You should respond to an RFP only if you already have a warm relationship with someone inside the buying committee, or the incumbent vendor has a specific, visible weakness the RFP language hints at. Without one of those two things, the numbers say you will lose, and you will lose slowly, after weeks of unpaid work.
That is not pessimism. It is the base rate. The average win rate across all RFPs is 45%, and SMBs without a dedicated proposal process average even lower, around 42%, according to Loopio's 2025 RFP Trends Report. But that blended number hides a split: teams that qualify hard before they respond, using a real bid or no-bid filter, are the ones reporting win rates of 60% or higher. The gap between 42% and 60%+ is not better writing. It is answering fewer, better-fit RFPs and declining the rest fast.
As founder Bert Hubert put it after watching his own startups burn months on this exact process: an RFP is usually a compendium of every requirement anyone in the buying company has ever voiced, and that structure strongly favors whichever vendor has had years to quietly check every box already. The deck is built for the incumbent before you ever open the document.
Why most startups get this decision wrong
Founders treat an inbound RFP as a compliment. A large company wants a proposal, so it must mean the deal is real. Sometimes it is. More often, procurement is legally required to solicit three bids, and you are bid number three, invited to make the incumbent's renewal look competitive.
The tell is in the timeline. A real RFP gives you 3 to 4 weeks and a named point of contact who answers questions during the process. A box-checking RFP gives you 5 business days, a generic inbox address, and a requirements list that reads like it was copied from the current vendor's spec sheet.
The 3-question go/no-go test
Run every inbound RFP through these three questions before writing a single line of the response.
- Do we have a champion inside the buying committee who asked for us specifically, or did this come through a public portal or a generic procurement email? No named champion is the single strongest predictor of a loss.
- Does the requirements list contain at least one item only the incumbent can currently satisfy, worded in a way that reads like it came from their spec sheet? If most requirements are generic and a few are suspiciously specific, that is incumbent fingerprints.
- Can we realistically staff this response without pulling our only salesperson or founder off active deals for a week or more? Teams with an established process and a content library average 25 hours of drafting time per proposal, per Loopio's benchmark data. A startup answering its first RFP, with no reusable content and no prior relationship, should expect to spend meaningfully more than that, not less.
Zero or one "yes" answers: decline, or respond minimally and move on within a day. Two or three "yes" answers: it is worth a real shot, proceed to a full response.
This is exactly the qualification step Loopio's data shows separating the 60%+ win-rate teams from the 42% SMB average. Selectivity is not a consolation prize for smaller teams. It is the actual strategy.
What changes the odds in your favor
The two things that move a cold RFP into warm territory are both things you can build before the RFP ever lands in your inbox.
The first is a champion. If your only contact with the account is the procurement portal, you are already behind. Spend the first 48 hours after receiving the RFP trying to get one call with anyone on the requesting team, even if procurement discourages it. A single internal advocate who can tell you what actually matters to the committee is worth more than another day spent polishing the response document.
The second is a documented reason the incumbent is vulnerable right now. Support complaints, a recent price increase, a missing feature the market has moved past. If you cannot name that reason in one sentence, you likely do not have one, and the RFP is a formality the buyer's team is running to satisfy procurement policy.
What to do if you decide to walk away
Decline fast and decline well. Reply within a day, thank the buyer for the invitation, and say plainly that your current focus does not fit the timeline or scope of this evaluation. Ask if it is appropriate to reconnect for the next renewal cycle.
This costs you almost nothing and it keeps the door open. A polite, prompt decline is remembered. A rushed, thin proposal that clearly wasn't a priority is what actually damages a relationship you might want in 18 months.
If you already have a response process for the RFPs that pass this test, use it. If you don't yet, a founder-built RFP response process is worth reading before you start drafting.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good RFP win rate for an early-stage startup?
The overall SMB average is around 42%, but that figure includes companies with no qualification process at all. A startup that applies a real bid or no-bid filter before responding should be aiming toward the 60%+ range top-performing teams report, not the blended average.
How long should an RFP response take a small team?
Industry benchmark data puts average drafting time at 25 hours for teams that already have a process and a content library. A startup answering its first RFP from scratch, with nothing to reuse, should plan for more than that, not less.
Should I ever respond to an RFP with no champion at all?
Only if the deal size justifies the time cost even at low odds, or if the response can be assembled almost entirely from existing materials. Otherwise a fast, polite decline protects your time for deals you can actually win.
Is it worth responding just to learn about a market or competitor?
Occasionally, and it is a real reason startups do it. But treat the drafting time as a genuine expense, not a free option, and weigh it against other ways to get the same competitive intelligence.
Most inbound RFPs are not evaluated on their merits. They are evaluated against a spec sheet the incumbent helped write. The founders who win the RFPs worth winning are the ones who decline the rest fast enough to have time left for them.