# Software Development RFP Template

**Version 2026.1** · Published by AskQuorum AI · https://askquorumai.com/blog/software-development-rfp-template

Free to use, copy, edit and redistribute. No attribution required. No email
address required to download it.

## How to use this document

1. Replace everything in `[SQUARE BRACKETS]` with your own details.
2. Delete any section that genuinely does not apply. Do not delete section 6
   or 7 just because they are unfamiliar. They are the two sections that
   separate vendors who have thought about 2026 from vendors answering a 2019
   question.
3. Send the identical document to every vendor on your shortlist. Same
   sections, same order, same deadline. A free-text RFP lets each vendor
   answer a slightly different question, which is what makes proposals
   impossible to compare.
4. Fill in the scoring weights in section 8 **before** you send it, not after
   responses arrive.

---

# Request for Proposal: [PROJECT NAME]

**Issued by:** [ORGANISATION NAME]
**Contact for questions:** [NAME, EMAIL]
**Issue date:** [DATE]
**Questions due by:** [DATE]
**Responses due by:** [DATE]
**Expected decision date:** [DATE]

---

## 1. Project overview

**What we are building**

[Describe the problem in plain language. Two or three paragraphs. Do not list
features yet. A vendor who understands the problem will propose a better
solution than one working from your feature list.]

**Current state** (delete the ones that do not apply)

- Greenfield. Nothing exists yet.
- An existing system that needs replacing or extending. [Describe the stack,
  age and known pain points.]
- A working prototype built with an AI app builder that now needs to become a
  production system. [Name the tool. Say what works today and what does not.]

**Who uses it**

- Primary users: [ROLE, ROUGHLY HOW MANY]
- Secondary users: [ROLE, ROUGHLY HOW MANY]
- Expected scale at launch: [USERS, TRANSACTIONS, DATA VOLUME]
- Expected scale in 24 months: [SAME MEASURES]

## 2. Scope and requirements

**Must have**

1. [REQUIREMENT]
2. [REQUIREMENT]
3. [REQUIREMENT]

**Nice to have**

1. [REQUIREMENT]
2. [REQUIREMENT]

**Explicitly out of scope**

1. [ANYTHING YOU DO NOT WANT QUOTED. This section saves more money than any
   other, because it stops vendors padding proposals with work you never asked
   for.]

**Integrations required**

| System | What it does | Interface available | Who owns it |
|---|---|---|---|
| [NAME] | [PURPOSE] | [REST / SOAP / file drop / none, needs building] | [INTERNAL TEAM OR VENDOR] |

**Non-functional requirements**

- Availability target: [e.g. 99.5% during business hours]
- Performance target: [e.g. search results under 2 seconds at p95]
- Data residency: [COUNTRY OR REGION, if it is a hard requirement]
- Compliance obligations that apply: [e.g. HIPAA, GDPR, India DPDP Act,
  SOC 2, PCI DSS. State which ones are contractual and which are aspirational.]
- Accessibility target: [e.g. WCAG 2.2 AA]

## 3. Timeline

- Desired start date: [DATE]
- Hard deadline, if any: [DATE]
- Reason for the deadline: [A launch event, a regulatory date, a budget-cycle
  boundary, or "none, this is a preference". Say which. Vendors price a real
  deadline differently from an invented one, and you want the real price.]

**Do you need working software before the end?**

[Yes or no. If yes, state by when and what it has to do. A vendor who only
shows you working software at the end is asking you to carry all the risk
until the last week.]

## 4. Budget

**Range:** [e.g. USD 80,000 to 150,000]

State a range even if it is wide. Withholding budget entirely produces either
wildly over-scoped proposals or vendors declining to bid rather than guessing
wrong. If you do not have a range yet, benchmark against market rates first.

**What the budget covers:** [Build only, or build plus first year of support?
Say so. Vendors quote these very differently.]

## 5. Team and engagement model

Answer these yourself:

- Do you require named individuals, or is a flexible resourcing pool
  acceptable? [ANSWER]
- Who on your side owns decisions, and how quickly can they make them?
  [NAME AND ROLE. Slow decisions are the most common cause of overrun, and
  vendors price for it whether or not you mention it.]

Ask the vendor:

- Which engagement model fits what we have described (fixed scope, dedicated
  team, or retainer), and why?
- Name the specific people who would work on this, with their role and years
  of experience. If you cannot name them at proposal stage, say when you can.
- What is your ratio of senior to junior engineers on this engagement?
- Who replaces a key person if they leave mid-project?

## 6. AI usage disclosure

This section is new in the 2026 edition. Most templates still in circulation
do not ask any of it.

Ask the vendor:

1. Do your engineers use AI coding tools in delivery? Name them.
2. If you bill time and materials, does AI-accelerated work bill at the same
   hourly rate as manual work? Explain how your pricing reflects it.
3. Who reviews AI-generated code before it merges, and what does that review
   check for?
4. What is your policy on AI tools that train on the code you send them? Is
   our code excluded from training?
5. If the deliverable itself contains AI or generative features, what
   transparency and compliance obligations do you already build for? Name the
   specific regulations. [If you sell into the EU, EU AI Act Article 50 is the
   relevant one for conversational and generative features.]

**Why ask:** a vendor billing full manual-speed hours for AI-accelerated work,
without disclosing it, is a pricing transparency problem. It is cheaper to
find out before you sign than after the first invoice.

## 7. Intellectual property and code ownership

Also new in the 2026 edition.

Ask the vendor:

1. Does your standard contract use present-tense assignment language ("hereby
   assigns") or a future promise ("agrees to assign")? Quote the actual
   clause in your response.
2. Are AI-generated portions of the deliverable explicitly covered by that
   assignment, or does the clause only cover "work product" in wording that
   predates the question?
3. What third-party and open-source components will be used, under which
   licences, and which of those are copyleft?
4. Do we receive the full repository history, or a final snapshot?
5. Who holds the credentials, domains and cloud accounts during and after the
   engagement?

**Why the wording matters:** a promise to assign in the future is a promise
that can be broken, and it leaves a gap that only shows up when the
relationship ends badly or the vendor is acquired.

## 8. How we will evaluate proposals

We will score every response against the criteria below. Fill in your own
weights before issuing, and make them add to 100.

| Criterion | Weight | What a strong answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Understanding of the problem | [__]% | Restates our problem better than we did, and challenges at least one assumption |
| Relevant evidence | [__]% | Comparable systems actually shipped, described specifically enough to verify |
| Team | [__]% | Named people, senior-weighted, with a stated answer on replacement |
| Technical approach | [__]% | A real architecture and a stated reason for each major choice |
| Delivery plan | [__]% | Working software early, with dated checkpoints, not one delivery at the end |
| AI usage transparency (section 6) | [__]% | Direct answers on tooling, pricing and review, with no deflection |
| IP terms (section 7) | [__]% | Present-tense assignment, quoted, covering AI-generated output |
| Commercial terms | [__]% | Clear price, clear assumptions, clear change process |
| **Total** | **100%** | |

We will [shortlist N vendors / interview all respondents] and expect to decide
by [DATE].

## 9. Response format

Please respond using exactly the following structure. Proposals that do not
follow it are harder to compare fairly and may be scored lower on that basis
alone.

1. Executive summary. One page maximum.
2. Your understanding of the problem, in your own words.
3. Proposed approach and architecture.
4. Delivery plan with dated milestones and demo checkpoints.
5. Team, with named individuals and roles.
6. Answers to every numbered question in sections 6 and 7 above.
7. Commercial proposal, with assumptions and exclusions stated.
8. Two references for comparable work, or an explanation if you cannot provide
   them.

**Page limit:** [e.g. 20 pages excluding appendices]
**Format:** [PDF / DOCX]
**Send to:** [EMAIL]
**Deadline:** [DATE AND TIME, WITH TIMEZONE]

---

## Appendix: what a weak answer looks like

Use this while reading responses.

| You asked | A weak answer sounds like |
|---|---|
| Show evidence of shipped production systems | "Case studies available on request", and none ever arrive |
| Will named engineers work on this? | "You will have a dedicated team", unnamed and unspecified |
| When do we see working software? | "After the discovery phase", undated |
| How do you get from prototype to production? | "We will cross that bridge when we get there" |
| What are your compliance answers? | Silence, or a link to a generic security page |
| Who owns the code? | "That is covered in our standard contract", unquoted |
| Do you use AI in delivery? | "We use industry-leading tools", no names, no pricing answer |

---

*This template is maintained at
https://askquorumai.com/blog/software-development-rfp-template and is free to
use without attribution.*