What to Send a Contractor: The Commercial Construction Bid Package That Gets You a Real Number
What to Send a Contractor: The Commercial Construction Bid Package That Gets You a Real Number
The number you get back is capped by what you send out. A commercial construction bid package doesn't have to be thick or formal, but it does have to answer the questions a contractor would otherwise have to guess at. Guesses turn into padding. Padding turns into three bids you can't compare. Spend thirty minutes gathering five things and you get faster pricing, tighter pricing, and far fewer surprises after the work starts.
The short version
- Send drawings or a space plan. Even a preliminary one beats a verbal walkthrough.
- Send the lease exhibit or landlord work letter. It decides who pays for what, and it moves scope more than any other document.
- Send your target date. A tight schedule and a loose schedule are two different jobs at two different prices.
- Send your real budget ceiling. A contractor can only value-engineer toward a number you've said out loud.
- Send the use and any brand or franchise standards. A finish schedule tells the contractor what "done" means.
- If you don't have drawings, say so. A good general contractor can help build scope from a site walk.
- Every gap becomes an assumption, and assumptions are where bids drift apart.
- Expect a lump-sum proposal with a scope letter at this project size — read the scope letter, not just the total.
What goes in a commercial construction bid package
Five items. That's the whole list.
1. Drawings or a space plan
A space plan is a simple floor layout — walls, doors, rooms, and what each room is for. It doesn't need engineer stamps yet. It needs to be accurate enough that a contractor can count walls, doors, and fixtures instead of imagining them.
If all you have is a napkin sketch and a lease, send the napkin sketch and the lease. Tell the contractor it's preliminary. That single sentence changes how the estimate is written and how much contingency gets buried in it.
2. The lease exhibit or landlord work letter
The work letter is the part of your lease that spells out what the landlord delivers and what you're responsible for. It's usually an exhibit at the back. It answers questions like: Is HVAC already in place and running? Are restrooms built? Is the electrical service already at the panel? Is the floor a bare slab?
This document swings the price more than anything else you'll send.
Here's a real scenario. Two operators lease identical 3,000-square-foot suites in the same building. One work letter delivers restrooms, a finished ceiling grid, and conditioned air; the other delivers four walls and a slab. Same floor plan, wildly different tenant improvement numbers.
Also send the tenant improvement allowance amount if you have one, and how it gets paid out. Allowance draw rules affect how a contractor schedules billing.
3. Your target date
The schedule is part of the price.
If you need doors open by a fixed date — a lease commencement, a franchise deadline, a holiday season — say the date. If the date is soft, say that too. Tight dates cost more because they buy premium lead times, overtime, and sometimes overlapping trades that a normal sequence would keep separate.
Also: permit review is a real block of calendar time you don't control. Build it into your date before you commit to it publicly. Expect 2-4 weeks.
4. Your hard budget number
Operators hate sharing this. The fear is that the number becomes the price.
The opposite is closer to true. If there's a ceiling you can't exceed, saying so lets a contractor design toward it — swap a finish, keep a wall, phase a scope, pick a lighting package that hits the same look for less. Say nothing and you get a full-scope bid that lands over your limit, and then everybody spends two weeks redoing it.
Value engineering means finding a cheaper way to get the same result. It only works if someone knows the target.
5. Your use, plus brand or tenant standards
"Office" and "medical office" are not the same job. "Retail" and "quick-service restaurant" aren't close. Use drives code requirements, mechanical loads, plumbing, and inspections.
If you're a franchisee, send the brand's construction manual, finish schedule, and equipment cut sheets. Those documents are the answer key for a restaurant buildout or a retail buildout. Without them a contractor prices generic finishes, and generic finishes get rejected by your brand rep after the drywall is up.
Every gap in what you send becomes an assumption in the bid — and assumptions are where bids drift apart and change orders get born.
What each missing piece actually costs you
| What's missing | What the contractor has to do | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Drawings or space plan | Estimate wall, door, and fixture counts from memory | Wide spread between bids; scope fights later |
| Landlord work letter | Assume base building condition | Duplicate scope you already paid rent for, or a gap nobody priced |
| Target date | Assume a normal schedule | Missed opening, or overtime added as a change order |
| Budget ceiling | Price full scope, no alternates | A number over your limit and a two-week redo |
| Brand or finish standards | Price allowances for finishes | Allowance overruns; brand rejects finishes mid-job |
| Existing conditions info | Add contingency | Padding you can't see and can't compare |
Tight date vs. loose date: same space, two different jobs
| Loose date | Tight date | |
|---|---|---|
| Trade sequencing | One trade at a time | Overlapping crews |
| Material selection | Standard lead times fine | Substitutions for whatever's in stock |
| Labor | Regular hours | Nights and weekends where inspections allow |
| Permit approach | Wait for full permit | Possible phased permits, if the jurisdiction allows |
| Price effect | Baseline | Higher, and the increase should be itemized |
If you're on a tight date, ask each bidder to show you what the date is costing. A contractor who can't separate those dollars probably didn't price the date at all.
What to do if you don't have drawings
Say so, plainly, in your first email. Then ask for a site walk.
On a walk a contractor can see ceiling heights, panel capacity, existing plumbing, and the shape of what's already there. That's often enough to produce a budget range and a written list of assumptions — which is exactly what you need to decide whether to spend money on drawings at all. For an office renovation or a warehouse conversion, the walk usually tells you more than the drawings would have.
Send us what you have and we'll tell you what else we need to give you a real number.
How to compare the bids once they come back
Don't compare totals first. Compare scope letters.
At the $50K–$500K range, most general contracting work is bid as a lump sum with a scope letter — a written list of what's included, what's excluded, and what's assumed. Two proposals can be $40,000 apart because one includes fire sprinkler modifications, temporary power, and final cleaning, and the other doesn't mention them.
Read the exclusions. Line up the three lists side by side. Then look at the numbers.
Where this goes wrong
- Sending a verbal description and expecting a firm price. You'll get a range or a guess, and both will move.
- Hiding the budget. The number comes out eventually. Hiding it just wastes a round of pricing.
- Skipping the work letter. This is the single most common miss. Operators assume the landlord's base building is more finished than it is.
- Bidding off outdated drawings. If the layout changed after the last set, say which set is current and date it.
- Treating the low bid as the same job. Low bid usually means less scope, not better pricing.
- Forgetting long-lead items. Rooftop units, switchgear, and custom millwork can drive the schedule more than labor does.
- Announcing an opening date before permitting is understood. Once your date is public, every problem becomes an expensive problem.
FAQ
What do contractors need to bid a commercial job?
Five things: a floor plan or space plan, the lease exhibit or landlord work letter, your target completion date, your budget ceiling, and the intended use with any brand or franchise standards. If you're missing one, say which one. A contractor can work around a known gap far better than an unknown one.
How long does it take to get a construction bid back?
It depends on how complete your package is and how many subcontractor quotes are needed. A simple scope with drawings moves fast. A scope with mechanical, plumbing, and electrical work waits on trade pricing. Ask each bidder for a date when you send the package. An estimate can typically take 2-3 weeks to turn around, especially if multiple specialty trades are involved. Imagine contractors have to speak to 2-3 tradesmen for each trade.
Should I tell the contractor my budget?
Yes, if you have a hard ceiling. It lets the contractor propose alternates that land under it instead of handing you a number you have to reject. If your budget is a wish rather than a limit, say that. What hurts you is silence, not honesty.
Why are contractor bids so different from each other?
Almost always scope, not markup. One bid includes items the others excluded — permits, temporary utilities, sprinkler heads, fire alarm, final cleaning. Compare the scope letters line by line before comparing totals. When bids are built from the same complete package, they land much closer together.
Can a contractor bid without drawings?
A contractor can give you a budget range from a site walk plus a written list of assumptions. That's useful for deciding whether the project pencils. It isn't a firm price. For a lump-sum number that holds, you need at least a permit-ready drawing set.
Who pays for the drawings — me or the landlord?
Check the work letter. Some leases include a design allowance, some fold design into the tenant improvement allowance, and some leave it entirely on you. This is a question to answer before you hire an architect, not after.
Get a number you can actually use
Pull your lease exhibit, your plan, and your target date into one email. That's the package. If you're missing pieces, send what you have anyway.
Call (404) 724-8709. In about fifteen minutes we'll tell you what we can price from what you've got, what's still missing, and whether a site walk is the faster path — before you spend money on drawings you may not need yet.