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BIDDING · INTAKE TO PROPOSALCATEGORY · BIDDING

Construction bidding software that shows its work.

Most bidding tools help you find bids. BuildBid helps you produce one you can defend — and verify before it leaves the office.

“Construction bidding software” covers two different jobs. Bid management tools help you find work: plan rooms, invitation networks, and sub solicitation. Bid production is everything after the invitation lands — takeoff, estimating, scope review, and proposal assembly. BuildBid is strongest at production: turning the bid package in front of you into a number you can stand behind, plus a public invitation-to-bid (ITB) surface for collecting subcontractor quotes against that scope.

Production starts with the whole package, not just the drawings. Upload plans, specs, and addenda together and BuildBid extracts quantities into a CSI-organized draft estimate — every line item with a source reference back to the sheet or spec section it came from, and a confidence flag telling you how hard to look at it. The draft is a starting point for review, not a number to forward.

The review workflow is where bids are won or lost. Low-confidence rows sort to the top. Spec-vs-plan contradictions surface as open questions instead of hiding until buyout. Addenda are read against the base set so a revised sheet does not silently orphan half your takeoff. You verify before you bid — that is the whole point.

When the estimate is reviewed, it leaves as a package: an owner-facing proposal, CSV or XLSX for your own workbook, and a QuickBooks handoff for the back office. For GCs, the same reviewed scope drives the ITB flow — send trade packages to subs through a public link, collect their quotes against your line items, and level them without re-keying five PDFs into a spreadsheet.

Try on a sample bid packageSee sample estimate
WORKFLOW · HOW IT ACTUALLY RUNS5 STEPS
  1. STEP 01

    Upload the bid package

    Plans, specs, addenda, RFIs, photos — PDF and image formats, ingested into one project. BuildBid cross-references the documents against each other instead of reading the drawings in isolation.

  2. STEP 02

    AI extracts a CSI-organized draft

    Quantities land as line items organized by CSI division, each with a source link back to the sheet or spec section that produced it and a confidence score on the extraction. No blank-sheet setup before the draft runs.

  3. STEP 03

    Review for scope gaps

    Sweep low-confidence rows first. Contradictions between spec and plan are flagged as open questions. Corrections, overrides, and assumptions are logged so the estimate survives handoff between estimators.

  4. STEP 04

    Assemble and export the bid

    Proposal view for the owner or GC, CSV/XLSX for your own pricing workbook, QuickBooks export for accounting. Inclusions, exclusions, and assumptions travel with the number instead of living in an email thread.

  5. STEP 05

    Collect sub quotes via ITB

    Split the reviewed scope into trade packages and send public invitation-to-bid links. Subs quote against your line items, so leveling starts from a common baseline instead of five differently-shaped PDFs.

PAIN · WHAT THIS REPLACES

Where the hours actually go today

  • Rebuilding every estimate from a blank spreadsheet because the last tool only handled takeoff, not the bid.
  • Scope gaps discovered at buyout because the spec section that changed the requirement was never read against the drawings.
  • Addenda tracked in an email thread — nobody is sure which sheet revision the quantities came from.
  • Sub quotes arriving as unstructured PDFs that take a day to level against your own scope breakdown.
  • Proposals assembled by copy-paste at 10 pm the night before the bid date, with exclusions living in someone's head.
LIMITS · WHAT BUILDBID IS NOT YET

Honest gaps — read before you buy

  • BuildBid is not a plan room or bid-finding network. It does not surface bid invitations or solicit work for you — it starts when the package is already in your hands.
  • The draft estimate is a reviewed starting point, not a submit-ready number. Pricing judgment, markup strategy, and final scope calls stay with your estimator.
  • Sub quote collection runs through BuildBid's own ITB links — it does not sync with third-party bid management platforms your subs may already use.
  • Highly schematic or design-stage drawings produce lower-confidence drafts. BuildBid flags that rather than fabricating precision.
REVIEW FOCUS · WHAT TO CHECK4 AREAS
CHECK 01

CSI-organized draft estimate — line items grouped by division, each row with a source link and confidence flag.

CHECK 02

Review queue sorted by confidence — red and amber rows first, spec-vs-plan conflicts surfaced as open questions.

CHECK 03

Proposal and export view — owner-facing proposal, CSV/XLSX, and QuickBooks handoff from the same reviewed estimate.

CHECK 04

ITB tracking — trade packages sent to subs, quotes collected against your line items for side-by-side leveling.

NEXT · TRY ON A SAMPLE

Sample plans, zero setup. The draft comes back with quantities, confidence flags, and the source rows we used. You review before you send.

Try on a sample bid package