Understanding Evaluation Criteria: How Bids Are Scored

5 min readBy Kim FraterPublished 2026-07-27

Written by Kim Frater

Former Public Sector Buyer • Founder of Bid Trawler • 40+ years’ public sector experience

“I believe public procurement shouldn’t be complicated. Every guide I write explains the process in plain English so you can bid with confidence.”

5 minute read

Updated July 2026

Hi, I'm Kim. If you're new to public procurement, don't worry, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know in plain English.

One of the first things I look for when I start to review a tender isn't the specification.

It's the evaluation criteria.

Why?

Because the evaluation criteria tell you exactly how the buyer will decide who wins the contract.

If you ignore them, you're effectively writing your bid without knowing how the marks will be awarded.

If you understand them, you can focus your time and effort on the areas that will make the biggest difference to your final score.

In this guide, I'll explain how evaluation criteria work, how quality and price are scored, and why understanding the scoring system is one of the easiest ways to improve your chances of winning public sector contracts.

What is an evaluation criteria?

Evaluation criteria are simply the buyer's marking scheme.

Think back to school.

Before sitting an exam, you wanted to know how the paper would be marked.

Tendering works in exactly the same way.

The buyer publishes the evaluation criteria so every supplier understands:

what they'll be assessed on
how many marks are available
how quality and price will be weighted
how the winning bidder will be selected

Knowing this before you start writing is one of the biggest advantages you can have.

Most tenders are scored on quality and price

Although every procurement is different, most public sector tenders are assessed using a combination of quality and price.

Quality

This measures how well your business can deliver the contract.

The buyer may ask questions about:

your experience
your proposed approach
mobilisation
risk management
customer service
safeguarding
health and safety
social value

These responses are scored by evaluators using the published scoring methodology.

Price

Price measures the commercial value of your bid.

In many procurements, the lowest compliant price receives the highest score.

Other suppliers are then awarded proportionally fewer marks using a published pricing formula.

That doesn't automatically mean the cheapest bid wins.

Public procurement is about achieving the best overall value, not simply choosing the lowest price.

What do the weightings mean?

Every buyer decides how important quality and price are for that particular contract.

You might see something like this:

Quality – 60%
Price – 40%

That tells you quality carries more influence than price.

In another procurement, you might see:

Quality – 40%
Price – 60%

In that case, pricing will have a much greater impact on the final result.

Always look at the weightings before you begin writing.

They tell you where your effort should be focused.

Here's a simple example

Imagine two suppliers submit bids for the same contract.

Supplier	Quality Score	Price Score	Total
Company A	50%	35%	85%
Company B	55%	25%	80%

Although Company B achieved the higher quality score, Company A performed much better on price and achieved the higher overall score.

Now imagine the quality weighting increased to 80%.

The outcome could be completely different.

That's why understanding the evaluation criteria before you start writing is so important.

The biggest mistake I see suppliers make

Over the years, I've reviewed countless bid responses and one mistake appears again and again.

Suppliers answer the question they wanted to be asked...

instead of the question the buyer actually asked.

That might sound obvious, but it happens surprisingly often.

A buyer might ask:

How will you manage contract mobilisation?

The supplier spends half the response talking about their company history.

It may all be true.

It may even be impressive.

But it doesn't answer the question.

Evaluators can only award marks for information that's relevant to the published question and scoring criteria.

If you don't answer the question directly, you make it much harder for them to give you a high score.

Evidence always scores better than claims

One thing buyers look for is evidence.

It's easy for any supplier to say:

"We provide an excellent service."

It's much more convincing to say:

"During our previous contract, we achieved a 98% customer satisfaction score and consistently met every contractual KPI."

Evidence gives buyers confidence that you can deliver what you're promising.

Whenever possible, support your answers with:

case studies
measurable results
customer feedback
performance data
contract outcomes

The more relevant your evidence, the stronger your response becomes.

Don't spend the same amount of time on every question

This is one of the simplest ways to improve your bid.

Not every question carries the same number of marks.

If one question is worth 20% of the total quality score and another is worth 5%, they shouldn't receive the same amount of effort.

Always prioritise the questions that carry the greatest weighting.

That's where you have the biggest opportunity to improve your overall score.

Before you submit your bid

Before uploading your tender, ask yourself these questions.

Have I answered every part of the question?
Have I provided evidence to support my claims?
Have I explained how we'll deliver the contract?
Have I tailored the response to this buyer?
Have I focused on the highest scoring questions?

If the answer is yes to all five, you're giving yourself the best possible chance of scoring well.

My Final Thoughts

Evaluation criteria aren't there to make tendering more complicated.

They're there to make it fair.

Every supplier knows how they'll be assessed before they submit their bid.

The businesses that consistently win public sector contracts aren't always the biggest or the cheapest.

More often, they're the ones that understand exactly how the buyer will award marks and write their responses accordingly.

Before you start your next tender, spend five minutes reading the evaluation criteria.

It could be the most valuable five minutes you spend on the entire bid.

Thanks for reading.

I hope this guide has made public procurement a little easier to understand.

Kim Frater
Founder, Bid Trawler

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