Free tool
How many tenders stand
between you and the target?
Work backwards from the revenue target: wins needed, bids to submit at your real win rate, tenders to review, and what the bidding will cost.
Work backwards from the target
New-award revenue you need to win this year.
Typical awarded value of one win for your team.
Illustrative default: 25%. Use your trailing rate, not your hopeful one.
Your qualification gate. 5 reviewed for every 1 submitted is a disciplined gate; 1.5 is bidding on almost everything.
Loaded cost: proposal time, bond and document fees, translation, partner coordination.
Bids you need to submit
Pipeline coverage multiple
Reviewed, bid, won
| Pipeline line | Value |
|---|
Defaults are illustrative planning anchors (a 25% win rate, 5 tenders reviewed per bid), not benchmarks for your team. Swap in your trailing numbers.
Why win-rate discipline beats bidding on everything
The instinct under a revenue target is volume: more bids, more chances. The math points the other way, because win rate is not a fixed trait of your company. It is mostly a function of what you agree to bid on. A bid pipeline coverage calculator makes the trade visible: the coverage multiple you must fund is roughly 1 divided by your win rate, so at 25% you need about 4x the target in submitted bid value, and at 10% you need 10x.
Worked example: two teams, same five wins
Both teams need 5 wins of $2M each to hit a $10M target, at $15,000 per bid. Team A bids on almost everything it reviews: 2 tenders reviewed per bid, and a 10% win rate. It must submit 50 bids, review 100 tenders, and spend $750,000 on bidding. Team B holds a hard gate: 5 reviewed per bid, and a 25% win rate. It submits 20 bids, reviews the same 100 tenders, and spends $300,000. Same review workload, same five wins, $450,000 apart, and Team B writes 20 proposals instead of 50.
The other failure mode is quieter: a pipeline that looks covered at a fantasy win rate. If the plan only closes at double your trailing rate, the plan is fiction. Run the calculator with the trailing number and let the bids-to-submit figure be uncomfortable early in the year, while there is still time to fix it.
How benchmarks set the qualification gate
A gate needs data, not vibes. Two numbers decide most qualification calls: how many bidders this buyer typically draws in this category, and how tight the winning prices run. Where portals publish full bidder tables (every bidder, CR number, bid amount, and local-content ratio), both are readable. A category that draws 15 bidders with a few percent between the winner and the median is a price war, and your expected win rate there is structurally low no matter how good the proposal is. A buyer whose tenders draw 3 bidders is a different bet entirely.
Ishara's tender intelligence shows exactly this: bidder-count histograms and spread percentiles per buyer and category, built on the bid tables portals actually publish, with sample sizes shown honestly. Qatar is live end to end today and refreshed daily; Bahrain is next, with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and the UAE planned. When a tender passes the gate, a multi-select tray moves it straight into a bid-team funnel in the CRM, so the pipeline this calculator sizes is the pipeline you actually run. The benchmarks and pricing lesson covers how to read the histogram before you commit a proposal team.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good pipeline coverage multiple for tender bids?
Coverage is roughly 1 divided by your win rate. At a trailing 25% win rate you need about 4x the revenue target in submitted bid value; at 15%, closer to 7x. Generic sales folklore says 3x, but a bid pipeline should be derived from your own win rate, not defaulted.
What should I count as the cost per bid?
Everything the bid consumes: proposal team time, bond and tender document fees, translation, legal review, pricing work, and partner coordination. Teams that only count document fees underestimate badly; a serious government bid usually carries a five-figure loaded cost. The input is optional, but the total is sobering.
Where do the win rate and qualification ratio defaults come from?
They are illustrative planning anchors: a 25% win rate and 5 tenders reviewed per bid submitted. Replace both with your trailing numbers. Where portals publish full bidder tables you can also sanity-check the win rate structurally: 1 divided by the typical bidder count in your category is the base rate before any edge you bring.
Stop working the market blind.
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