Do we need to be bonded for private work?

Not always. Many private owners and general contractors require bonding on larger projects or for unfamiliar subcontractors, while others rely on prequalification and references. It is one of the first questions to ask, since it affects whether you can pursue the job at all.

Is private work more profitable than public work?

It can be, because selection is not purely price-driven and negotiated scopes leave room for value. It also carries more payment risk and less statutory protection. Most healthy contractors run both, using public work for baseload and private work for margin.

How do we find out who is bidding against us?

On public work the bid tabulation is a public record. On private work it usually is not. What you can know is who typically bids that project type in your market, and who the general contractor has used before — history that is worth tracking deliberately rather than recalling from memory.

Guide

How to bid private construction work

Private construction bidding is invitation-based rather than advertised. The owner or general contractor decides who is asked to price the work, selection can weigh relationship, schedule, and past performance as heavily as price, and contract terms are negotiated rather than fixed by statute. Winning private work is therefore less about bid mechanics and more about being known to the people building the list before they build it.

The core differences from public bidding

Public procurement is designed to be fair and auditable, which makes it predictable. Private procurement is designed to get a building built, which makes it fast and relational.

No mandatory advertisement — if you are not invited, you often never hear about the job.
Short, curated bid lists, frequently three to five firms per trade.
Selection may be negotiated; low price does not automatically win.
Contract terms, retainage, payment timing, and risk allocation are all negotiable — and not always in your favor.
Contact before and during the process is normal rather than restricted.
No formal debrief or protest process; feedback is a favor, not a right.

Getting onto the list

Everything upstream of the bid is the actual competition. General contractors assemble bid lists from firms they have worked with, firms the design team named, and firms who reached out at the right moment with relevant, specific evidence.

That evidence is narrow: comparable project type, comparable size, comparable schedule pressure, and the crew or capacity available in the relevant window. A general capability statement is not evidence. Three named projects of the same type in the same market is.

Read the terms as carefully as the drawings

Private contracts vary in ways public contracts do not. Pay-when-paid clauses, retainage percentages and release timing, liquidated damages, change order procedures, and the extent of the flow-down from the prime contract can each affect your real margin more than the unit prices do.

Confirm the owner's financing and the payment history of the general contractor before pricing an unfamiliar job. On private work you have fewer statutory protections than on public work, where payment bonds are typically required.

Bid the schedule, not just the scope

Private owners are usually spending their own money on a building they need open by a date, which makes schedule certainty worth real money to them. A bid that credibly commits to the sequence and the finish date frequently beats a cheaper bid that does not.

Last reviewed August 2026

How Hank automates this

Hank surfaces private projects in design and permitting — before the bid list is written — with the owner, developer, general contractor, and architect named, so your outreach lands while there is still a list to get on. When the invitation or owner RFP does arrive, Hank reads it in one to three minutes and returns scope, dates, submission requirements, and the terms worth arguing about.

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Common questions

Related guides

Public vs private construction bidding: what actually differs

How to find general contractors hiring subcontractors

The construction project lifecycle, stage by stage

What is Hank?

Hank helps companies find, pursue, and win construction and services work — public and private. On the public side, Hank reads more than 50,000 sources nationwide: active solicitations plus the budgets, board records, capital plans, grants, awards, forecasts, and expiring contracts that reveal work earlier. On the private side, Hank adds more than 2,500 new commercial projects every month, researched and confirmed by people and updated daily as each job moves from pre-design through planning, design, permitting, bidding, and construction. Hank matches both records to your services, territory, and project size; reads a published bid in 1–3 minutes; names the agency, owner, developer, general contractor, and architect contacts to call; answers pursuit questions; and, where enabled, assembles an editable proposal draft from your approved company knowledge. Your team gets 6–7 hours back each week and keeps every signal, source, contact, document, conversation, and pursuit in one connected record.