RFQ, IFB, RFP: what each one is actually asking you for

Three acronyms, three different jobs. Which one you have decides what you send, what gets scored, and whether price even decides it.

October 24, 2026 · 3 min read · by Chasedirt

The letters in the title of a solicitation are not decoration. They tell you what the buyer will do with what you send, and the same job can be asked for three different ways. Answering a request for proposals as if it were an invitation for bids is one of the most common ways a good contractor loses work they would have won — not on price, on the shape of the answer.

Invitation for bids (IFB)

Sometimes called an ITB, or a sealed bid. The buyer has a design or a defined scope, wants one number, and will award to the lowest responsive bidder. Price decides, full stop. What matters is that your bid is complete and correct: the right forms, every signature, every addendum acknowledged, unit prices filled in, the bond enclosed if one is required.

A single missing page makes you nonresponsive, and nonresponsive bids are never compared on price at all. This is where "they threw out my bid" comes from, and it is almost always a form rather than a number. The list is in seven ways a bid gets thrown out.

Request for quotations (RFQ)

Usually small, usually fast, often informal: a price for a defined thing — a part, a repair, a load of gravel. Many buyers will take it by email. Some RFQs are qualification requests wearing a price tag ("request for qualifications", also abbreviated RFQ), so read the body: if it asks for your licence, insurance and references rather than a number, the fee comes later and the price line is not the point.

RFQs are often small enough that the buyer is not required to advertise them, which means the notice may never appear anywhere central. That is a coverage problem rather than a form problem, and it is the reason a bare feed of big portals can look complete while missing half the work.

Request for proposals (RFP)

Here the buyer is not buying a defined thing, they are buying an approach. You are scored, and price is usually one criterion among several — sometimes weighted heavily, sometimes barely at all. Expect to answer on method, schedule, staffing, experience, and how you would handle the parts nobody has designed yet.

Two things catch contractors out. First, a scoring rubric is published more often than people expect; find it and answer it in the buyer's order, because evaluators score what they can find. Second, "best and final offer" is a real stage: a shortlist gets one more chance to move price, and if you have already given away your whole margin there is nothing left to move.

The other labels you will meet

• RFI — request for information. No award. The buyer is testing the market or writing a specification. Answering costs an hour and can shape the solicitation in your favour.
• ITB — invitation to bid. An IFB by another name.
• RFPQ — qualifications and price together. Read the weighting before you decide where to spend your effort.
• Sources sought, market survey — the federal versions of an RFI.

What decides it, every time

Not the acronym on the cover. The sentence in the instructions that says to whom the award will be made and on what basis — "lowest responsive and responsible bidder", "highest scoring proposer", "best value". Find that sentence before you decide how to spend your week. If it says lowest, a beautiful methodology section earns no points. If it says highest score, the cheapest price in the room can still lose.

And when it is not clear, the deadline for questions exists for exactly this. Ask. One line back from the buyer can save you a rewritten bid.