AI-assisted bid leveling
Level subcontractor bids in minutes, not hours.
Upload competing subcontractor proposals and generate a structured, source-linked comparison of pricing, inclusions, exclusions, qualifications and risk.
- Proposals per package
- 2–5
- Scope lines leveled
- 60+
- Every finding
- Cited
425 Park Avenue Residential Conversion — Elevators
Leveling completeApex Elevator Systems
$1,284,000
Leveled $1,346,500
Metro Vertical Trans.
$1,196,400
Leveled $1,325,900
Summit Lift Group
$1,338,750
Leveled $1,417,750
| Scope item | Bidder A | Bidder B | Bidder C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base bid | $1,284,000 | $1,196,400 | $1,338,750 |
| Permits & filing fees | Not mentioned | Included | Included |
| Hoistway venting | Excluded | Excluded | Excluded |
| Machine room HVAC | By others | Unclear | By others |
| Warranty | 24 months | 12 months | 24 months |
| Cutting & patching | $18,500 | Excluded | Included |
Bidder B carries a 12-month warranty against the 24-month project requirement. Cited — Metro proposal, p. 4
What LevelBid is
Bid leveling is scope work, not spreadsheet work.
The low number on a subcontractor proposal is rarely the real number. One bidder carries permits, another excludes them. One holds a 24-month warranty, another holds twelve months. One assumes standard hours on a schedule that will not allow it. The difference between those proposals is buried in exclusion lists, qualifications and fine print.
LevelBid reads each proposal, extracts the pricing and scope into a common structure, and lays the bidders side by side against a trade-specific checklist. It flags where scope is missing, contradictory or unclear — and it shows you the sentence in the PDF that it based every conclusion on.
You still make the call. LevelBid does the reading, the cross-referencing and the arithmetic.
How it works
Three steps from a folder of PDFs to a comparison you can defend.
- 01
Drop in the proposals
Two to five subcontractor PDFs for the same trade. Pick the trade package. That is the whole setup — everything else is read off the documents.
- 02
LevelBid reads them
Pricing, inclusions, exclusions, qualifications and commercial terms, pulled from each proposal and mapped onto the same scope checklist.
- 03
Compare them side by side
Where the scopes differ, what each bidder excluded, and what does not add up — with every line traceable to the page it came from.
Capabilities
Purpose-built for construction procurement.
Trade-specific scope checklists
Elevators, electrical and HVAC ship with detailed checklists — hoistway venting, firestopping, rigging, TAB — so bidders are compared against the same line items, not just their own headings.
Apples-to-apples price reconciliation
A bidder who excluded firestopping is not cheaper for excluding it. Price the gap in with one press and the leveled total moves, so every bid is quoted on the same scope.
Scope gap and risk detection
Prioritized findings for exclusions, warranty shortfalls, outdated drawing references, schedule assumptions and alternates that do not reconcile to the stated total.
Three proposals, one readable sheet
Bidders write in whatever order and wording they like. LevelBid puts the same scope line in the same row for every one of them, so a difference is something you can see rather than something you have to hunt for.
You can overrule it
Every extracted status is editable, and every one is traceable to the page it came from. When the read is wrong, correct it and the leveled numbers follow.
Excel export
A formatted workbook with the executive summary, the leveling matrix, adjustments, scope gaps and every source citation — the sheet you actually circulate.
Example comparison
An elevator package, leveled.
Three bidders on a residential conversion. The submitted spread is $142,350. After leveling it narrows to $91,850 — and the apparent low bidder is no longer the best value.
| Scope item | Apex (A) | Metro (B) | Summit (C) | GC requirement | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Permits and filing fees Commercial | Not mentioned | Included | Included | Included in base bid | High |
Hoistway venting Building interface | Excluded | Excluded | Excluded | By GC — confirmed | Low |
Warranty period Commercial | 24 months | 12 months | 24 months | 24 months minimum | High |
Cutting and patching Site | $18,500 allowance | Excluded | Included | Included in base bid | Moderate |
Overtime to meet schedule Compliance | Included | Unclear | Excluded | As required by schedule | Critical |
| Leveled bid | $1,346,500 | $1,325,900 | $1,417,750 | Metro still levels lowest — with $46,000 of missing scope not yet priced into that number. | |
Source traceability
Every conclusion points back to a page and a sentence.
Nothing in a LevelBid sheet is unattributed. Click any extracted value and the source panel opens the proposal at the cited page with the supporting text highlighted, next to the interpretation LevelBid drew from it. Confirm it, edit it, or reject it.
Page-level citations
File, page number, verbatim excerpt and a confidence level on every material item.
Explicit uncertainty
Included, excluded, unclear and not mentioned are four different answers. Low-confidence items are marked Needs review and never quietly assumed.
Audit trail
Extraction status moves from AI extracted to Edited by you to Confirmed by you, and the export carries the citations with it.
metro-vertical-proposal-r2.pdf
Page 4 of 94.2 WARRANTY AND SERVICE
All equipment furnished under this proposal carries a twelve (12) month warranty against defects in material and workmanship commencing at substantial completion.
Extended warranty coverage is available at additional cost upon request.
LevelBid interpretation
Warranty term is 12 months from substantial completion. Project requirement is 24 months — flagged as a High severity commercial gap.
What LevelBid is for
Built to be read, not to pick a winner.
There is no score, no ranking and no recommended bidder anywhere in the software. Proposals written three different ways become one sheet you can read across — every price in the same place, every exclusion named, every difference traceable to the page it came from. Deciding who gets the work is estimating, and that stays yours.
The same three bids, once they are comparable
Bidder A — $915,000 submitted
Furnishing the main equipment is excluded. Add it back: $1,330,000.
Bidder B — $995,000 submitted
Excludes the same equipment and the associated wiring. Add it back: $1,330,000.
Bidder C — $1,330,000 submitted
Carries the equipment in the base price. Nothing to add.
Illustrative. The apparent $415,000 spread was three bidders describing the same job — which is the thing a leveling sheet exists to show, and the thing a raw column of submitted totals hides.
Security and confidentiality
Subcontractor pricing is confidential. It is treated that way.
Uploaded files are private to your organization. Nobody outside it — including other LevelBid customers and the bidders themselves — can see your proposals, your adjustments or your leveling sheets.
Private storage
Proposal PDFs go to a private bucket. Access is granted through short-lived signed URLs, never public links.
Row level security
Every table is scoped to your organization at the database level, not just in the application layer.
Server-side analysis
Document analysis runs server-side. Proposal text is never sent to a model from the browser.
No keys in the client
API credentials live in server environment variables only. Nothing sensitive is written to browser logs.
Compare subcontractor proposals. Find the scope gaps. Make the call on real numbers.
Upload the bids you are holding right now.