Forty hours is a floor. Cost it before the draft exists.

What is the methodology?

Hours times rate, summed, plus external. Bid lead is the person who owns the response. Specialists are anyone pulled off live work to write, price, or review. Partner is the sign-off. External is legal, graphics, modelling, a translator: cash that leaves the firm.

Rates are loaded cost or billing rate, whichever you actually lose. A consultancy that would have billed the principal should use the billing rate. A contractor whose people are on salary should use loaded cost. Mixing the two in one row is how the number gets argued instead of used.

Defaults are a conservative Australian professional-services floor for a mid-size pursuit, not a survey. Defence volumes, multi-state facilities, and consortium responses run higher. An RFQ under a panel can run lower. If your last five sit well above forty hours, believe your diary.

The output is hours, pursuit cost, and cost if lost. Cost if lost equals pursuit cost. There is no expected-value row. Win probability is how firms hide a no-bid inside a maybe. Cost the hours. Then make the bid/no-bid call on fit, not on a discounted fee.

What the number cannot do

It cannot tell you whether to bid. A cheap pursuit that fails risk is still a no. An expensive pursuit that passes all three axes can still be a yes. Cost is the reason to run the gate, not a substitute for it.

It cannot recover hours you have already spent. If the draft exists, you are costing a zombie. Put the number on the next inbound, in week one, before a template opens.