Adjust your numbers.
Defaults reflect mid-market companies (20 RFPs/year, 35 hours each, $85/hr loaded). Change any input to refine the result above.
Your current state
Industry average: 15–30 for mid-market
Typical range: 25–50 hours for complex RFPs
Salary + benefits + overhead. Typical: $75–$125/hr
Industry average: 15–25% depending on market
Writers, SMEs, reviewers, management
Consulting: $50K–$500K · Government: $100K–$5M · Enterprise: varies
What you spend now
What you'd spend instead
Where the benefit comes from
Time and revenue, side by side.
The two halves of the ROI: hours you stop spending and revenue you start earning.
Time spent on proposals
Annual revenue from proposals
What you can do with 595 hours back.
More opportunities to bid on without hiring
Equivalent freed for delivery work
More contracts to staff and deliver
Frequently asked.
Common questions from teams calculating ROI for proposal software.
How is RFP software ROI calculated?
It combines two benefits: (1) labor savings from automation (hours per proposal × hourly rate × volume), and (2) revenue from additional RFPs your team can pursue with the time freed up. This calculator uses a documented 85% time reduction per proposal, applies a market-cap constraint (max 2× current volume), and compares against Bidara’s actual published pricing. The output is net annual benefit minus software cost, expressed as ROI percentage and payback in months.
How much time does AI proposal software actually save?
AI-native tools like Bidara reduce per-RFP time by approximately 85% based on hands-on testing. A typical 35-hour proposal drops to about 5 hours of human review. Legacy tools with bolted-on AI (Loopio, Responsive, Qvidian) require weeks of content library setup before AI becomes useful, so realized savings are smaller in year one. The APMP 2024 Benchmarking Survey found 68% of proposal teams now use AI in some capacity.
What’s a realistic payback period?
For mid-market teams (20+ RFPs/year, 25+ hours each), payback for AI-native tools at flat-rate pricing ($299–$599/month) is typically under 2 months on labor savings alone. Adding incremental win revenue from extra capacity often makes payback under 1 month. Enterprise tools with $20K+/year contracts and 4–8 week implementations typically pay back in 6–12 months.
Should I include win-rate improvement in ROI?
No. We deliberately keep win rate constant. We don’t claim AI improves your win percentage because that depends on your offer, pricing, and customer fit, not just response quality. The honest ROI comes from doing more RFPs at the same win rate, plus saving labor on the ones you already do. Any vendor calculator that bakes in a 5–10% win-rate lift is overstating ROI.
What inputs matter most?
In order of impact: (1) average contract value, because incremental wins multiply quickly, (2) RFPs per year, because labor savings scale linearly, (3) hours per RFP, because that drives the time-savings number, (4) hourly rate, because it monetizes the saved hours. Win rate and team size matter less for software ROI than for capacity planning.
Can I share or save my calculation?
Yes. The Share button copies a URL with all your inputs encoded — send it to your team or paste it in a budget request. Use Save as PDF (browser print) for a clean report. The calculator is free and requires no signup.
How we calculated this.
Full disclosure of every assumption. The math is honest and replicable.
Time savings
85% reduction in proposal development time per RFP. Calculated as: (current hours per RFP × RFPs per year) − (15% of current hours × RFPs per year).
Labor savings
Hours saved × loaded hourly rate. Loaded rate includes salary, benefits, and overhead.
Capacity constraints
Two scenarios for how teams reuse the time saved:
- Conservative (25%): only 25% of freed time goes to new RFPs. Rest used for quality reviews, refinement, and other work.
- Growth (50%): half of freed time goes to new RFPs. Assumes strong pipeline and ability to find qualified opportunities.
Both scenarios cap additional capacity at 2× current volume (market realism).
Win rate (held constant)
The calculator assumes win rate stays the same. We save you time but don't claim AI improves your win percentage. Anyone who claims that is overstating ROI.
Revenue impact
(Total RFPs × win rate) × average contract value. Revenue increase comes from capacity to bid on more qualified opportunities.
Labor vs. revenue trade-off
Conservative scenario counts both labor savings and revenue increase (some time saved, some reinvested). Growth scenario counts only revenue (all freed time reinvested in new RFPs).
Cost
Bidara Growth plan at $599/month ($7,188/year annual). Starter plan at $299/month works for smaller teams (15 proposals/month).
ROI formula
((total annual benefit − platform cost) / platform cost) × 100
Ready to capture $950,587?
Your inputs above show 13225% Year-1 ROI with payback in under a month. Book a 30-minute walkthrough to see Bidara's AI generate a real proposal live. Trial access starts after the demo.