The bid desk for utility electrical contractors.
Upload the bid package from a PUD, co-op, municipal utility or federal owner, scanned sets included. In minutes you get a one-page bid brief, the requirements scored for risk, a submittal log, and answers to your questions with the source page highlighted.
Open now: Mason PUD 1 Eldon to Duckabush Reconductor (Mason County PUD No. 1), bids due Oct 30, 2026.
What comes back
Day one of a bid, from the documents
Upload the bid set once. DeadFront reads every page and builds these for you.
Bid Brief
A one-page summary per project: bid due date, pre-bid meetings, bond and prevailing-wage requirements, owner-furnished material, top risk items, and key contacts—pulled straight from the bid documents. Shown here: a real public bid set (Port of Tacoma substation replacement).
Submittal Log
Auto-built from the specs with CSI section, submittal type, and long-lead flags so you know what to order first. One-click Excel export.
Answers with the page highlighted
Ask a question about the bid package, like “Are liquidated damages capped?” or “Is the pre-bid mandatory?” The answer cites the section it came from and highlights the passage in the PDF.
Scanned bid sets
Agencies issue scanned bid sets all the time. DeadFront reads them with OCR automatically, so no searchable PDF is required.
Every requirement, scored for risk.
The requirements behind the brief, one row each, so you can review the risky ones first.
Each requirement is pulled out of the specs and set next to standard practice for the trade, so the unusual ones stand out.
Utility bids
The cost is in the front end and the specs
Utility bid packages carry terms that change your number but are easy to miss in a few hundred pages. DeadFront extracts every requirement and scores it for risk, so these come up before you price the job.
- Owner-furnished material you still receive, store and install
- Outage and switching windows
- Prequalification and bidder responsibility requirements
- Bid, performance and payment bonds
- Liquidated damages
- Prevailing wage and Buy America on federally funded work
Walkthrough video (2:06)
Recorded in April 2025 on publicly available specs for a hospital project (Swedish Hospital). It shows the upload and the risk-scored requirement list. The bid brief and submittal log came later and aren't in it; see a live bid brief for current output.
On every bid
Before you put a number on the job
- Go or no-go on one page
The bid brief puts the due date, pre-bid meeting, bonds, prevailing wage, owner-furnished material and top risks in one place.
- Price what is written
Risk-scored requirements show the clauses that depart from standard practice.
- Order long-lead items first
The submittal log flags long-lead items by CSI section and exports to Excel.
- Check the source
Chat answers cite the section they came from and highlight the passage in the PDF, so you can check them.
Pricing
Start free with 1 bid set per month. Pro starts with a 30-day pilot.
Free
Try it on a real bid
$0/month
- 1 bid set per month
- Full one-page bid brief
- Risk-scored requirements
- Submittal log
Pro
Perfect for small to mid-size contractors
$1,000/month
- Unlimited users
- Up to 25 active projects
- Bid brief, risk scoring, submittal log, document chat, and spec version comparison
- Pro starts with a 30-day pilot
- Email support from the founder
Enterprise
For larger teams and enterprise needs
Custom
- Everything in Pro
- Unlimited active projects
- Email support from the founder
How your documents are protected
Your bid documents stay private to your team. How we handle your documents →
Encrypted at rest
Database and file storage encrypted at rest
Encrypted in transit
HTTPS (TLS) for every connection
Private file storage
Private bucket; file links expire after 1 hour
Email support
Straight from the founder
Free weekly Northwest bid digest
Every Monday we verify and publish open public-works bid opportunities for electrical and utility contractors across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana — every listing checked against the owner's own solicitation page.
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New public-works electrical and utility bids across WA, ID, OR, and MT — each with an AI mini-brief of due dates, bonds, and gotchas. Free, every Monday, unsubscribe anytime.
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Bidding a utility job this month?
Upload the bid package and read the brief before you price it. Your first bid set each month is free.