Bid leveling ROI calculator
Bid leveling pays for itself in two places: the estimator hours it gives back, and the scope nobody carried that it catches before award rather than after. Move the sliders to see what both are worth against your own volume.
25 packages a month · 300 a year
About 3 projects won a year. Missed scope only costs you on work you win.
Fully loaded — salary, burden, and overhead
What gaps, exclusions, and “by others” lines cost you on a typical won project once they come back as change orders or cost you eat
Nothing catches everything, and some gaps live in the drawings rather than the bids. Half is a cautious place to start.
of estimator time back — about 30 working weeks you can spend bidding more work.
Break-even is one caught exclusion worth $3,588 on one project you win, or about 43 estimator hours saved across the year.
Every plan starts with a free month — no credit card, nothing charged on day 31.
Extra seats beyond a plan's allowance are $20/mo each
Extra seats and packages are $20/mo each. Over by more than a few packages? The next tier is usually cheaper.
At 25 packages a month and 8 seats, the $299/mo plan costs $3,588 a year — about $12 for each package you level. Try it on your own bids before you decide.
Prove it free for 30 daysIllustrative estimate from your inputs, not a promise. Hours assume 6 hours to level a package by hand and 2 to check one in MyLevelBid — 4 saved per package. Missed scope counts only on the projects you win.
How the numbers are calculated
Every assumption behind the figures above, stated. A calculator that will not show its arithmetic does not deserve to be believed.
- What does the calculator actually measure?
- Two things, shown side by side and never added together. Estimator hours back is your package volume multiplied by 4 hours saved per bid package. Missed scope caught is the projects you win each year, multiplied by the missed scope a won project typically carries and the share of it caught before award. Both are set against the annual plan cost.
- Where does the figure of 4 hours saved per package come from?
- It assumes 6 hours to level one trade package by hand — transcribing each bid into a spreadsheet, chasing exclusions and qualifications, rebuilding the tab when an addendum lands — and 2 hours still spent on a package leveled in MyLevelBid, reading the result, checking the flags and plugging the gaps. The difference is what the calculator counts. Neither figure is adjustable: an input nobody can answer off the top of their head is an input that gets abandoned.
- Why does the win rate matter?
- Leveling time is spent on every project you bid, won or lost, so the hours count across all of them. Missed scope only costs you money on a project you win, so that side counts only won work. Counting it across every bid would overstate it by the inverse of your hit rate — fivefold at 20%.
- Why does it assume only half the missed scope is caught?
- Because nothing catches everything. Some gaps live in the drawings or the specifications rather than in the bids, and no comparison of bids will surface a requirement nobody priced and nobody wrote down. Half is a cautious default; move it to whatever you believe.
- How is the plan cost calculated?
- From the published pricing, not from an estimate. Plans run $199, $299 and $399 per month for 20, 40 and 65 bid packages a month, including 5, 10 and 15 seats respectively, with additional seats at $20 per month. Extra packages can be added at $20 per month each, but the calculator steps you up a tier instead, which is almost always cheaper.
- Is the result a quote?
- No. It is an estimate built from your own inputs and the assumptions stated on this page, intended to show whether the order of magnitude is worth a conversation. Nothing here is a commitment, and the scope side in particular depends entirely on what your projects actually carry.
Why caught scope matters more than its number suggests
The hours are the steady part: they come back on every package, won or lost. Caught scope is lumpier — nothing for months, then one exclusion on a won job that would have cost more than the plan does in a year. What makes it expensive is when the cost lands rather than how big it is.
A scope gap caught during leveling is a line added to a comparison while every bidder still wants the job. The same gap caught after award is a change order negotiated with the only contractor who can now do the work. The scope is identical; the price is not, and the difference is competitive tension that no longer exists.
That is why the calculator asks what missed scope typically costs you on a won project rather than asking how many items you miss. Most teams can answer the first question from memory and cannot answer the second at all — the gaps you never found are, by definition, not in anyone’s records.
See it against your own bids
The fastest way to test these numbers is on a package you have already awarded.