BID WIN RATES BY TRADE.
Healthy commercial subcontractor bid win rates run 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 chase, 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.
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, running 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 carried real overhead and profit in the first place. Winning more work at a price that doesn't carry 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 10% net 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 chasing 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 run 15% to 25% on hard bid. Concrete and structural run 18% to 28% across hard bid and negotiated. Electrical runs 25% to 40% because more of it's negotiated. Specialty and finish trades run 25% to 40% on negotiated and select bid work. Service and time-and-material work runs 40%+ because it's relationship driven.
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 carry. The high win rate looked like the better business right up until somebody ran the arithmetic.
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 hit rates because many contractors are bidding the same plan-and-spec work. Negotiated and relationship-driven work runs 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, and no add-ons.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee |
|---|---|
| Up to $1M | $1,900 to $2,900 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $3,900 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $5,700 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $7,100 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $8,500 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $11,000 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $13,500 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually |
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items.
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 rather than a report.
Your bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Nobody in your office is answering coding questions or chasing a reconciliation at month end.
We do the books. No payroll.
Every job shows its margin while it's still running.
Everything in Executive, plus the job costing and WIP platform set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed for you every month. You never have to learn it.
We do the job costing.
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