The six steps
| Step 1: preparing the package | The design team prepares the tender documents: production or design drawings, a specification for each package, the administrative conditions, the pricing schedule or bill, an outline programme, the tender rules. The quality of the package directly governs the quality of the offers received. |
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| Step 2: publicity | On public contracts above 40,000 € excluding VAT, publication is mandatory on the buyer profile and, above the thresholds, in the European journal. On private contracts there is no legal obligation, but real competition remains advisable to obtain the best terms. |
| Step 3: questions and answers | Contractors may ask questions through the electronic platform. The answers go to every candidate simultaneously to guarantee equal information. A site visit can be organised on complex projects. |
| Step 4: submission | Electronic submission has been mandatory on public contracts since 2018. The offer comprises administrative documents, certificates, insurance, declarations, technical documents such as the technical statement and references, and financial documents: the schedule of rates, the pricing schedule or the bill. |
| Step 5: analysing the offers | Against the weighted criteria set out in the tender rules. On public contracts the criteria must be transparent and objective: price or whole cost, technical merit, programme, sustainability. Watch for abnormally low offers. |
| Step 6: award and notification | On public contracts: notification to every candidate, the reasons for rejection, and a 16-day standstill period before signature. On private contracts: freedom to negotiate directly with the potential winners. |
The financial documents, unpacked
The pricing schedule for lump-sum contracts
This is the principal financial document on global fixed-price contracts, the most common route in building. It structures the contract price by package and by elementary item, the smallest coherent unit of work whose cost and quantity can be calculated independently.
Typical structure
Each line comprises: the item number, a precise description, the quantity, the unit, the unit rate excluding VAT and the amount.
For example, for the plastering package:
Insulated lining partition, 100 mm mineral wool, 245 m², at 55 €/m², 13,475 €
Metal-stud partition, 72 mm, 312 m², at 50 €/m², 14,976 €
Suspended plasterboard ceiling, 185 m², at 45 €/m², 7,770 €
Fixing door frames as work proceeds, frames supplied by others, 28 no., at 35 € each, 980 €
The total of the schedule constitutes the global fixed price for the package, the price that will be contracted. The quantities are indicative; it is the total price that is firm.
The schedule of rates
The schedule of rates lists unit rates for each elementary item without quantities. It is used on remeasurable contracts, earthworks, external works, work whose quantities cannot be fixed in advance. It also serves as the basis for settling interim valuations and for valuing changes in quantity during construction.
The priced bill of estimated quantities
Similar to the pricing schedule but for remeasurable contracts: it applies the rates from the schedule of rates to estimated quantities supplied by the design team. The contractor enters only the unit rates; the quantities are the design team's. During construction, invoicing follows the quantities actually carried out.
How a contractor builds its offer
Understanding how a contractor responds to a pricing schedule is indispensable for the design team analysing the offers. For each elementary item the contractor produces a price build-up:
| Elementary quantities | For each component, materials, labour, plant, the contractor calculates the quantity needed per unit, allowing for the waste factors specific to its practice. |
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| Unit costs | Material purchase price plus delivery, the hourly labour cost, and the hire or depreciation cost of the plant. |
| Unit net cost | The sum of the component costs for one unit of the item. |
| Unit rate | The unit rate equals the selling price coefficient times the unit net cost, the coefficient incorporating site overheads, operation costs, head office overheads and risk and profit. |
A contractor whose coefficient is 1.32 and whose unit net cost for a square metre of reinforced concrete wall is 87 € will invoice that square metre at 87 × 1.32 = 114.84 €. Two contractors can arrive at different prices using the same materials if their hourly labour cost, their site overheads or their risk allowance differ.
Analysing the offers: beyond the lowest bid
Detecting abnormally low offers
An abnormally low offer is one whose price is so low that it does not allow the contractor to carry out the work under the technical conditions required, creating a risk of failure or of claims during construction. On public contracts the client must ask for justification before rejecting such an offer.
- Ask for the detailed breakdown of the price: material prices, the hourly labour cost adopted, the level of site overheads and risk allowance
- Check the coherence of the programme: an offer with an unrealistic duration often conceals under-sized staffing assumptions
- Ask for recent references from similar sites
The technical criteria
- The value of the materials proposed against the specification, whether equivalent or different
- The people and plant allocated to the site
- How coordination with the other packages is organised
- How the interfaces will be managed, who does what at the junctions between packages
Public against private procedure
| Competition | Public: mandatory and formalised by threshold. Private: complete freedom, though consulting at least three contractors is good practice. |
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| Award criteria | Public: defined, weighted, transparent. Any change after opening is prohibited. Private: free, and can be changed during negotiation. |
| Negotiation | Public: prohibited in the classic open tender, save under the adapted and negotiated procedures. Private: always possible. |
| Minimum response period | Public: at least three weeks under the adapted procedure, five to six weeks under a formal procedure. Private: no rule, but three weeks minimum for a standard package. |
Related articles: The types of public construction contract · Writing the specification and the conditions of contract · Construction procurement and tendering
Cost estimates, pricing schedules, development appraisals, summary notes. Produce in minutes the deliverables you prepare manually today. First project free. → quostra.com
The terminology comes from the French public procurement code and professional practice. Technical source: Widloecher and Cusant, Manuel de l'étude de prix, 5th ed.
Reference basis of the figures
These bands are orders of magnitude for framing, and their reference market is the Paris region. They serve to place a budget at the earliest stages and to compare building types with one another. They replace neither a tender exercise nor an estimate prepared on drawings, and they are not a record of prices actually charged.
The ratios per square metre and per item on this page are stated in January 2026 values. They were updated from January 2024 values, the basis adopted for the whole cocoon, using the BT01 all-trades index published monthly by INSEE on its 2010 base: 130.8 in January 2024, 134.7 in January 2026, a rise of about 3 %.
The global amounts quoted as examples, and any rents, charges or receipts expressed per year or per night, remain on their own basis: a building cost index does not apply to them.
To bring the ratios forward, apply the usual revision formula: updated value = page value × (BT01 for the month in question / 134.7). The index has kept rising since: it stood at 138,3 in June 2026, the last value published when this page was checked, that is 2,7 % above the reference base. BT01 measures contractors' input costs, wages and social charges, materials, plant and energy, not the prices actually tendered.
Sources: the BT construction cost indices published monthly by INSEE on its 2010 base, used to update the figures · construction cost statistics from SDES, the statistical service of the ministry responsible for construction · regulatory texts published in the Journal officiel and consolidated on Légifrance for the requirements cited.