Opora Intelligence · Lost Bid Autopsy
Why did you lose that bid?
Paste your lost proposal and get a root cause diagnosis, section-by-section rewrites, and a next-bid worksheet.
Free to use today — no subscription
Post-mortem draft from what you share. Validate pricing and compliance claims against your actual submission.
Bid Autopsy — Preview
Section 1 of 4
Root Cause Diagnosis
Primary diagnosis
The bid lacked differentiation for a commercial dental office. Generic scope language missed infection control requirements (OSHA/CDC dental protocol). ServiceMaster's brand recognition and implied compliance specialization likely tipped the decision.
Win probability with rewrites: 20% → 65%
Section-by-Section Rewrites
Competitor Analysis
Next-Bid Worksheet
Losing a bid teaches nothing unless you find out why. Enter the job and your number, and it works through the likely reasons you lost and what to change next time. Blunt post-mortems beat blaming 'lowballers' every time.
Instruction
- Paste the lost bid proposal text (or a faithful summary of what you submitted).
- Add company name, building type, and team size.
- Enter who won (if known) and why you lost (price, scope, certifications).
- Generate. Work the rewrite list into the next Bid Drafter pass before you chase the same buyer again.
Worked example
You bid $6,200/month on a 40,000 sqft office at 5 nights. You lost. The buyer said only 'we went another direction.'
It maps causes: if the winner came in near $4,800 you were likely 25% high on labor loading or scope; if prices were close, the loss points to relationship or proposal presentation. It gives you the questions to ask the buyer and the numbers to re-check.
What's under the hood
- It reasons from the inputs you give. Without the winning price, it ranks probabilities rather than naming a certainty.
- Price analysis compares your number to typical ranges for the sqft and frequency; it is a sanity check, not the competitor's actual sheet.
- It will not claim to know why you lost when you have no signal from the buyer; it tells you what to ask.
- No CRM or bid history connection. Each autopsy uses only what you enter.
When this breaks
- Defaulting to 'they lowballed' when the real issue was a scope you never clarified.
- Feeding it no context, so it can only offer generic causes you already suspected.
- Chasing every loss to the bottom on price instead of fixing presentation or follow-up.
Questions operators ask
- What if I never learn the winning price?
- It still works. It ranks the likely causes and gives you a short list of questions to ask the buyer or your reference on the account.
- Does it tell me I bid too high?
- It flags if your number sits above the typical range for that sqft and frequency, but 'too high' depends on scope and market, which it accounts for from your inputs.
- Can it help me ask the buyer why I lost?
- Yes. It generates a short, non-defensive debrief message that buyers are more likely to actually answer.
- Is losing always about price?
- No, and assuming so is the trap. Timing, incumbent relationships, and a sloppy proposal lose plenty of bids at a fair price.
- Should I re-bid the same account later?
- Sometimes. If the cause was relationship or timing, a later re-approach can win. If you were structurally too expensive, fix the model first.
- How is this different from Margin Sentinel?
- Margin Sentinel checks if a price is profitable. This checks why a price lost. Use both: profitable and competitive are not the same.