Apples-to-apples comparison
An apples-to-apples comparison is one where every bid covers the same scope, so the prices differ only by what the bidders charge rather than by what they included.
Also written as like-for-like comparison, apples to apples.
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Reviewed by Eric Collin · President and Founder of Firmo Construction, 20+ years in preconstruction and bid evaluation
It is the state leveling exists to produce. Bids do not arrive this way, because each subcontractor decides for itself what its trade covers before pricing it.
Three things break it, and they need separating because they are fixed differently. Scope differences — one bidder carries an item another does not — are resolved by adding or deducting. Exclusions are resolved by finding who else carries the work, or recording that nobody does. Qualifications are the hardest, because the bidders may cover identical scope under different assumptions, and no adjustment to the number makes those assumptions match.
The phrase gets used loosely, often to mean nothing more than "we put the bids in a spreadsheet". Worth being precise about: a side-by-side layout is not the same as a like-for-like comparison, and the layout is the easy half.
- Bid leveling
Bid leveling is the process of adjusting subcontractor bids onto a common scope so their prices can be compared like for like.
- Bid tabulation
A bid tabulation, or bid tab, is the table that sets every bid for a package side by side so their prices and scope can be read against each other.
- Exclusions
Exclusions are the items a bidder states are not included in its price.
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MyLevelBid reads every bid line by line, maps them to one scope, and flags what nobody carried.
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