What Is in a Construction Bid Package, and How to Read It

A bid package holds the instructions, bid form, contract terms, specifications, drawings and addenda an owner sends so contractors can price a job. Go through it before anyone measures: the instructions set the rules, the drawings and specifications set the scope, and the addenda change both. This guide lists the documents in reading order and gives you a twelve-line completeness check and a contradiction log. It starts once you have chosen to bid. How to bid construction jobs covers that choice, and finding bids to price covers where invitations come from.

What a bid package is, and who sends it

Three different things go by this name. Check which one is meant before you answer.

• The owner's package. One contractor guide says owners, architects, engineers or construction managers typically prepare it before inviting bids.

• A trade package. One request for pricing on a defined scope, with the plans and a bid sheet. A general contractor usually sends one to each trade. A software help page describes the package as the organized request and the bid sheet as the pricing form inside it.

• Your own submitted bid. Some contractor guides use the term for the contractor's reply. That reply is a proposal, and a bid proposal template lays out its sections.

This guide reviews the first kind. A later section builds the second.

The documents in a bid package, in the order to read them

Read from the rules down to the scope: instructions, contract terms, then drawings. In the table, each row names who writes the document, what it controls and what to ask when it is missing.

Table 1. Reading order for an owner's package.

Addenda come last because they edit the rows above. Apply each one to its document as you read, or you will read a sheet the owner has already replaced.

MasterFormat numbers the front-end documents as Division 00, procurement and contracting requirements, and Division 01, general requirements. On a numbered package, the first four rows of Table 1 sit in Division 00. An older New York State master specification list, last modified in 2009, shows the pattern. Its Division 00 has a bidding requirements group that includes an advertisement, instructions, a pre-bid site visit supplement, geotechnical data, bid forms and a bid bond form. Treat it as a template list, not a current rule. A private package may skip the numbering.

Instructions to bidders: the page that sets the rules

Read the instructions before the drawings, because a missed rule here can end a correctly priced bid. The AIA's 2018 standard form, A701, tells bidders how to get the documents, how to ask for clarifications, interpretations and substitutions, how addenda are sent, and what governs bid security, withdrawal and bonds. Owners put project terms in the invitation or in supplements, so read those with the base form.

Two terms in that edition matter before you price. The bidder carries its own cost of preparing the bid, and it must show legal authority to do the work where the project sits. Check your license and your registration to do business in that state before you spend a day measuring. The summary also says the edition treats addenda as changes issued before the date for receiving bids. Look in your instructions for the last day an addendum can issue and for how it will be delivered.

Drawings, specifications and addenda: what changes the price

Drawings show where the work goes and how much of it there is. Specifications say what it is made of and how it goes in. Read both for each trade, and read Division 01 first because it adds costs drawings seldom show.

When they disagree, the contract decides which controls. The federal clause FAR 52.236-21 is one example. An item shown in only one document counts as if both showed it. The specifications govern a difference between the two. A discrepancy in the figures, the drawings or the specifications goes to the contracting officer for a written decision, and an adjustment the contractor makes without that decision is at its own risk and expense.

That clause governs the work after award. Before award, a written pre-bid question is your safe route. A private contract sets its own rule for conflicts, so find the sentence in your general conditions before bid day.

Addenda change the set under you. Log each by number and date, and note the sheets and sections it touches. When one reissues a sheet, move the old sheet to a superseded folder and mark it in the log, so a takeoff cannot count a detail the owner has already replaced. Most bid forms ask you to list each addendum by number, and a missed acknowledgment can put the bid at risk, so the addenda log feeds the form. An outside desk can keep the addenda log and break the set into trades, and the bid desk service in detail shows what stays with your estimator.

Bid forms, bonds and certifications that ride with the bid

Read the form for what it makes you price apart from the base bid: alternates, unit prices, allowances and listings. Each is a separate line in your estimate before it is a line on the form. Filling in the owner's bid form has its own checklist.

Then separate security from bonds. The instructions say whether security travels with the bid and whether performance and payment bonds follow the award. If they do, call your surety early. List every certification, affidavit and insurance certificate the instructions name.

On federal Davis-Bacon work, the contracting agency is responsible for putting the applicable wage determination in the solicitation or bidding documents, says the Department of Labor's construction FAQ. A subcontractor should request it from the prime contractor or the agency. State prevailing wage rules differ, so read your state's rule. A prevailing wage labor build-up shows how a determination becomes the minimum wage and fringe rates in your labor line. If the job is public and the package is silent, ask which schedule applies.

A twelve-line completeness check

Run this check the day the package arrives, because the time to ask is short. Say the package arrives Tuesday 2 March 2027, questions close Tuesday 9 March and bids are due Tuesday 16 March. Questions close after 7 of your 14 days, so a gap found the day before the bid can be priced as an assumption but not asked.

Turn every failure into a written question or a log entry the same day. If the clock is short, do lines 4, 9 and 10 first. They are quick to check, and a missed meeting or question deadline can end your bid.

• 1. Sheets. The cover-sheet index matches the sheets you hold.

• 2. Sections. The contents page of the project manual matches the sections you hold.

• 3. Addenda. The posted list matches the addenda you hold, by number and date.

• 4. Bid date, time and place. The invitation and instructions agree, and the time zone is noted.

• 5. Security and bonds. You know what goes in with the bid and what follows the award.

• 6. Alternates and unit prices. Every alternate, unit price and allowance on the form is on your list.

• 7. Wage determination. It is attached with its number and date, or the package says none applies.

• 8. Insurance. The required limits and certificate wording are on file for you and your subs.

• 9. Site visit and pre-bid meeting. You know the date, whether it is mandatory, and who attends.

• 10. Question deadline. You know the last day, who receives questions, and how answers are issued.

• 11. Contract form. The agreement and general conditions are in the package or named in it.

• 12. Scope by trade. Every specification section has a trade, and every trade has sheets.

Lines 1 to 3 are counts. Table 2 shows them for an invented package whose 66 sheets split into general 4, civil 6, architectural 24, structural 8, mechanical 9, plumbing 6 and electrical 9.

Table 2. A bid package example with invented counts for lines 1 to 3.

Two architectural sheets and one electrical sheet are missing, and so is addendum 2. At an assumed 30 seconds per listed item, the 117 items take 58.5 minutes, which is about an hour before lines 4 to 12, so time your own pace.

A contradiction log for documents that disagree

A gap is a missing document. A contradiction is two documents that disagree. Give each one a row, and fill the log as you read.

Table 3. One row of a contradiction log, with invented values.

A 4 ft by 12 ft sheet covers 48 SF, so 6,720 SF of board takes 140 sheets for one layer and 280 for two, before waste. The conflict doubles the board. If no answer arrives before the cut-off, price the reading you would be held to and say so in the log.

Where the documents rank themselves, as the specifications do in this invented contract, that ranking tells you which reading that is. Where they do not, the costlier reading is usually the safer one to price. Some owners reject a bid that adds conditions, so a note on the bid does not replace the question. If a wrong guess would eat your margin, ask for more time or pass.

Finish the completeness check before anyone measures, because a missing addendum found on bid day costs more than the hour it takes to find it now. Run line 3 again the day before the bid and on the morning of it, in case a late addendum has posted. Then measure from the corrected set only. A takeoff worked line by line ties each quantity to a sheet, and that trail is how a conflict shows up.

Private invitations versus public bid packages

Public work is usually formal, with advertised bids and procurement rules, and private work leaves the owner more room, as that contractor guide puts it. On a private invitation, ask for what is missing: the instructions, the bid form and the contract you will sign. What a public bid carries covers unit price schedules and wage rules.

Visit the site and attend the meeting. On a federal fixed-price construction contract, FAR 52.236-3 has the contractor acknowledge that it took the steps reasonably needed to learn the nature and location of the work and the local conditions. It also has the contractor acknowledge that it is satisfied about surface and subsurface materials, so far as a site inspection, the government's exploratory work and the drawings and specifications reasonably show them. Skipping those steps does not relieve the contractor of the cost risk. If the instructions make a meeting mandatory, you attend or your bid may be rejected.

Sending your own package to subcontractors

Your trade package is the owner's package cut down to one scope. A subcontractor-package guide lists an invitation, a scope of work for each package and the documents behind them. Build each package from this checklist.

• Invitation. Project, owner, architect, your bid date, the earlier date you need quotes and one named contact.

• Scope sheet. The sections and sheets for the trade, plus the work neighboring trades keep.

• Documents. Drawings, project manual and every addendum by number, or a link that stays live.

• Binding requirements. Insurance, bonds, wage rules and safety terms from Division 00, plus only the Division 01 sections that bind the trade. Keep general-conditions pricing on your own sheet.

• Pricing layout. One bid sheet, with alternates and unit prices on their own lines.

• Questions. How to ask them, and a request that each quote name the addenda it priced.

• Coverage. Each specification section's work sits in one package, or the split is written out. A section in two is priced twice, and a section in none is priced by nobody.

Rows that match your sheet make leveling the quotes a copy-and-compare job. If you are the sub, run the twelve-line check on the package you received, and send your questions early.

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