Bid Board Pro vs Downtobid’s Bid Board - Comparison (2024 Update)

Construction bidding is a complex and time-consuming process requiring modern tools. Luckily, there are many bid management tools, thanks to technology changing the construction industry. The trick to creating comprehensive construction bids is using bidding tools that cover everything, from identifying opportunities to helping estimators create accurate estimates. 

Bid Board Pro and Downtobid’s Bid Board are clear standouts, helping subcontractors identify construction jobs, create and manage bids, and monitor the bidding process. This guide evaluates the two platforms to help you choose the one that ticks more boxes. Let’s begin with a tool we know best - our very own Downtobid’s Bid Board. 

Note: See for yourself how easy it is to track bids with our bid board. Streamline your construction bids, stay organized, and boost your efficiency. Sign up for a free demo here.

Downtobid’s Bid Board - Best for Preconstruction

Downtobid’s Bid Board is a construction bid management software that helps subcontractors and material vendors find new clients and create comprehensive bids. Although hundreds of similar bid management tools exist in the construction industry, many offer basic and generic services. We wanted to stand out and help our clients automate everything. 

Our main intention was to eliminate manual data entry, which, honestly, is a lot of work and outdated. Instead, subs can focus on other urgent tasks, such as estimating, which increases efficiency. Do you like reports? Our software creates detailed reports for effective decision-making. The automated bid tracking helps you monitor every bid and improve your bidding strategy to bid smarter. We’ll explain shortly how our software works. 

Key Features

Here are a few reasons why we’re the best online bid board.

Centralized Bid Management

Forget about using countless tools to manage your bidding process. Our software centralizes the process, ensuring you can access all tools needed for a smooth and streamlined bidding experience. 

Our software scans your email inbox to identify suitable projects, reviews every plan and design, and creates detailed reports to improve your bidding strategy. Traditionally, this process would require an expansive team and a lot of time to accomplish. The software saves you administrative costs and reduces the workload, ensuring even a smaller team can remain effective. 

Estimators love our software because it simplifies their work. The software reviews project scopes to identify labor, material, and equipment requirements, allowing estimators to work with accurate information to create estimates. 

Collaborative Tools

Teamwork is the foundation of any successful construction project. Our bid board provides tools for timely project delivery, such as centralized communication, document management, and progress tracking. Let’s see how each tool improves collaboration. 

Centralized communication ensures team members can send and receive timely feedback and updates. This feature is useful to ground teams since they can update progress and receive real-time feedback for effective decision-making. The built-in communication channels support threaded messages, helping people track specific emails instead of browsing through countless emails. 

Document management ensures all crucial plans and designs are in one location and accessible to everyone. Team members can also download, review, upload, and track project files in real-time. Doing so ensures everyone works on recent documents to prevent confusion and errors during bidding. 

Progress tracking helps team leaders ensure the project is moving in the right direction. They can use the data to take corrective measures and reduce errors. Progress tracking also helps identify underperforming team members and recommend desirable changes. Downtobid's Bid Board is the first online bid board to successfully incorporate the three tools.

Automated Calendar Integration

Calendars help subcontractors identify and track bidding deadlines. Traditionally, they had to manually track every bid deadline, which is exhausting and easy to miss. Our software integrates with your calendar and populates it with bidding deadlines to ensure you don’t miss anything. 

You’ll also receive timely reminders regarding a deadline to help your team prepare. This approach has helped many subs review their bid documents for accuracy and completeness before submitting them. Using a one-shared team calendar ensures everyone is on the same page regarding deadlines. Doing so improves their chances of winning contracts by addressing every detail in their bids. 

Now that we know what Downtobid’s Bid Board is, let’s see how it works. 

How to Use Downtobid’s Bid Board to Streamline Bidding

Mastering our software is straightforward. Here is a quick breakdown and the steps to follow:

Click here to get started with our demo. 

You must sign up or log in to access our demo dashboard to follow along with this tutorial. 

Start by integrating our software into your email address by following these steps:

Go to ‘Profile Settings’ and find ‘Integration.’ Click ‘Add Account’ and choose ‘Outlook’ as your desired email account. The software will redirect you to your email’s login page, where you must sign in using your credentials and grant permission for our software to access your email inbox. The process takes a minute to complete. 

After a successful integration, you’ll see two new folders - one in your email dashboard and the other in our software. The folders contain detected bid invites matching your experience and specialization. 

We don’t stop there. Our bid tracking software scans every bid invite to detect crucial details, such as material and labor requirements, budget, timeline, project location, and size. It then compiles this information into detailed and data-driven reports for decision-making. You can use this information to understand project requirements and craft the right bids. 

We have included two methods to help you target suitable construction projects - creating rules and using keywords. You can create specific rules, such as the construction company, location, project size, and budget. This approach gives you the flexibility to target projects that align with your qualifications. The keyword approach helps you identify construction jobs from the plans without reviewing lengthy documents. It saves you time and ensures you only target the right projects. 

As we discussed earlier, the calendar is useful for tracking project deadlines. Our software also compiles every bid invite information into reports that you can download as Excel files. 

Bid Board Pro 

Bid Board Pro by BuildingConnected is a popular online bid board that helps subcontractors streamline their bidding. Subcontractors can identify new projects, review documents, and submit bids from one platform. General contractors use the platform to target the right construction partners and improve collaboration. 

Key Features

Here are a few reasons for choosing Bid Board Pro

Centralized Bidding Tool

Subcontractors can access bid invites and submit bids from a centralized platform. Bid Board Pro saves them the time and complexity of working with different tools to complete their bidding. It ensures the team doesn’t miss any viable opportunity and can track bid progress. 

However, the software cannot autodetect invites from your email inbox. You have to forward the invites to a specific email address or manually enter the details. Bid forwarding is an exhausting task that takes longer than it should. With technology evolving and platforms like Downtobid’s Bid Board automating bid invites detection, it’s safe to say Bid Board Pro is a bit inferior. 

Integrated Takeoff Tools

Subcontractors use the integrated takeoff tools to create accurate project estimates when bidding. The software instantly scans the scopes to detect every material requirement. Accurate estimates ensure the bid stays within the budget and builds trust with general contractors. 

Unfortunately, you have to find labor and equipment requirements separately, which adds more workload to your team. It would have been easier if the software detected every requirement in one go. 

Collaborative Tools

The software promotes teamwork through document sharing, communication, and progress tracking. You can assign jobs to the right team member, share notes and other relevant information to improve the bidding strategy. You can also track each member’s progress to ensure everyone is working at full capacity. 

However, the software relies on third-party tools like PlanGrid for document sharing. This dependency plan could create problems, such as integration challenges and a learning curve for users who aren’t familiar with PlanGrid. 

Pricing Plan

Bid Board Pro offers free and paid subscriptions. The free version is perfect for simpler projects or anyone who wants to learn more about the platform. However, the price for the premium version is not disclosed, and you must contact customer support for a quotation. 

Pros

• Streamlines communication
• Targeted subscriber outreach
• AI-powered bidding automation

Cons

• Lack of pricing transparency
• Limited takeoff functionality
• Limited mobile functionality
• Limited project discovery

Final Thoughts

Construction bidding exposes subcontractors to more opportunities. It’s a chance to prove you understand the project requirements and are the right fit for the job. Using a tool like Downtobid’s Bid Board can help you stay ahead of the competition and create accurate and compelling bids. Try our demo today and take advantage of the power of AI automation.