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Estimating & Bidding

Bid Tabulation

In Plain English

A chart showing all contractor bids lined up next to each other for easy comparison.

Definition

A bid tabulation is a summary document listing all bids received for a project, organized to show each bidder's base bid, alternates, and unit prices side by side. It is prepared after bid opening to facilitate award decisions. Public agencies typically post bid tabulations as public records.

Why It Matters in Bidding

The bid tabulation is the decision document that turns a pile of sealed proposals into a defensible award, letting the owner instantly see the low responsive bidder, compare alternates, and benchmark prices against the engineer's estimate. Because it captures unit prices and alternate selections side by side, it lets owners legitimately reshape scope, accepting or dropping alternates, to fit the budget without re-bidding. On public projects the published tabulation becomes the public record that supports the award and answers any bid protest.

Example

The bid tabulation showed the two lowest bidders within $40,000 of each other, so the owner accepted Alternate 2 from the second bidder to bring the total under budget while staying defensible.

Related Terms

Bid OpeningBid LevelingBid DayCompetitive Bidding

Frequently Asked Questions

It is assembled immediately after the bid opening, once all sealed bids have been read aloud and recorded. Staff transcribe each bidder's base bid, alternates, and unit prices into a single comparison sheet. On public projects a preliminary tabulation may be posted the same day, with a final version following verification of math and bid responsiveness.
Not necessarily. The award generally goes to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, so a low number can be passed over if the bid was non-responsive, omitted required items, or the firm lacks the qualifications or bonding capacity. The tabulation ranks prices, but responsiveness and responsibility reviews determine the actual award.
Tabulation lines up the submitted dollar amounts exactly as bid, while bid leveling adjusts for scope differences, inclusions, and exclusions to ensure the prices being compared cover identical work. Tabulation is the raw side-by-side snapshot; leveling is the analytical step that makes it truly apples-to-apples before an award is justified.

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