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02Delivery & Controls

What a technical point is worth

Take the quality and price split your tender already publishes and see what it commits you to pay for one technical point, the lead no price can close, and the penalty a mid-range bid carries.

The seamThe evaluation panel scoring quality and the finance office paying the difference. Every global instrument requires the weighting to be published and none says what it should be, so the number is chosen once, in a template, and priced for the life of the contract.

The values below are the worked example from the article, a 100m contract scored 70 on quality and 30 on price. Replace them with your own.

What your tender publishes for quality. Price takes the remainder, so 70 here means 30 for price.

points of 100

Any currency; the answers come back in the same one. Used only to put the per-point figure in money.

100,000,000

Used for the penalty the formula puts on a bid in the middle of the range. Leave either price blank to skip it.

92,000,000

The two together set the spread. The penalty depends on how wide it is, not on the contract value.

118,000,000

Optional. Enter quality points out of your own quality allocation, and the price offered.

What a technical point is worth

2026-10-01. projects-advisors.com/tools/award-weighting

Weighting
70 quality / 30 price
Contract value
100,000,000
Expected price range
92,000,000 to 118,000,000
Price formula
Inversely proportional to the lowest bid

What one quality point buys, over the lowest bid

3,448,276 per quality point

Quality is scored out of 70 and price out of 30. Under the price formula below, a bidder one quality point ahead of the lowest bid can be 3.45% more expensive and still tie, which on 100,000,000 is 3,448,276. That figure is not stated anywhere in the tender. It follows from the split, and the split is published because every instrument requires it to be.

Quality points aheadPrice premium that tiesOn this contract
1 of 703.4%103,448,276
2 of 707.1%107,142,857
5 of 7020%120,000,000
10 of 7050%150,000,000
20 of 70200%300,000,000

The lead no price can close

Price can only ever move a bid by the whole price allocation, so a quality deficit larger than that allocation cannot be recovered at any price, including a free one. On this weighting that is 30 quality points, 43% of the quality range. A bidder that far behind is out of the tender before its price is opened, and nothing in the tender documents says so.

What the middle of the range costs

A bid at 105,000,000, exactly halfway between 92,000,000 and 118,000,000, scores 26.29 price points. A straight line between the scores this same formula gives the two ends of the range would put it at 26.69. It gives up 0.41 points, 2% of the score it would otherwise hold, for sitting in the middle. Kiiver and Kodym put that result in print in 2015.

The formula this applies, and the one yours may use

The lowest price takes the whole price allocation. Every other price scores the price allocation multiplied by the lowest bid over its own. That is World Bank Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, seventh edition September 2025, Annex X paragraph 4.8. A tender scoring price against the average bid, or on a straight line to zero at the highest, will give different numbers, and both are common. Check which rule your own tender names before carrying any figure above into a meeting.

Computed from

  • World Bank, Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, seventh edition, September 2025 (seventh edition, September 2025; read 2026-09-07)https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/c84273d1b230aeb2b0b8134de5dc8cd7-0290012025/original/Procurement-Regulations-7th-Edition-Sep-2025.pdf
  • WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, as amended 30 March 2012 (GPA 2012, in force 6 April 2014; read 2026-09-08)https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/rev-gpr-94_01_e.htm
  • UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement, 2011 (2011 text, as adopted; read 2026-09-08)https://uncitral.un.org/sites/default/files/media-documents/uncitral/en/2011-model-law-on-public-procurement-e.pdf
  • UNCITRAL Guide to Enactment of the Model Law on Public Procurement (read 2026-09-08)https://uncitral.un.org/sites/default/files/media-documents/uncitral/en/guide-enactment-model-law-public-procurement-e.pdf
  • Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement, Article 67, contract award criteria (Directive 2014/24/EU, Article 67; read 2026-09-25)https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32014L0024
  • US Department of Defense, Source Selection Procedures, USA000740-22-DPC (read 2026-09-08)https://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/policy/policyvault/USA000740-22-DPC.pdf
  • Executive Regulations of the Government Tenders and Procurement Law (2019 Executive Regulations, amended 1 September 2026; to be re-issued with the new law; read 2026-09-03)https://www.mof.gov.sa/en/Knowledgecenter/newGovTendandProcLow/Documents/Executive%20Regulations.pdf
  • Government Tenders and Procurement Law, new law published in Umm Al-Qura 22/3/1448 (4 September 2026), Arabic (gazetted 4 September 2026; in force 120 days after publication; read 2026-09-05)https://www.uqn.gov.sa/decisions-and-regulations/4001762

What this computes from

Read the sources

  • World Bank, Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, seventh edition, September 2025seventh edition, September 2025; read 2026-09-07.Free in full, and unusually specific: Annex X paragraph 4.8 gives the lowest offered price a financial score of 100% with other prices scored inversely proportional to them; Annex X Table 2 sets quality and cost weightings of 90/10 for highly complex assignments through to 60-50/40-50 for routine work; Annex X paragraph 4.5 puts the minimum technical score at 70 to 85%. The licence permits use and reproduction for non-commercial purposes with attribution and forbids modification, so this site cites the paragraph numbers and computes from the stated rule rather than reproducing the tables.
  • WTO Agreement on Government Procurement, as amended 30 March 2012GPA 2012, in force 6 April 2014; read 2026-09-08.Free in full at the WTO. Article X:7(c) requires the tender documentation to set out all evaluation criteria and, except where price is the sole criterion, the relative importance of those criteria. Article X:11 permits criteria to be modified before award, on written notice to all participating suppliers and with adequate time to re-submit. Article XIV(a) requires each participant in an electronic auction to be given the automatic evaluation method, including the mathematical formula. Article XV:5 awards the contract on the most advantageous tender, judged "based solely on the evaluation criteria specified in the notices and tender documentation". Read 8 September 2026.
  • UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement, 20112011 text, as adopted; read 2026-09-08.Free in full from the United Nations, and the drafting blueprint most national procurement laws rest on. Article 11 carries the evaluation rules: 11(4), non-price criteria shall be objective, quantifiable and expressed in monetary terms "to the extent practicable"; 11(5)(c), the relative weights go in the solicitation documents; 11(6), only the disclosed criteria and procedures may be used, applied as disclosed. Article 31(1)(c) makes criteria that are quantifiable and expressible in monetary terms a precondition for an electronic reverse auction. Article 47 sets the two-envelope evaluation: 47(4)(a) technical and financial presented separately, 47(5) technical evaluated before the financial envelopes are opened, 47(7) a failing proposal has its price returned unopened, 47(8) and 47(9) each responsive bidder is told its technical score and hears every score and price read out. Article 47(10) then leaves the combination of the two unspecified. Read in full 8 September 2026.
  • UNCITRAL Guide to Enactment of the Model Law on Public Procurementread 2026-09-08.Free in full. The Model Law's own commentary, and the nearest thing it has to a basis for conclusions. Part two, in the section on the procuring entity's discretion: "The procuring entity also has the discretion to decide which relative weights to assign to the elements included in its evaluation criteria." Read 8 September 2026.
  • Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement, Article 67, contract award criteriaDirective 2014/24/EU, Article 67; read 2026-09-25.Free, the Official Journal text at EUR-Lex; Article 67 is in Title III, Chapter III. Article 67(4): award criteria shall not confer an unrestricted freedom of choice, shall ensure effective competition, and shall be accompanied by specifications that allow the information tenderers provide to be effectively verified; in case of doubt the authority shall verify it. Article 67(2)(b) admits the staff assigned as a criterion where their quality can have a significant impact on performance. Article 67(5) requires the relative weighting of each criterion to be specified in the procurement documents, permits it to be expressed as a range with an appropriate maximum spread, and falls back to decreasing order of importance where weighting is not possible for objective reasons; Article 67 read in full at EUR-Lex, 25 September 2026.
  • US Department of Defense, Source Selection Procedures, USA000740-22-DPCread 2026-09-08.Free in full. Paragraph 1.3.1.4 sets out Value Adjusted Total Evaluated Price, where "the 'value' placed on better performance is identified and quantified in the RFP", allowing the team to "assign a monetary value, or 'monetize,' the higher rated technical attributes, thus taking some of the subjectivity out of the best value evaluation". The question it tells a buyer to ask itself: "what is the Government willing to pay for higher quality performance between threshold (minimum) and objective (maximum) criteria?" Paragraph 2.3.2.5 makes giving bidders that monetary value a standing instruction wherever possible. Paragraph 3.12 requires performance that earned evaluation credit to be written into the contract. Read 8 September 2026.
  • Executive Regulations of the Government Tenders and Procurement Law2019 Executive Regulations, amended 1 September 2026; to be re-issued with the new law; read 2026-09-03.Free in full. Article 127 sets the receipt procedure, 128 a warranty period of not less than one year, 99 the ten-year liability, and 109 the payment chain. Note that the 2007 regulations of the superseded 2006 law are still hosted on the same site and number these provisions differently. Searched in the Arabic on 7 September 2026 for a late payment remedy: فائدة and فوائد, interest, appear zero times in the 117 pages of the law and its regulations. What exists instead is the claims route under Article 68 of the Law: the contractor files within 60 days of the event, the consultant reports within 21 days of a COMPLETE claim, the agency studies within 45, the committee under Article 86 decides within 45 of a complete claim, compensation is capped at 20% of the contract value and anything beyond that goes to the Administrative Court. So the contractor must initiate, evidence and win, where FIDIC 14.8 accrues charges automatically and without notice. Article 108, immediately before the payment chain, is the offset and was read in the Arabic on 7 September 2026: يجوز, may, not shall, the government authority MAY disburse an advance payment not exceeding 10% of the total contract value, against a bank guarantee equal to it, recovered from the contractor’s dues in instalments at a percentage equal to the advance percentage, from the value of each certificate, starting with the first. So the advance is discretionary, capped, costs a guarantee fee, and amortises to zero across the contract rather than standing as a buffer.
  • Government Tenders and Procurement Law, new law published in Umm Al-Qura 22/3/1448 (4 September 2026), Arabicgazetted 4 September 2026; in force 120 days after publication; read 2026-09-05.Free in full, 101 articles, in the Official Gazette. Article 100 replaces Royal Decree M/128 (1440); Article 101 brings it into force 120 days after publication; Article 99 requires new Executive Regulations within the same period. Article 2 names life cycle cost, execution quality, operational efficiency and risk management among the law’s objectives. Article 59, read on 25 September 2026, keeps the final guarantee at 5% of the contract value, lodged within 15 working days of notice of the award and held until the contractor has performed its obligations and the project is finally received. Read on 5 September 2026.

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