Tendering and estimating, 29 October 2026
Quality vs price: how 70/30 tenders are scored
In a 70/30 tender, 70% of the marks go to your written quality answers and 30% to your price. Your quality score is usually your mark out of 100 multiplied by 0.7, and your price score is often the lowest price divided by yours, multiplied by 30. A bid 20% dearer than the lowest loses 5 of the 30 price marks on that formula, so it wins if its quality mark is more than about 7 points higher out of 100.
What does 70/30 mean in a tender?
It means the buyer has decided quality matters more than price and split the 100 available marks 70 to quality and 30 to price. The split is the buyer's choice. You'll also see 60/40, 80/20 and 50/50.
Under the Procurement Act 2023, a public buyer awards to the "most advantageous tender": the one that meets its requirements and scores best against the published award criteria. Where there's more than one criterion, it must set out their relative importance, and percentage weightings are the usual way. Lowest price alone is permitted but GOV.UK guidance says it's "unlikely to be suitable for most contracts".
The 70 quality marks are then split into questions with their own weightings. A typical small works tender might look like this:
| Question | Weight |
|---|---|
| Method statement and approach | 25% |
| Programme and resources | 15% |
| Health and safety | 15% |
| Social value | 10% |
| Quality management and aftercare | 5% |
| Price | 30% |
| Total | 100% |
That table is an illustration. The real split is in the tender documents, normally the instructions to tenderers or an evaluation annex. Find it before you write a word: see reading a tender pack in 10 minutes.
How are the quality answers marked?
Each answer gets a score against a published scale, often 0 to 5 or 0 to 10, with a description of what earns each mark. The score is turned into a percentage of that question's weighting.
A common style of scale looks like this, though wording varies by buyer:
- 0: no answer, or the answer doesn't address the question
- 1: major gaps or concerns
- 2: some gaps; limited detail
- 3: meets the requirement with adequate evidence
- 4: meets it fully, with specific detail and some added value
- 5: exceeds it, with detail specific to this contract and evidence it works
So a 3 out of 5 on a 25% question earns 15 marks, and a 5 earns 25. The difference between "adequate" and "excellent" on one question can be worth more than a 10% price cut.
How is the price scored?
Most often against the lowest compliant price: lowest price ÷ your price × the price weighting. The cheapest bid gets the full 30; someone 10% dearer gets about 27.3.
Other methods exist, such as scoring against the average or against the buyer's budget. GOV.UK guidance warns buyers that scoring relative to the lowest price can have side effects on value for money and asks them to test their method, so read the formula in your own tender rather than assuming.
Three bids for a £165k–£200k school refurbishment, scored 70/30
Price scored as lowest price ÷ bid price × 30. Quality is the bidder's overall mark out of 100.
| Bidder A: quality 60, price £180,00060% × 70 = 42.0; £165k ÷ £180k × 30 = 27.5 | 69.5 |
| Bidder B: quality 80, price £200,00080% × 70 = 56.0; £165k ÷ £200k × 30 = 24.75 | 80.75 |
| Bidder C: quality 50, price £165,00050% × 70 = 35.0; lowest price, full 30 | 65.0 |
| Winner: Bidder B, the dearest bid11.25 marks clear of A | 80.75 |
The lesson in the numbers: the firm with the cheapest price came last, and the firm that wrote the best answers won by over 11 marks while charging £35,000 more than the cheapest. In a 70/30 tender, each 10 extra quality points is 7 marks. Bidder A cutting its price by £15,000 to match C would have added 2.5 marks.
What do assessors look for in a quality answer?
Answers that are specific to this job, back each claim with evidence and follow the question's structure. A generic method statement copied from the last bid usually scores 2 or 3.
A 22-page tender document with seven different attachments
That firm, mostly commercial at about £80k a month, told us its public tenders run at about 70% quality, 30% price. Its RAMS and health and safety paperwork had fallen three months behind, which is exactly the evidence a quality answer needs. If that's you, the RAMS template is the place to start.
How should you split your bid time?
In line with the marks. If quality is 70% of the score, most of your hours should go on the written answers, with the price checked properly but not polished for days.
- Read the evaluation criteria first.
Weightings, scoring scale, word limits and any pass/fail questions.
- Price it once, properly.
Measure, build up rates, add your qualifications. See bill of quantities pricing if the tender includes one.
- Plan each quality answer against the scoring guide.
List what a 5 would need before writing.
- Write the heaviest-weighted answers first.
The method statement on a 25% question deserves more time than a 5% aftercare question.
- Get someone to mark it.
Hand a colleague the scoring scale and ask what they'd give it.
What do you get back if you lose?
On public tenders under the Procurement Act 2023, an assessment summary. It sets out your score for each criterion with the reasons, and the same for the winning tender, so you can see where the marks went.
Read it the day it arrives. If you lost 10 marks on health and safety and 3 on price, you know where the next bid's effort goes. For more on the public sector rules, see the Procurement Act guide for small contractors.
Where Nexley fits
Nexley is the AI back office for UK trade firms: five AI assistants run your tenders, quotes, buying, scheduling and invoicing. It connects to the tools you already work in, you run it all from WhatsApp, and you approve everything. £799 a month.
For quality-price tenders, Nexley reads the tender pack you forward on WhatsApp, pulls out the weightings, scoring scale and word limits, prices the schedule from your own rates and drafts the quality answers from your past jobs, RAMS and policies. You edit and approve every answer and the price before anything goes in.
Common questions
Is 70/30 always quality first?
By convention, yes: 70/30 normally means 70% quality, 30% price. Check the tender, because some buyers write price first. The weightings must be published, so the documents will say.
Can I win a 70/30 tender with the lowest price?
Only if your quality score is close to the best. In the example above, the cheapest bid came last because its answers scored 50 out of 100. The price can never give you more than its 30 marks.
Are social value questions part of quality?
Usually. Public buyers can include wider factors such as jobs and skills, waste reduction and net zero where they relate to the contract and are proportionate. They're normally a separate weighted question within the quality marks.
Do private clients and main contractors score tenders this way?
Some do, especially larger main contractors on public jobs. Many private tenders are decided on price with an informal look at quality. Ask how the tender will be evaluated if the documents don't say.
Sources
- GOV.UK: Guidance on assessing competitive tenders
- GOV.UK: Procurement Act 2023 e-learning, module 7: assessment and award
- GOV.UK: Guidance on assessment summaries
- legislation.gov.uk: Procurement Act 2023, section 19
Every rule, rate and date above was checked against these sources on the date shown at the top.
Topic: Tendering and estimating
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