A tender isn't a bigger domestic quote. You're pricing someone else's drawings, specification and often quantities, to a deadline, and if you win on a rate that doesn't cover the real job, you're held to it. Here's how an experienced contract flooring estimator prices one. For jobs you've measured yourself, see how to quote a flooring job.
1. What's in a flooring tender pack
Before measuring, list what you've been sent and what's missing. A typical flooring package includes:
- Invitation to tender: return date, query deadline, form of tender and subcontract terms.
- Drawings: floor plans, a finishes plan and details for thresholds, stairs and mat wells.
- Finishes schedule: each room's floor finish and skirting.
- Specification: usually NBS clauses on products, preparation, installation and testing.
- Pricing document: a bill of quantities, a schedule of rates or a lump sum form.
- Preliminaries and programme: site rules, working hours and phasing.
Check drawing revisions against the drawing register. Pricing a superseded drawing is an easy, expensive mistake.
2. Read the specification before you measure
The specification says what you're pricing; the drawings only show where. Older-style NBS specifications put rubber, plastics, cork, lino and carpet tiling and sheeting under CAWS M50, and cement-based screeds under M10; newer ones use Uniclass codes. For each flooring clause, note:
- Named product or "or equivalent". Price what's named unless alternatives are allowed, and offer any equivalent openly, with its data sheet.
- The base: who lays the screed, how flat it must be and how much preparation is yours.
- Moisture testing: the method and limit in the specification or data sheet, who tests, and who pays for a surface DPM if the base fails.
- Standards: clauses commonly call up BS 8203 (installation of resilient floor coverings), BS 5325 (installation of textile floor coverings) and the BS 8204 series (screeds, bases and in situ floorings). Price the method described, not your usual one.
- Skirtings, cove and trims: skirting type and height, cove formers and capping, nosings, door bars and transitions.
- Weld rod: whether seams are heat-welded, and in what colour.
- Entrance matting: mat size, whether it sits in a recessed well, and who forms the well and supplies the frame.
3. Measure from the drawings, and check the scale
Take off the drawings yourself even when there's a bill, room by room, with references.
- Written dimensions first. They beat scaling. If a drawing says "do not scale", use the figures and query what's missing.
- Check the scale against a known dimension and the scale bar. A 1:100 drawing on A1 is effectively 1:200 when issued at A3: the scale bar shrinks with the sheet, the ratio doesn't.
- Keep units apart: m² for areas, metres for skirting, cove and nosings, and counts for door bars and mat wells.
- Keep named spaces separate, even without a wall between them, so bill items and variations match up.
- Mark exclusions such as "existing to remain", "by others" and "NIC" (not in contract).
On a large pack, flooring estimating software can take the first pass, but these checks still apply.
4. Check the bill of quantities against your takeoff
A bill is somebody else's measure. Compare it with yours line by line.
Know the measurement rules. The preambles say which were used, and many UK bills follow RICS NRM2 (detailed measurement for building works). NRM2 measures floor finishes as the net area in contact with the base, doesn't deduct voids of 1 m² or less, and includes cutting and waste in the item. The bill won't allow for your waste; your rate must.
When the figures differ:
- Small differences from rounding, small voids or doorway lines: price the bill.
- Real differences, such as a missing room or a skirting run half what the drawings show: raise a tender query before the deadline, or qualify it.
- Work the bill doesn't mention, such as cove formers, weld rod or a mat well frame: price it as an item, or say which rate includes it.
Never absorb a gap silently. Some contracts correct wrong bill quantities; on a lump sum priced from drawings and specification, they're your risk. The subcontract and preambles say which.
5. Build your rates
Build every rate from real costs, not a remembered number:
- Materials: what you'll actually buy after cutting waste, roll widths, pattern repeats and whole packs, plus adhesive, primer, smoothing compound at a stated depth, weld rod and trims. Our pack calculator and smoothing compound calculator show the working.
- Labour: laying, preparation, cove forming, welding and stairs, at outputs you achieve on similar sites.
- Access and hours: no goods lift, restricted parking, long carries and out-of-hours working.
- Protection: what the specification requires, and for how long.
- Attendance: what the main contractor provides, such as welfare, storage, power and skips, and what you supply.
- Waste removal: offcuts, packaging and any uplift.
- Overheads and profit, applied consistently.
Get supplier prices for this project, and note how long they're held.
6. Worked example: building one bill rate
One bill item priced from the ground up. All figures are illustrative, not market rates. Coverage varies by product, so use your own prices and the manufacturer's data sheets.
| Cost | Working (illustrative) | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Sheet vinyl | Cutting plan: 107 m of 2 m wide roll = 214 m² × £19.50 | £4,173.00 |
| Adhesive | 186 m² ÷ 50 m² per tub = 3.72, so 4 tubs × £62.00 | £248.00 |
| Smoothing and primer | 3 mm: 186 m² × 3 × 1.5 kg = 837 kg ÷ 25 kg = 33.48, so 34 bags × £16.00, plus primer £96.00 | £640.00 |
| Weld rod | 2 reels × £28.00 | £56.00 |
| Laying and welding | 186 m² × £11.00 | £2,046.00 |
| Preparation labour | 186 m² × £4.00 | £744.00 |
| Sundries | Protection, waste removal and consumables | £350.00 |
| Net cost | £8,257.00 | |
| Overheads and profit | 15% of £8,257.00 | £1,238.55 |
| Price for the item | £9,495.55 | |
| Bill rate | £9,495.55 ÷ 186 m², rounded | £51.05/m² |
The bill says 186 m², but the cutting plan buys 214 m². Price only 186 m² of vinyl and the other 28 m² (£546.00 here) comes out of your margin. And the 3 mm smoothing depth is an assumption, so qualify it.
7. Preliminaries, programme and phasing
Preliminaries are the cost of being on the job: supervision, travel and mobilisation for each visit, parking, access equipment, storage, RAMS and inductions, samples and O&M information. Price them as a lump sum or within your rates, and say which. Under NRM2, you're assumed to have allowed for defined provisional sums in your programming, planning and preliminaries.
Then count your visits on the programme: four phased handovers are four mobilisations. Check the window allows for a ready base, a weathertight building at the conditions the specification requires, and material lead times. Price return visits, or state how many are included.
8. Qualifications, exclusions and clarifications
State exactly what your price is based on:
- Clarifications say how you've read something unclear: "Skirting priced as 100 mm sit-on cove, as detailed; the specification doesn't state a type."
- Qualifications are conditions your price depends on: "Base to be clean, sound, dry and within the specified flatness and moisture limits. Smoothing allowed at 3 mm average; extra depth charged per m² per mm."
- Exclusions are work not priced: "Surface DPM where moisture exceeds the manufacturer's limit. Uplift of existing coverings. Out-of-hours working."
Be specific. Main contractors level competing tenders, and vague lines like "subject to survey" tend to be priced against you.
9. Retentions, payment terms and CIS
Price isn't the only number that matters. Check the subcontract for:
- Retention: the percentage held back, when it's released and how long the defects period runs. Build it into your cash flow.
- Payment terms: application dates, the payment period, discounts and contra-charges. In Great Britain, the Construction Act makes "pay when paid" clauses ineffective unless someone further up the payment chain is insolvent, and gives either party to a construction contract the right to refer a dispute to adjudication.
- CIS: deductions are 20% if you're registered, 30% if you're not, and nil with gross payment status, worked out after VAT, materials you bought and certain other costs are taken off. See our CIS guide for flooring contractors.
- VAT: most CIS-reported construction services between VAT-registered businesses use the VAT domestic reverse charge.
This is general information, not legal or tax advice.
10. Submit, then follow up
- Return the form of tender exactly as asked and on time, with your priced document, qualifications and a covering letter. A late or incomplete tender may not be considered.
- State how long your price is valid and the date of the supplier prices behind it.
- Confirm it arrived, ask when a decision is due and put a follow-up in the diary.
- If you lose, ask for feedback and where your price sat. If you win, keep your takeoff and rate build-ups: you'll value variations against them.
11. Common tender pricing mistakes
- Buying materials against net bill quantities, with no waste or pack rounding.
- Pricing from a superseded drawing or an unchecked scale.
- No moisture or flatness qualification.
- Missing cove formers, weld rod and trims because the bill didn't list them.
- One mobilisation priced for a phased programme.
- Absorbing bill errors instead of querying them.
12. The estimator's checklist
- Documents checked against the drawing register
- Return date, query deadline and form of tender noted
- Every flooring clause read: products, equivalents, base, moisture, standards, trims, weld rod, matting
- Scale checked on every drawing
- Takeoff complete: m², metres, counts, room references and exclusions
- Bill compared with your takeoff, and queries raised
- Rates built from bought quantities, labour, preparation, access, protection and waste
- Preliminaries priced and visits counted
- Clarifications, qualifications and exclusions written
- Retention, payment terms, CIS and VAT checked
- Price validity and supplier price dates stated
- Follow-up date in the diary
How BillyBot handles a tender pack
BillyBot is an AI operator that runs the office side of a flooring business, from first enquiry to final invoice, tenders included. When a tender pack is emailed to your connected Gmail or Outlook inbox, Billy gets to work on it.
- Takes off the drawings and the bill, so you start from a measured scope instead of a blank spreadsheet.
- Picks out the flooring scope from the specification, so you can see what's in your package and what isn't.
- Prices on your own rates, never an average someone else chose.
- Flags what needs your eye instead of guessing, so you know exactly what to check before the price goes out.
The quote is only created when you confirm it, as a PDF or in Xero, Sage or QuickBooks. More on the flooring estimating software page.