Is that tender rate actually profitable?
Contractors win tenders and lose money on them — because a rate that looks fine hides loss-making lines. This framework and analyzer tell you, per item, whether a rate is healthy, thin or below your floor.
Analyze one BOQ line
Six steps to a rate you can trust.
Build the true cost per item
Material + labour for one unit of the BOQ line — the real, current cost, not last year's.
Load site overhead
Supervision, establishment, rentals, tools — as a % on direct cost. Skip this and margin vanishes on site.
Set the floor (break-even)
Your fully-loaded cost is the rate below which you lose money. Never bid a line below it knowingly.
Set the target rate
The rate that delivers your target net margin, worked back from cost — not cost plus a markup.
Compare the tender rate
Healthy, thin, or loss-making? Do it line by line — a profitable-looking tender often hides loss-making items.
Decide: bid, load, or walk
Load rates where you can, protect the floor everywhere, and know your blended margin before you submit.
One line by hand is easy. 800 lines before the deadline isn't.
sotyn.ai's AI Auto-Quotation applies this framework to an entire tender: upload the client BOQ, it matches your own rate masters and returns a priced quote with margin on every line — and flags the loss-making ones before you submit. Coming soon
You're all set.
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