The process
The Bid Engine is a 90-day program for commercial contractors — GCs and specialty trade subcontractors — anywhere in the U.S. You get on new bid lists with GCs, owners and developers, every invite screened within one business day, and cost numbers rebuilt from your current payroll, insurance and overhead. 20 new bid invites in 90 days or you don't pay.
Setup (1–2 weeks)
We put together your capability profile, register you with GCs, owners and developers in your market, and collect the cost data that actually drives your bids: payroll, insurance and overhead.
Your 90-day guarantee clock starts at signing — setup is included.
During setup
The live system
Setup
1–2 weeksDays 1–30
day 30Days 31–60
day 60Days 61–90
day 90Your 90 days start at signing. Setup and go-live happen within those 90 days.
Days 1–30
Every invite is screened within one business day with a one-page go/no-go summary covering scope traps, insurance and bonding requirements, and due dates. Your rebuilt cost numbers are delivered.
Invites reaching you each week
Illustrative — the pace follows your trade and market.
Days 31–60
We track costs on every job you win, compare them with the assumptions behind your bid, and keep expanding your bid lists.
What the bid assumed vs what the job cost
Labor
Insurance
Overhead
Illustrative — that gap is what we close on the next bid.
Days 61–90
We review your bid/no-bid pattern, check margins against real job costs, and tally qualified invites against the 20-invite target.
Tally against your target
20 new bid invites in 90 days or you don't pay. See the guarantee terms.
What lands in your inbox
Example format. Every invite you receive is screened the same way.
Step by step
Every qualified invite runs the same short route, start to finish. Here's what happens at each stop.
The invite arrives
Plans and specs for a commercial project in your trade and service area, from a GC, owner or developer you have not submitted a bid to before.
Within one business day
Scope traps, insurance and bonding requirements, exclusions and the due date get pulled out — so you're not spending two hours to find out it isn't a fit.
Same business day
Enough to decide and move on: what's in scope, what it takes to bid, and our honest read on whether it's worth your afternoon.
Your call
Your numbers, your margin, your crew. We don't price the job for you and nothing goes out without you.
Logged
Invite, bid, win or pass — every one is tracked, so your bid lists and your cost assumptions both get sharper as the quarter goes on.
Your part
Straight answers
The Bid Engine is a 90-day program that gets commercial contractors on more bid lists, screens every incoming bid package within one business day, and rebuilds your cost numbers so you stop underbidding. You keep doing your own estimating. We build the pipeline and help you decide what's worth pricing.
The 90-day program is for commercial contractors — GCs and specialty trade subcontractors — anywhere in the U.S. We work with trades like painting and coatings, electrical, low voltage / AV / security, drywall and framing, concrete and flatwork, flooring, mechanical and plumbing, and sitework and grading. Residential contractors: our residential program is coming soon — join the waitlist.
During setup we build your capability profile around your real trade, capacity and service area. Then we register you with local GCs, national GCs, owners and developers in your market, and keep expanding those bid lists through the 90 days.
Every bid invite that comes in gets reviewed within one business day, and you get a one-page go/no-go summary. It flags scope traps, insurance and bonding requirements, and due dates, so you can decide in about 15 minutes instead of spending 2+ hours reading the package.
An invitation to bid on a commercial project in your trade and service area, from a GC, owner, or developer you have never submitted a bid to, with plans and specs available to price. Invites you received from that company in the past but didn't respond to don't disqualify it.
Read the full guarantee terms20 new bid invites in 90 days or you don't pay. Your 90 days start at signing. A qualified bid invite is an invitation to bid on a commercial project in your trade and service area, from a GC, owner, or developer you have never submitted a bid to, with plans and specs available to price. Invites you received from that company in the past but didn't respond to don't disqualify it. The guarantee is counted per project invite. You must reply to information requests within 2 business days; the guarantee is void after 3 missed replies. Week-1 documents are due within one week of signing, with a one-week grace period; the guarantee is void if they are not received by day 14.
Read the full guarantee termsDay 1 is the day you sign. Setup is included in your 90 days.
We rebuild your numbers from your current payroll, insurance and overhead. Then we track costs on every job you win and compare them with the assumptions behind your bid, so you know how low you can bid and still come out ahead.
Yes. We're based in Santa Cruz, California, and work remotely with contractors in all 50 states. We take a limited number of contractors per trade in each market.
We don't publish pricing. Book a call and we'll walk through how it works and whether it makes sense for your business.
Rowena Tulacz, President and Founder of R. Construction Solutions, with 30+ years in commercial construction. She is QCCM Certified (CQM-C) and Procore Certified. The Bid Engine is a program of R. Construction Solutions.
