Market & Competitor Intelligence for Civil Contractors

Most losses start before the estimate

Contractors don’t lose because they can’t estimate. They lose because they pick the wrong fights:

• • Wrong agency
  • Wrong geography
  • Wrong timing
  • Too many bidders
  • A hungry competitor you did not see coming

This article is a practical guide to deciding where to bid and how competition changes pricing pressure.

The biggest mistake: bidding on habit

    “I’ve always bid that county.”

    “That municipality is our bread and butter.”

    “We can build that scope.”

All reasonable. None of them include the variable that changes everything: How crowded is the market right now?

Competition density is a pricing lever.

Competition density is a pricing lever.

Competition density: why it matters in plain terms

Bidding is a capital allocation decision. A serious public bid can cost:

• • Estimator hours (sometimes weeks)
  • Supplier/sub time
  • Bonding and admin effort
  • Opportunity cost (you cannot chase everything)

If a market regularly draws 15-25 bidders, your odds and your pricing pressure are different than a market that draws 2-6 bidders.

You should not run the same play in both.

What to look at before you decide to chase

1) Bidder count (and trends)

Rising counts usually means rising price pressure.

• • Are bidder counts rising or falling on similar work?
  • Are more out-of-area firms showing up?

2) Who wins lately

Not just who shows up – who actually wins.

Some contractors are consistent and disciplined. Some are temporarily hungry (backlog gaps). Some have structural advantages (plants, pits, internal trucking).

This is not gossip. It is visible in results.

3) How aggressive the market is (win spread)

In some areas, the top 3 bids are tight. In others, spreads are huge — a signal of uncertainty or mixed bidder types.

4) Volume of work (not just low competition)

Low competition with low volume is not a strategy. It’s a mirage.

You want pockets where:

• • Competition is reasonable
  • Volume is steady
  • The work matches your scope and production strengths

Low competition with low volume is not a strategy. It’s a mirage.

Opportunity zones (and how to find them)

An “opportunity zone” is a pocket of work where you have:

• • Realistic win odds
  • Healthier pricing behavior
  • Fewer wasted pursuits

Practical ways to find them:

1. 1. Filter markets by bidder count (low to mid)
   2. Look for steady lettings from agencies you already understand
   3. Cross-check against your own history (where you win efficiently)

How to expand into a new geography without getting burned

Expanding is where a lot of contractors get hurt.

The trap:

• • You use your home-market unit prices
  • You miss local norms (haul, crews, subs, agencies)
  • You either overbid and waste time or underbid and donate margin

A safer approach:

1. 1. Start with bid history – learn the range before you chase
   2. Pick a narrow scope (one category) to enter
   3. Bid small first, learn, then scale

Where is the market heating up? Where’s the competition thin? Learn how to use Market Insights to see how the market is moving.

Where PinPoint fits

Market Insights is built for this decision-making layer:

• • Competitive landscape: where markets are crowded vs thin
  • Leaderboard: aggressiveness, bid precision, win rate
  • Competitor profiles: what they win, where they show up, tendencies

Where is the market heating up? Where’s the competition thin? Learn how to use Market Insights to see how the market is moving.