From £950 a month, no minimum term
More applications, and only to funds that fit you
2, 4 or 6 applications a month for a charity, or 1 or 2 tenders for a company. The writing comes out of your own evidence.
One UK charity bought a £5,000 engagement and has kept us on a monthly retainer since. The whole engagement, and what the first read of their papers caught, is on the case study page.
What is retained bid support?
Retained bid support is a rolling monthly arrangement from £950 a month, with no minimum term. We write the applications from your own evidence, look for the funds and tenders that fit what you do, and come back to you only for what is missing.
What happens in a month?
- Each application is written from your own evidence: your monitoring figures, last year's evaluation, your accounts, your delivery record.
- The search runs all month. Open funds and live tender notices are read against what you actually do, and what does not fit is dropped before it ever reaches you.
- The questions you get are short. Anything your own files already answer is taken from them, so what reaches you is the handful of things only you know.
- You sign it and you send it. The finished application arrives with the decisions that are yours listed at the end, and your portal logins stay where they are.
- A quarterly pack shows what went in, what is still open and what has come back.
Which band is ours?
A charity
| What the month includes | Each one | In a year | |
|---|---|---|---|
| £950 a month | 2 applications that fit | £475 each | 24 in a year |
| £1,450 a month | 4 applications that fit | £363 each | 48 in a year |
| £2,400 a month | 6 applications that fit | £400 each | 72 in a year |
2 applications a month is 24, 4 a month is 48, and 6 a month is 72 in a year. Write down how many your own team sent last year, and the gap between the two numbers is what a band buys.
A charity month also carries one payment on an award, and the charity page prints it.
A company
| What the month includes | In a year | |
|---|---|---|
| £1,950 a month | 1 full tender, or 2 shorter responses | 12 in a year |
| £2,950 a month | 2 full tenders | 24 in a year |
Above the top band, a month is priced individually.
A company month also carries a win bonus on the award, and the company page prints the three figures.
What a band is worth holding against
At the entry band that is £11,400 a year, which is the number to hold against putting a part-time fundraiser on the payroll.
The unit price moves with the band, from £475 each at the entry band to £400 each at the top.
What does a founding client get?
For a charity
The entry band is a founding offer, and four things come with it at no extra charge.
- The funder watch, running all month on the funds that fit what you do.
- A monthly shortlist, scored for fit, so you see what was found and what was let go.
- The answer library, built out of your own evidence and kept current, and yours to keep.
- Your first review free, on a draft your own team has written.
The founding rate is £950 a month and it holds for your first three months. What follows it is written into your agreement before you sign anything.
For a company
For your first three months the entry band carries everything the band above it carries, at the entry price. That is £1,000 a month less. What follows it is written into your agreement before you sign anything.
What sits outside a band, and how it ends
Each band is a ceiling on applications that fit you, never a quota to fill. If two months running come up short of funds worth going for, the band moves down and so does the fee.
- A full tender counts as two of the applications in your band, or gets quoted on its own.
- Reporting beyond the quarterly pack is quoted too, and so is anything you need inside five working days.
- An application you do not use rolls into the next month and no further.
A month's notice either way, no minimum term, and everything produced is yours on the way out.
The fees here are what you pay, and there is no VAT to add.
Is there a place open?
This is a small service, it takes a small number of clients, and the places fill up. When there is no place open we say so in the first reply. A review at £400 to £750, or a single application from £500, stays open to you either way.
Every fee is on the pricing page. If a month is more than you need, a review of one draft is £400 to £750 and a single application written is from £500.
Questions before you start a retainer
Does the retainer include reviewing bids we write ourselves?
Yes. Where we check a draft your own team has written instead of writing one, it counts as one of the applications in your band and comes back marked up the same way.
What happens to the work if we stop?
You keep all of it: the evidence base, the standing text, the funder list and every draft. It arrives as files you already hold.
Ask about a retained arrangement
Tell us how many funders you go to in a year and who does the writing now, and Theo says which band fits your pipeline.