There is a familiar way to lose. The technical volume is strong. Every requirement is answered. The past performance is relevant. And the award goes to someone else, because the price was out of range or could not be reconciled with the solution. The team is surprised. They should not be. Nobody looked hard at price until the week it was due.
Price to win is a capture activity
Price to win is an estimate of the price that wins this competition, given this customer's budget, this field of competitors, and this evaluation method. It is not the cost buildup rounded down. It shapes the solution: how you staff, what you team for, what you propose to do yourself. That means it has to exist while the solution can still change. Bring it in during capture, alongside the customer call plan and the competitive analysis, not at the end.
Lime Team: strategy, while it can still matter
The first pricing review sits between Pink Team and Red Team. It looks at the overall pricing strategy and several options, and compares them with the technical offer. Reviewers recommend a course of action. The output is a revised pricing strategy and an updated cost model aimed at the price to win. It happens here because after Pink the solution is firm enough to price, and before Red there is still time to change it.
Green Team: the final check
The final pricing review normally sits between Red Team and Gold Team. If it has to slip after Gold, the full cost volume still gets reviewed. Reviewers confirm that every pricing artifact the RFP requires is present and in the prescribed format, and that company pricing policy was followed for the contract type. Then the question that matters most: does the price reflect the technical solution?
The rule that prevents the worst outcome
A proposal should never go to the customer offering a solution that cannot be delivered at the proposed price. Win that one and you have bought yourself a bad contract. Getting there takes close work between the technical and management writers and the cost team, from the start. Red Team has a part as well: even with pricing incomplete, reviewers should say whether the solution looks too expensive and what the delivery risks are.
Common failures
- Pricing starts when writing ends.
- The cost team has never read the technical volume, and the writers have never seen the basis of estimate.
- Price to win is a single number nobody can explain.
- Subcontractor pricing arrives late and gets accepted as is.
- The pricing review checks arithmetic and format, and never asks whether the price and the solution tell the same story.
If your proposals reach the final week before anyone senior looks at price, you do not have a pricing review. You have a deadline.