You're stuck in the RFP trenches, losing deals on price, and everyone's giving you the same stale advice: "Just lower your multiplier."
But what if you could slash your bid price by 15% without sacrificing a penny of profit? What if the real problem isn't your margins—it's that you're only using two tools when seasoned proposal managers have twenty in their toolbox?
Most proposal teams obsess over indirect rates and profit margins like they're the only dials on the pricing machine. Meanwhile, strategic pricing experts in Washington DC, Silicon Valley, and federal contracting hubs are quietly winning competitive bids using techniques that never cross their competitors' minds. These aren't complicated financial gymnastics—they're straightforward moves that can transform your win rate almost overnight.
Here are five battle-tested pricing levers that can dramatically lower your RFP pricing while keeping your margins healthy—techniques we've seen top-performing companies use to win contracts they thought were lost.
1. Adjust Your G&A Base for New Business
This might be the single most overlooked pricing lever in federal contracting. When bidding on new work—contracts that aren't part of your current business base—you can legitimately factor that new revenue into your G&A rate calculations.
Think about it: Your G&A costs are relatively fixed. When you add $10 million in new business, those costs get spread across a larger revenue base. The result? Your G&A rate drops, sometimes by 5-10%, without cutting a single expense or touching your profit target.
We've seen companies across Virginia and Maryland routinely bid with their existing wrap rates on new opportunities, essentially pricing themselves out of growth. They treat their current G&A rate like it's carved in stone, when it should be dynamic—especially for must-win proposals.
The tactical move: Calculate what your G&A rate would be with this new contract in your base. Use that forward-looking rate in your RFP pricing. It's not creative accounting—it's strategic pricing based on the reality of how your business will actually operate once you win the work.
2. Leverage Uncompensated Overtime (For Cost-Plus Work)
Here's a secret that experienced government contractors know but rarely discuss publicly: uncompensated overtime can lower your effective rates by 5-15% on cost-plus contracts without impacting delivery quality.
Most professional services firms have salaried employees who regularly work more than 40 hours. That extra time? It's already baked into your cost structure. By properly accounting for this in your proposal pricing model, you can show lower effective hourly rates without reducing anyone's salary or cutting corners on service delivery.
This isn't about squeezing more work out of your team. It's about accurately reflecting how professional services actually operate in real-world conditions. Your competitors who don't account for this are leaving money on the table—or losing on price unnecessarily.
The tactical move: Analyze your historical timekeeping data from similar projects. Calculate the actual uncompensated overtime percentage for comparable contracts. Apply that factor to your rate calculations and be transparent about it in your pricing narrative. This approach is particularly effective for Department of Defense and civilian agency proposals.
3. Bid Costs Direct Instead of Keeping Them Indirect
Every cost sitting in your indirect pools inflates your rates across all contracts. But not every cost needs to be there.
Travel for a specific project? Direct. Specialized equipment for one contract? Direct. Project-specific training? Direct. Even certain management costs can be legitimately charged direct when they're dedicated to a single effort.
Companies reflexively dump costs into overhead because "that's how we've always done it." But each cost you can legitimately charge direct drops your indirect rates for everyone—making you more competitive across the board on future bids.
The tactical move: Before your next proposal submission, conduct a "direct cost audit." Look at every significant cost in your indirect pools and ask: "Could this be charged direct to specific contracts?" Work with your accounting team to ensure compliance with FAR principles, but push the boundaries of conventional thinking. This strategy works especially well for IDIQ and GWAC proposals.
4. Apply Learning Curves and Efficiency Gains
You're not starting from zero. Every similar project you've completed has taught you something. Every process you've refined saves time. Yet most proposals price Year 5 the same as Year 1—a fundamental strategic error.
Learning curves aren't just for manufacturing. Service companies get more efficient too. Maybe it takes 100 hours to complete a task the first time, 90 hours the second, 85 hours the third. This isn't corner-cutting—it's the natural result of experience and process improvement that sophisticated procurement offices already understand.
Showing these efficiency gains does two things: It lowers your price over the contract lifetime, and it demonstrates to evaluators that you actually understand the work. You're not just throwing bodies at the problem—you're getting smarter about execution over time.
The tactical move: Document your efficiency improvements from past similar work. Build declining labor hours into out-years. Be specific about where these gains come from: standardized processes, reusable deliverables, trained staff. Make it credible, not wishful. This approach resonates particularly well with procurement offices in Colorado Springs, Huntsville, and other defense technology centers.
5. Structure Strategic Investments as Company Contributions
This is the master class move that separates elite proposal teams from everyone else. Instead of burying every cost in your rates, identify investments your company is willing to make to win and deliver this work.
New capability development. Process improvements. Technology investments. Facility upgrades. These aren't costs the customer should bear—they're investments in your company's future that happen to benefit this contract.
By explicitly showing these as company investments rather than contract costs, you demonstrate commitment while lowering the price. It's powerful because it's true: You are investing in the relationship and the capability.
The tactical move: Identify 2-3 strategic investments your company would make regardless of this contract. Calculate their value. Show them as company contributions, not billable costs. Write about them in your executive summary as proof of commitment. This technique works especially well for GWAC vehicles and enterprise IT services contracts.
The Real Secret: It's About Strategy, Not Math
Here's what pricing strategists at top federal contractors know that others don't: These techniques aren't about financial tricks. They're about aligning your pricing with business reality.
Your G&A rate with new business IS lower than without it. Your team DOES get more efficient over time. Some costs SHOULD be direct. These aren't games—they're accurate reflections of how your business actually operates.
The companies winning on price aren't always the cheapest. They're the ones using every legitimate tool available to present their best possible price while maintaining healthy margins. They start pricing strategy during capture, not two days before submission. They treat pricing as a strategic function, not "other duties as assigned."
Stop fighting RFP battles with one hand tied behind your back. Your competitors in Northern Virginia and the DC metro area aren't.
Make these levers part of capture, not a last-minute fix. Start early. Track each assumption, narrative, and approval as real work.
Trampoline.ai turns the RFP into a board with one card per requirement and pricing task. Add cards for G&A base updates, UCOT policy, direct cost calls, learning curve BOEs, and company investments. Tag them. Route them to finance and SMEs. See status at a glance.
Use the AI panel to pull past cost narratives, BOE templates, and winning language. Insert what works. Keep a single source of truth for assumptions, references, and approvals. Gap detection flags missing info or inconsistent answers before you submit.
When ready, compile clean pricing narratives and management sections with the Writer extension. We have seen teams cut cycle time and reduce rework when knowledge is centralized and tasks are clear. That lets your pricing team focus on strategy, not document wrangling.