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.*