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Should you bid on this UK public sector contract? Plug in five numbers and we'll do the maths. No signup required.
Negative expected return (-50%). Pass — the maths says no.
Most of your £3,000 is writer hours. BidWriter drafts every section in under 15 minutes against the buyer's MAT criteria — typical user bid cost drops to under £500.
Tender ROI is the expected return on time and money invested in writing a bid. It equals expected gross profit from winning (contract value × margin × win probability) divided by the cost of writing the bid, minus one. A positive ROI means the bid pays back even after accounting for the chance you lose; negative ROI means the maths says no.
Above 100% ROI is genuinely worth bidding. UK SMEs that systematically score bids before committing time typically average 200-400% ROI on the bids they actually write — because they pass on the negative-expected-value ones.
Typical UK SME bid cost is £2,000-£6,000 per bid: 60-80 hours of bid-writer time at £40-£80/hour plus 10-20 hours of management/SME time. AI bid writing software like BidWriter cuts that to under £500 per bid.
5-10% for cold bids with no relationship or track record. 15-25% with relevant past performance. 30-50% if you are incumbent or known to the buyer. Overestimating win probability is the most common reason bids lose money on aggregate.