Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about ReqFit, from how reviews work to what we do and don't analyse.
Getting started
Yes. Create an account, upload your documents, and receive a complete review at no cost. No credit card required.
PDF and Word documents (.pdf, .docx, .doc). Both the RFP and the proposal should be uploaded as one of these formats.
Most reviews complete within two to three minutes depending on document length.
Yes. A free account gives you access to your first review at no cost. No credit card is required to sign up.
Yes. ReqFit works with any RFP, ITT, tender, or procurement document where there are stated requirements that your proposal needs to address. It is sector-agnostic.
Reviews and analysis
ReqFit reads every requirement in your RFP and maps it against your proposal to determine whether each one has been addressed. You receive a requirement-by-requirement breakdown, a compliance score, and specific guidance on where gaps exist.
Your compliance score is a percentage that reflects how many of the stated requirements in the RFP have been addressed in your proposal. A higher score means fewer gaps for evaluators to penalise.
Yes. Many users run a first review to identify gaps, make changes, then run a second review to confirm the gaps are closed. Each review uses one review from your balance.
Yes. Every review produces a fully branded, professionally formatted report that you can download as a document and share with your team or client.
Yes. You can upload your company logo and set your corporate colours. These appear on the cover page and throughout the report.
What ReqFit does and doesn't do
No. ReqFit assesses compliance, not prose. It checks whether each requirement has been addressed, not whether your writing is persuasive or eloquent. Writing quality is subjective. Requirement coverage is measurable.
No. ReqFit identifies coverage gaps and compliance issues. It does not predict outcomes, score your commercial competitiveness, or assess how an evaluator will feel about your response. What it does tell you is whether you have addressed every stated requirement, which is the foundation that winning proposals are built on.
No. ReqFit focuses on the technical and written response. It does not evaluate your pricing strategy, fee structure, or commercial terms. Pricing decisions depend on market context that falls outside the scope of compliance analysis.
No. Design and layout are subjective. ReqFit focuses exclusively on whether the content of your proposal addresses the requirements in the RFP. A beautifully designed proposal that misses a key requirement will still be flagged.
No. ReqFit reviews. It does not write. You keep full control of your content. The report tells you what needs attention so you can decide how to address it. This is a deliberate design choice. The goal is to support your judgement, not replace it.
No. ReqFit handles the structured compliance review that a bid manager would typically do manually. It does not replace strategic advice, win theme development, or the experience of someone who knows your client. Think of it as a tool that frees your most experienced people to focus on strategy rather than checking requirements off a list.
Pricing and billing
Yes. If you have a subscription and run out of reviews mid-cycle, you can top up with a one-off single review or a one-off pack at any time. Your subscription continues unchanged.
Any reviews already applied to your account remain valid until their individual 12-month expiry date. Cancelling stops future reviews being applied. It does not remove reviews you already have.
Yes. No watermarks, no reduced analysis, no restricted features. The output is identical. We want you to evaluate ReqFit on a live proposal, not a demo version of it.
Single reviews start from £29. Packs of 5 and 10 reviews are available at lower per-review rates. Your first review is free, no credit card required.
All payments are handled by Paddle, a dedicated billing platform used by thousands of SaaS companies worldwide. ReqFit never sees, stores, or touches your payment details.
Privacy and security
Yes. ReqFit is stateless and logless. Your documents are processed end-to-end encrypted and never stored beyond the review session.
Only you and any users within your account. Reports are not shared with other customers, used for training, or accessible to ReqFit staff. Once generated, the report belongs to you.
Paid review reports are stored for 12 months. Free review reports are stored for 1 month. You can download your report at any time during the storage period. After expiry, the report is permanently deleted.
Yes. CASM Labs Ltd (the company behind ReqFit) is registered with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO reference ZC111039). We process data in accordance with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
From the ReqFit blog
Our blog covers the practical side of proposals, tenders, and RFPs. The questions below are drawn directly from those articles, with links through to the full piece if you want to read further.
Choosing the right opportunities, qualifying decisions, and focusing your resources where they count.
Score the opportunity against a set of qualification criteria before committing resources. The six that matter most are strategic fit, relationship strength, resource availability, sector win history, competitive landscape, and time to produce a quality submission. If more than two criteria score low, the opportunity is probably not worth pursuing.
Read more: Bid or no bid: how to choose the right RFPs and improve your chances before you commitA bid/no-bid framework is a structured scoring method for deciding whether to respond to an RFP. Each criterion is scored on a simple scale, and the total determines whether the opportunity clears a minimum threshold. It replaces gut instinct with a repeatable process that the whole team can apply consistently.
Read more: Bid or no bid: how to choose the right RFPs and improve your chances before you commitThere is no universal number. The right volume depends on your team's capacity to produce quality submissions. Most teams would improve their win rate by responding to fewer RFPs and investing more time in each one. If your proposals are consistently average, you are probably bidding on too many opportunities.
Read more: Bid or no bid: how to choose the right RFPs and improve your chances before you commitYes. The period between deciding to bid and starting to write is valuable. Submit clarification questions early, map the evaluation criteria before drafting, and assemble the right team while there is still time. Then run a compliance check against the RFP before the main writing effort begins to identify gaps early.
Read more: Bid or no bid: how to choose the right RFPs and improve your chances before you commitCore concepts every proposal professional should understand, from terminology to evaluation mechanics.
One page is the standard for most proposals. For longer, more complex bids (above £500,000 or highly technical submissions), two pages can be justified, but only if every sentence adds information the evaluation panel needs. If in doubt, cut to one page.
Read more: How to write an executive summary that evaluators actually readNo. Pricing belongs in the commercial section of the proposal, where evaluators expect to find it and where it can be assessed alongside the full scope of work. Including it in the executive summary pulls attention to cost before the evaluator has had the opportunity to assess the value you are offering.
Read more: How to write an executive summary that evaluators actually readNot knowing what the section is actually for. Without a clear sense of purpose, most writers default to what feels safe: an introduction, a capabilities overview, a positive closing. The result looks professional but misses what evaluators are looking for. Start with the client's need, not your credentials.
Read more: How to write an executive summary that evaluators actually readLast. You cannot accurately summarise a proposal you have not yet written. Writing it first risks creating a version of the proposal that does not reflect what you actually submitted. Plan the structure of your executive summary early, but write the final text after the main document is complete.
Read more: How to write an executive summary that evaluators actually readIn most practical respects, yes. Both are formal documents issued by a buyer asking suppliers to respond to defined requirements. The difference is largely sectoral: tender is the standard term in construction, public sector, and UK procurement, while RFP is more common in technology and professional services.
Read more: RFP response, proposal, tender: what's the difference and why it mattersRFP stands for request for proposal. It is a formal document a buyer issues when they know what problem they want to solve and want suppliers to propose how they would approach it. The buyer sets out requirements and evaluation criteria, and submissions are assessed and scored against those criteria.
Read more: RFP response, proposal, tender: what's the difference and why it mattersAn RFP (request for proposal) asks suppliers to propose a solution. An RFI (request for information) is an earlier stage document used to gather market intelligence before a formal process begins. An RFQ (request for quotation) is focused on price rather than approach, typically used when the buyer already knows what they want and is comparing costs.
Read more: RFP response, proposal, tender: what's the difference and why it mattersUsually both, and the distinction matters. A pitch typically involves a presentation with more room for creativity and relationship. An RFP is a structured document with scored criteria that your response must address directly. If the document has numbered requirements and published evaluation weightings, treat it as an RFP regardless of what the covering email calls it.
Read more: RFP response, proposal, tender: what's the difference and why it mattersThe most common reason is failing to address one or more stated requirements in the RFP. Evaluators score against specific criteria, and any criterion left unanswered typically receives zero marks, dragging the overall score down regardless of how strong the rest of the proposal is.
Read more: Why proposals fail: the seven gaps that cost you contractsYes, and it happens regularly. Evaluators score the document, not the organisation. If your proposal does not clearly communicate your solution against each requirement, the evaluator cannot give you credit for capability that is not demonstrated on the page.
Read more: Why proposals fail: the seven gaps that cost you contractsMost RFPs contain between 10 and 30 individually scored requirements, depending on the sector and contract value. Public sector tenders and regulated industries tend to have more. The total number is less important than whether every one of them receives a clear, evidenced response.
Read more: Why proposals fail: the seven gaps that cost you contractsA requirement gap occurs when an RFP states a specific criterion or question and the proposal does not address it at all. This is different from a weak response. A weak response scores low. A requirement gap scores zero, because the evaluator has nothing to assess.
Read more: Why proposals fail: the seven gaps that cost you contractsIt depends on the weighting. If the 30% you cannot meet carries low evaluation weight, a strong response on the remaining 70% can still be competitive. If the missing requirements are heavily weighted or mandatory pass/fail criteria, your chances are poor. The decision should be based on a clear analysis of the scoring model, not a gut feeling.
Read more: Why proposals fail: the seven gaps that cost you contractsPractical techniques for improving specific parts of your proposal process.
General purpose AI tools are not designed with confidential commercial documents in mind. Proposals routinely contain pricing strategy, staffing plans, proprietary methodology, and client intelligence. Before uploading, check the tool's data handling and retention policy carefully. Purpose-built proposal review tools designed for commercial use operate under stricter data handling standards.
Read more: Why using a general purpose AI tool is not the same as reviewing your proposalA context window is the maximum amount of text an AI model can process in a single session. When a document exceeds this limit, the model cannot consider all of it at once. For long RFPs and detailed proposals, this means parts of the document may be silently dropped from the review without any warning, leading to gaps you would never know about.
Read more: Why using a general purpose AI tool is not the same as reviewing your proposalNot reliably. General purpose AI tools produce unstructured feedback that varies depending on how the question is phrased and when it is asked. A dedicated proposal review tool applies a consistent framework every time, works requirement by requirement, and produces a structured, comparable output. For one-off informal sense-checking, general AI can be useful. For a repeatable review process, it is not sufficient.
Read more: Why using a general purpose AI tool is not the same as reviewing your proposalWith a general purpose AI tool, you often cannot know. If the combined length of your RFP and proposal exceeds the tool's context window, content will be dropped without notification. Purpose-built proposal review tools are engineered to handle document length as a core design requirement, using multi-pass processing to ensure nothing is silently dropped.
Read more: Why using a general purpose AI tool is not the same as reviewing your proposalA mid-market proposal typically involves 30-60 hours of combined staff time across writing, review, and coordination. At loaded salary costs of £40-70 per hour, that translates to £1,500-4,000 in people costs per proposal, before accounting for management time or the opportunity cost of diverted capacity.
Read more: The real cost of submitting blind: what one missed requirement actually costsIndustry research consistently reports average RFP win rates of between 20% and 35% for competitive procurement processes. For companies without a dedicated bid function, win rates at the lower end of this range are common. This means most proposals fail, making pre-submission quality checks one of the highest-return investments a bid team can make.
Read more: The real cost of submitting blind: what one missed requirement actually costsStart with your average contract value and multiply it by your estimated win rate improvement. A team winning £150,000 contracts at a 25% rate that improves to 30% generates an expected £7,500 more per proposal attempt. Compared to the marginal cost of a structured pre-submission review, the return is clear and requires no complex modelling to see.
Read more: The real cost of submitting blind: what one missed requirement actually costsSubmitting blind means sending a proposal without a structured check against the RFP's specific requirements and evaluation criteria. The team believes they have covered everything, but without a systematic comparison, gaps that are clearly present in the brief can go unnoticed until the client scorecard arrives. By then, the opportunity is gone.
Read more: The real cost of submitting blind: what one missed requirement actually costsThe most common errors at submission stage are process failures rather than content failures: missing signatures, wrong file format, appendices not attached, and page limits miscounted. Content gaps should be caught earlier in the review process. By the time you are an hour from the deadline, there is not enough time to fix them properly.
Read more: Why experienced bid managers never submit on deadline day (and the checklist they use instead)Yes. Buyers can and do disqualify submissions that do not follow stated formatting requirements, particularly in public sector and highly regulated procurement. Exceeding a page limit, submitting in the wrong file format, or failing to include a mandatory compliance declaration are all grounds for rejection regardless of how strong your content is.
Read more: Why experienced bid managers never submit on deadline day (and the checklist they use instead)In an ideal world, your final hour involves very little. The submission should be ready the evening before, so the final check is confirming the file is correctly named, logging into the portal, uploading, and getting confirmation of receipt. If you are making content changes in the final hour, something has gone wrong earlier in the process.
Read more: Why experienced bid managers never submit on deadline day (and the checklist they use instead)Step by step walkthroughs of key proposal activities, from submission to evaluation.
Most formal evaluation panels consist of two to four evaluators. Public sector procurement often requires a minimum of two independent scorers to reduce bias and comply with procurement regulations. Each evaluator scores independently before the panel convenes to moderate and agree a final consensus score.
Read more: What happens to your proposal after you submit itTimescales vary by procurement size and complexity, but most formal evaluations take between two and six weeks from submission deadline to notification of outcome. Large public sector frameworks can take longer. The RFP or ITT typically states the expected evaluation period in the procurement timetable.
Read more: What happens to your proposal after you submit itIn formal public sector procurement, buyers must publish evaluation criteria and weightings in the procurement documents, but are restricted from sharing scoring guidance privately with individual bidders. In the private sector, clarifying questions during a designated Q&A window are usually permitted. Understanding how to read published criteria accurately is more reliable than seeking additional guidance from the buyer.
Read more: What happens to your proposal after you submit itLength itself does not affect scoring - evaluators score against criteria, not word count. However, proposals that significantly exceed stated page or word limits may be returned or have excess content discounted. Concise, well-structured responses to each criterion consistently outperform lengthy, discursive ones.
Read more: What happens to your proposal after you submit itDetailed explorations of proposal challenges for specific roles, sectors, and situations.
AI can produce a grammatically correct, well formatted proposal, but it cannot supply the client knowledge, project evidence, and team experience that evaluators actually score. Without those, the output reads as generic and scores accordingly.
Read more: Why AI-written bids are losing you workEvaluators score against specific criteria and look for evidence that you understand their situation. AI-generated content tends to be interchangeable, lacking the specificity and proof points that separate a competitive submission from a generic one.
Read more: Why AI-written bids are losing you workAI works best after a human has drafted with real knowledge. It can tighten language, check consistency, and review coverage against the brief. Using it to generate content from scratch, rather than to review or refine human-written content, is where most teams run into problems.
Read more: Why AI-written bids are losing you workEven well maintained content libraries have gaps, and AI fills those gaps with generated content rather than flagging them. Unless your library is complete, current, and accurately tagged, the AI output will contain a mix of real and fabricated material that is difficult to distinguish.
Read more: Why AI-written bids are losing you workNo. ReqFit does not generate, draft, or suggest any proposal content. It reviews the document your team has already written against the brief you are responding to, identifying where you have addressed requirements and where gaps remain. The writing is always yours.
Read more: Why AI-written bids are losing you workStill got questions?
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