Two tools help you judge whether a price is fair. Price comparison lets you send the same price sheet to several suppliers and line their quotes up like-for-like. Market prices shows what UK public bodies have paid for similar contracts over the last three years, taken from published award notices.
Where to find them
- Price comparison is a section inside every sourcing event (open the Sourcing tab, then an event).
- Market prices appears under every sourcing event and on every category plan.
Price comparison: how to use it
- First add the suppliers you want quotes from under Bids & weighted scoring (see Sourcing). If there are none, the section says "Add suppliers under Bids & weighted scoring first." Rejected and declined bidders don't get a column.
- List what you're buying once. For each line enter the Item (for example "Dell Latitude laptop 16GB"), the quantity (at least 1) and the Unit (for example "each" or "month"), then Add line. Use Remove to take a line off.
- Select Email request under a supplier. Your email app opens with the subject "Request for quote: …" and a body listing every line, asking for a price per line excluding VAT, how long the quote is valid and the delivery or start time. If the event has a Needed by date, it adds "We need this by …". Add the supplier's address and send it. The date you sent it is recorded.
- When the quote comes back, type each unit price into that supplier's column. Fill in Quote valid until and Notes (delivery, terms).
- When you're happy, select Use as bid price to copy that supplier's total into their bid price for scoring.
Where the comparison figures come from
- A quote counts as complete only when every line has a price above zero. Incomplete quotes still show their partial total, labelled incomplete, but are left out of the cheapest comparison.
- The lowest complete total is highlighted and labelled Cheapest. Every other complete quote shows how much dearer it is.
Example: you need 20 laptops and 20 docks. Supplier A quotes £850 and £120 a unit: 20 × £850 + 20 × £120 = £19,400. Supplier B quotes £820 and £170: 20 × £820 + 20 × £170 = £19,800. A is Cheapest; B shows "+2% vs cheapest" (£400 ÷ £19,400 = 2.1%, rounded). On each line the lowest unit price is highlighted when more than one supplier has priced it, so here B's laptop price and A's dock price are highlighted.
The header shows "N lines · X of Y quotes complete".
Market prices: how to use it
- In the Market prices box, type what you're buying, for example "office cleaning", "courier" or "payroll". On a sourcing event it starts with the event title; on a category plan it starts with the area name and remembers your last search.
- Select Check market prices.
- Read the range bar and the example contracts underneath.
What you see:
- A bar from the lowest to the highest annual value, with the middle half shaded and a marker at the median.
- A line such as "Typical: £18,000 – £42,000 a year · middle £27,500".
- "N public contracts in the last 3 years", with a reminder that scope and size vary, so this is a guide to what's reasonable, not a quote.
- Up to 8 recent example contracts: title, buyer → supplier, value per year, length in months, date published and a Notice › link to the official notice (Find a Tender notices only).
Where the market figures come from
The figures come from public contract award notices published on Find a Tender and Contracts Finder, used under the Open Government Licence. SupplierVault imports new notices every hour and keeps three years of them. The source line under the box shows when the data was last updated.
- Only awards in pounds with a value above zero, published in the last three years, are used.
- Your search must match all of your words in the notice's title, description or category. If fewer than three contracts match all your words, SupplierVault widens the search to contracts matching any of your words and tells you: "Few exact matches, so this includes contracts matching any of your words."
- Every contract value is turned into a value per year so contracts of different lengths can be compared:
Example: a 36-month cleaning contract worth £150,000 counts as £50,000 a year. A 6-month contract worth £20,000 counts as £20,000.
Messages you might see
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| No public contracts matched "…" | Try fewer or broader words, for example "cleaning" rather than "office deep clean". |
| Public contract prices are still being loaded… | The data hasn't finished importing yet. Try again later. |
| Market prices come from the SupplierVault service and appear once you're signed in. | You're in a version that isn't signed in to the live service. |
| Couldn't load market prices just now | A temporary problem. Try again in a moment. |
In the public demo, market prices use a set of example contracts and say so: "Demo: example contracts."
Which plan includes it
Both tools sit inside Sourcing and Category plans, which are included from the Professional plan and in the free trial.
Good to know
- Public sector contracts often cover different scope, sites and service levels from yours. Use the range to sense-check a price or start a negotiation, not as a quote.
- Prices in the price sheet are per unit and assumed to exclude VAT, as the request email asks.