Award criteria

Award criteria determine which bid wins. Legally the authority must choose the most economically advantageous tender — not necessarily the cheapest. Besides price, quality, lifecycle costs, delivery time, sustainability or service often count, each weighted.

The criteria and their weighting are stated in the procurement documents and are binding — a 40-percent quality share means a more expensive but better bid can win. Pure lowest-price awards are the exception today.

For bid strategy the weighting is key: with a high quality share, investing in concept and references pays off; with a dominant price share, calculation is everything. Reading the documents early often decides the go/no-go.