BID WIN RATES BY TRADE.
Healthy commercial subcontractor bid win rates are roughly 20% to 40% depending on trade and how work is procured. Hard-bid civil and concrete tend to come in lower, negotiated and specialty electrical higher. A win rate far above the range usually means you're underpriced, not that you're winning. Margin counts more than win rate.
The rate is a symptom rather than a score. It tells you how your price compares to the other bidders on the work you pursue, and it says nothing about whether that price covers your overhead and leaves profit behind. That's why the number has to be read next to the gross margin on the jobs you win and the crews and cash you have to build them with. A rate inside your trade range on work bid at real margin is healthy. The same rate on underpriced work you can't staff is a problem wearing a good number.
Next step: Markup vs margin calculator. Check the margin your winning bids carry, next to your win rate.
Rather talk it through first? Book a 20 minute call. Nothing gets sold on this call.
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.
A bid win rate is the share of submitted bids a contractor wins, and the healthy range moves by trade and by how the work is procured, at roughly 15% to 40%+ across commercial subcontracting.
WHY WINNING MORE CAN COST MORE.
A win rate too high means underpriced
Winning far above your trade's typical range is a pricing signal rather than a strength signal. Most subs know the price it takes to win and bid it without job costing behind it, so they win work that never covered real overhead and profit in the first place. Winning more work at a price that doesn't cover overhead and profit doesn't help you. It just accelerates the loss.
Margin and capacity, not just rate
Win rate has to be tracked next to the gross margin in the bids you win and the capacity to perform them. A rate inside your trade range, on work bid at a gross margin that clears your own measured overhead and still leaves your trade's CFOS net target before taxes, with crews and cash to build it, is healthy. The same rate on underpriced work you can't staff is a problem, because now you owe performance on jobs that were never going to pay for themselves.
Win the right work, not the most work
Win rate by itself tells you almost nothing, which is why pursuing a higher one is the wrong project. The work is pricing off your real cost structure, meaning your fully burdened labor and your actual overhead rate, and then letting the rate settle where it settles. A sub who wins less and prices correctly makes more money than a sub who wins everything at a number somebody guessed.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
Civil and earthwork are 15% to 25% on hard bid. Concrete and structural are 18% to 28% across hard bid and negotiated. Electrical is 25% to 40% because more of it's negotiated. Specialty and finish trades are 25% to 40% on negotiated and select bid work. Service and time-and-material work is 40%+ because it's relationship based.
A sub winning 60% of bids at 4% net makes less money than a sub winning 30% at a 12% net. Half the volume and three times the margin produces more profit and less risk, with fewer crews to staff and fewer receivables to fund. The high win rate looked like the better business right up until somebody did the math.
RESEARCH FROM OTHER SOURCES.
These figures come from another company's survey, not from SPM's clients. Each one cites the report and the page.
Billd's 2026 National Subcontractor Market Report found 14 percent of subcontractors won more than half of their bids in 2025, down from 25 percent in 2024.
Source: Billd, 2026 National Subcontractor Market Report, page 16 (survey of 623 respondents, published May 13, 2026).
Billd's 2025 National Subcontractor Market Report found 32 percent of subcontractors who typically include the cost of working capital in their bids won more than half their bids, against 19 percent of those who rarely or never do.
Source: Billd, 2025 National Subcontractor Market Report, page 14 (survey of over 800 construction professionals, published April 15, 2025).
THE THREE NUMBERS THAT READ IT.
Compare your win rate to the range for your trade and your procurement mix and not to a generic construction average. Hard-bid trades see high bid volume and lower win rates because many contractors are bidding the same plan-and-spec work. Negotiated and relationship-based work is higher because there are fewer bidders in the room.
Pull the gross margin on the awarded jobs on a percentage-of-completion basis and check it against the band for your own trade and revenue on /construction-gross-profit-margin-benchmarks, with CFMA's 21.8% gross profit margin across all respondents as the industry reference point. If the rate is high and the margin is under your band, the rate is telling you the price is short. That pairing is the single most useful read on the whole metric.
Count the crews and the cash against the backlog you just added. Work you can't staff gets built with overtime, rented labor, and a schedule everyone is behind on, and all three come out of the margin you bid. Capacity is the constraint that turns a good win rate into a bad year.
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.
