS PRICED.
Rate each risk category high, medium, or low: geotechnical and subsurface conditions including how many borings you were given, design completeness meaning schematic against complete drawings, schedule risk meaning a fixed completion date against a flexible one, material price exposure meaning fixed pricing against open market, GC payment history, and owner financial strength. Each high-risk category adds to your contingency. Each low-risk category lets you price tighter without giving up margin.
We track payment history by GC in ControlQore for every client: days to pay, how often a pay app gets disputed, and collections incidents. Before bidding for a new or infrequent GC, you see the payment history that should drive both the bid decision and the working capital contingency inside the price. The scorecard is built from your own paid invoices, not from reputation.
For significant bids we perform a pre-bid risk analysis: rating each category, putting a dollar figure on the working capital the project consumes, and pointing at the specific risk items that should be priced as line items rather than held in a blanket contingency. You go into the bid knowing what you're pricing and why. When the risks don't materialize, you also know how much of the closeout margin was contingency.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing. No payroll. The one-time onboarding fee is right here in the table.
Built for subs doing $1M to $12M. Above $12.5M we quote.
| Last 12 months revenue | Core | Strategic | Platinum | One-time onboarding |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1M | $1,900 | $3,100 | $3,300 | $2,500 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 | $4,100 | $5,300 | $4,500 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 | $5,900 | $8,300 | $6,000 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 | $7,600 | $11,800 | $7,500 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 | $8,900 | $14,900 | $9,000 |
| Above $12.5M | Quoted | Quoted | Quoted | Quoted |
The onboarding fee covers migrating your books back to the start of your last taxable year and getting you fully operational in 60 days. It's billed once, with your first invoice. It's the same for all three tiers, and it moves with your revenue band. Your first month is prorated, and your monthly engagement starts on the first of the first full month.
Just want the setup? Onboarding only is the same onboarding work with no monthly service after it, one time, at the onboarding fee plus $2,000. Start a monthly engagement later and $2,000 counts toward it. It starts at $4,500, and the price for every band is on the pricing page.
The three tier columns are the whole price. Which one fits depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items. The onboarding fee is right here in the table.
- Online software only: QuickBooks, Sage, Viewpoint and similar. No VPN or hosted desktop.
- Not in any tier: payroll, pay applications, collections on receivables.
- Pricing valid through 2027.
CFO work. Your own bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions and never in a report.
Your bookkeeper still does the books.
Core, plus bookkeeping and bank reconciliations, plus job costing and WIP software set up and managed for you. Use your own online accounting software or we supply it, one price.
Every job shows its margin while it is still open.
Everything in Core, plus the bookkeeping and bank reconciliations done for you, and the job costing and WIP software set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed every month. Use your own online software, or move to ours and we cover it.
A bookkeeper we choose does the books and reconciliations. No payroll.
Strategic, plus a controller who handles payables and receivables the way an in-house controller would. You approve every payment.
You approve, and the money side gets handled.
Everything in Strategic, plus a controller we choose who handles your bills and receivables for you the way an in-house controller would. They call vendors, pay the bills and keep the accounting current. We plan the cash flow first, and you approve every payment because it is your money.
A controller we choose does the payables and receivables. No payroll, no pay applications, no collections.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
