From Solicitation to Submission
ScalaBid produces complete bid documentation packages exclusively for U.S. construction firms responding to public and private solicitations of any kind. We read every page, drawings included, and deliver in less than 72 hours. Every deliverable is ready for your team to review, finalize, and submit.
The Process
Inside the 72-Hour Process
One upload. We take it from there.
Send us the complete solicitation: documents, drawings, addenda, everything the authority issued. Whatever format they sent you, we can read. Before we draft anything, we check whether anything is missing, and bring it back to you to resolve.
If anything in the solicitation is unclear, mismatched, or missing against your company profile, you hear about it before we draft, with the section reference.
Common document and drawing formats supported.We read your plan set.
We read every page, including scanned drawings and addenda, deterministically.
The plan set is where most bid-prep tools stop. With us, every solicitation page and drawing sheet is reviewed and catalogued. What the proposal needs from the drawings goes into an inventory you can review before drafting begins. Anything that isn’t legible or doesn’t line up with the spec shows up flagged, so you see it first.
2,180 drawing sheets catalogued so far, across all construction disciplines.Your complete bid documentation, delivered.
You receive four deliverables every time.
- Your bid, drafted. Tailored to your company profile and this specific solicitation.
- Coverage, verified. Every requirement mapped to where it’s addressed in the bid.
- Your share, surfaced. What only your team can source or sign before submission, with the solicitation reference and urgency for each item.
- Drawings, organized. A structured set your estimators and subcontractors can use directly.
You review while we revise.
Mark up the draft inline, the way you’d review a contract: highlight the section, leave the change you want, submit. No email threads. No back-and-forth. The revised draft comes back with a written summary of what changed and why. Every plan includes 3 revision rounds.
Standard 72 hours from a complete bid pack. 24-hour rush available as an add-on.
The process is designed so your team inputs at the start and at the end. All documentation work in between is ours.
Scope
We Produce the Documentation
Originals, signatures, and the final submission stay with your team.
- Reading and cataloguing every page of your solicitation, including scanned drawings and addenda
- Checking every requirement against your company profile and flagging anything missing before drafting starts
- Drafting your bid proposal, tailored to your company profile and each particular solicitation
- Verifying coverage, with every requirement mapped to where it’s addressed in the bid
- Surfacing your share: what only you can source or sign before submission, with the solicitation reference and urgency for each item
- Organizing drawings to a structured set your estimators and subcontractors can use directly
- Internal quality review on every draft before delivery
- Tracking every revision round with a written summary of what changed
- Delivering the complete ScalaBid Submission Package in 72 hours
- Sourcing and providing attachments only your team can originate: insurance, bonds, and anything the authority requires in signed or original form. We tell you exactly which ones, to what specification, and where each belongs.
- Completing and signing the forms the authority or owner has issued. We list each one with the solicitation reference.
- Your bid price. We write the narrative around your numbers, not the numbers themselves.
- Submitting the final package through your existing procurement workflow.
Everything on the “You handle” side appears on your checklist with the solicitation reference and the urgency for each. Nothing falls through.
Data handling
Your Bid Documents Stay Yours. Your Pricing Stays Yours.
What crosses to us, and what stays with your team.
Stays with your team
- Bid pricing and margins: bid amount, line items, markup, contingency
- Vendor pricing and subcontractor relationships: quote evaluations, negotiated terms, who you commit to
- Internal estimator notes: assumptions, exclusions, risk flags, working memos
- Historical cost data and productivity: unit price library, productivity rates, fee structures
- Means, methods, and schedule: how you build the work, sequencing, crew sizing
- Final approvals and submission: who signs off, when, through which procurement portal
- Owner and competitive intelligence: your history with the client, who you are bidding against, where you sit
What ScalaBid touches
- Solicitation package: bid documents, drawings, specs, addenda
- Your company profile: capabilities statement, certifications (DBE / SDVOSB / 8(a) / etc.), key personnel bios, past projects
- Insurance/bonding references: what you have on hand (we list, you originate)
- Past project examples and narratives you share for reuse
Deleted 12 months after final delivery, or earlier on request.
Outputs we deliver are kept under the same retention; you receive copies, we delete originals.
Enterprise agreements with contractual zero-retention. Row-level isolation at the storage layer. Credential-free worker processes. Immutable audit trail.
Common questions
Questions Estimating Leaders Ask Before Starting
Yes. Subscription: During onboarding, you build a structured company profile (project history, key personnel, certifications, standard narratives). This profile is reused across all bids, improving consistency, quality, and speed. PAYG: No persistent profile. Each bid is built from scratch based only on the documents you provide for that specific job.
We deliver the complete draft. Your estimator reviews and submits changes. Every plan includes 3 revision rounds per bid. Additional rounds are available as add-ons.
Standard turnaround is maximum 72 hours from complete documents. A 24-hour rush option is available for $629 per bid. If a deadline is not feasible given when we receive the documents, we flag it before starting rather than delivering something incomplete.
While ScalaBid handles the bid documentation workload on your behalf, it does not produce, fill, or sign owner- or government-issued forms, insurance certificates, bonding letters, DBE participation forms, or any other instrument requiring contractor origination. However, these items are always listed in the action checklist with the solicitation reference and the required action so your team knows exactly what to source and sign before the submission deadline.
Every ScalaBid Submission Package is built from the requirements of the specific bid documents, not templates. The Compliance Matrix verifies full coverage. Revision rounds exist to close any gap between the draft and your standards.
Yes. Every deliverable comes in a form your team can edit before submission. Revision rounds are also included on every plan if you'd rather we incorporate the changes directly.
ScalaBid produces the Submission Package. Your estimating team reviews the delivered draft, fills in any marked fields (license numbers, personnel names, project-specific details), and makes the final submission decision. ScalaBid does not submit bids on your behalf.
Subscription clients build a structured company profile during onboarding that ScalaBid reuses across all bids. This includes project history, key personnel, certifications, and standard narrative sections. The profile improves quality and speed with each subsequent bid. PAYG clients do not have a persistent profile. Your company profile is held under the same data handling commitments as your bid documents.
A new estimator costs $160,000 to $220,000 per year fully loaded (roughly $13,000 to $18,000 per month) with a 6 to 12 month ramp to full productivity. ScalaBid Scale plan is $6,300 per month and starts producing Submission Packages within days, with no ramp. ScalaBid handles documentation only, freeing your existing estimating team to focus on pricing, scope review, and client relationships.
No. ScalaBid produces the documentation: the Proposal Narrative, Compliance Matrix, CPAP, and Indexed Drawings Set. Your team brings the strategy: which opportunities to pursue, how to position the firm against the awarding body, what to emphasize for this specific evaluator, and the final bid number. Your team owns the competitive judgment. We make sure the documentation reflects it accurately.
No. Our document processing providers operate under enterprise agreements with contractual zero retention, and are barred from using your data, your documents, or our outputs to train any model. Your bid documents and company profile are deleted within twelve months, or earlier on request. The full data-handling policy is in our privacy policy.
Ready to See What This Looks Like for Your Work?
Two ways to start: a quick capacity diagnostic that returns your numbers in a downloadable report, or send us a live bid and get the package back in 72 hours.