# Estimating Price To Win > Produces a price-to-win analysis for a US Federal opportunity. Use when the user needs price-to-win, PTW, a competitive pricing analysis, a price target or price range, or wants to understand pricing strategy, cost drivers, and pricing levers for a federal bid. Estimates the competitive price range and a target price the bid must reach to win, independent of a bottom-up cost estimate, and reconciles that target against the team's likely cost. - Skill: `danielkinneyspears/estimating-price-to-win` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 4 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add danielkinneyspears/estimating-price-to-win` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/danielkinneyspears/estimating-price-to-win/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: danielkinneyspears (https://skillmd.com/u/danielkinneyspears) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/danielkinneyspears/estimating-price-to-win --- # Estimating Price-to-Win Estimate the price the bid has to reach to win — built from the customer's budget and competitors' likely pricing, not from the team's own cost. Price-to-win (PTW) and a bottom-up cost estimate answer different questions. The cost estimate says what the work *costs the team*. PTW says what the customer is *willing and likely to pay the winner*. When those two numbers differ, PTW analysis finds the levers that close the gap — or proves the bid cannot be won profitably. ## When to use this skill Use this skill during capture, after a competitive assessment exists, to establish the price target that shapes the win strategy and, later, the cost volume. Re-run it when the competitive picture or budget signals change, and again when the RFP clarifies the contract type, evaluation weighting, and CLIN structure. This skill estimates the *target*. It does not build the bottom-up cost estimate or write the cost volume narrative — that is `narrating-cost-volumes`. It hands the target to that skill and to `developing-win-strategy`. ## Inputs **Preferred upstream artifacts:** - `00-opportunity-profile.md`: contract type, estimated value, period of performance, scope. - `02-capture-plan.md`: customer budget signals and acquisition history. - `03-competitive-assessment.md`: the competitors and their assessed price postures and cost structures. PTW depends heavily on this; run `analyzing-competitors` first if it is missing. **Without the competitive assessment**, the skill can still produce a budget-based estimate, but it must flag that the competitor-price leg of the analysis is missing and confidence is reduced. Read `../../shared/glossary.md`, `../../shared/federal-solicitation-primer.md`, and `../../shared/pursuit-workspace.md` if not already read this session. ## Intake Ask these as a numbered list. Skip what upstream artifacts answer. 1. **The buy.** Contract type (FFP, T&M, cost-reimbursement, hybrid), scope, period of performance including option years, and CLIN structure if known. 2. **The evaluation.** Is the approach best-value tradeoff or LPTA? How is price weighted against non-price factors? For cost-reimbursement work, will the government perform a cost-realism analysis? (If the RFP is out, Section M answers this.) 3. **Budget signals.** What is known or assessed about the customer's budget — the funding line, an independent government cost estimate if signaled, the prior contract's value, or the value of comparable awards? 4. **The team's cost picture.** What is the team's rough bottom-up cost view, if any — labor mix, wrap rates, subcontractor content, escalation assumptions? (Used to size the gap, not to set the target.) 5. **Pricing flexibility.** Where does the team have real room to move — labor mix, indirect rates, fee, escalation, subcontractor selection, solution scope choices, the make/buy split? 6. **Strategic posture.** Is this a must-win where the team will price thin, a margin-priority bid, or somewhere between? ## Workflow ``` Price-to-Win Analysis: - [ ] Step 1: Read upstream artifacts; complete intake - [ ] Step 2: Establish the evaluation context (pricing posture) - [ ] Step 3: Estimate the customer budget / ceiling - [ ] Step 4: Estimate competitors' likely prices - [ ] Step 5: Set the price-to-win range and target - [ ] Step 6: Reconcile target against the team's cost; identify levers - [ ] Step 7: Write the analysis (04-price-to-win.md) and validate ``` **Step 1: Read and intake.** Read upstream artifacts; run intake for the rest. **Step 2: Evaluation context.** Using `references/pricing-by-evaluation-type.md`, establish what kind of pricing problem this is. LPTA, best-value tradeoff, and cost-reimbursement with realism analysis each demand a different posture. Get this right first — it governs everything after. **Step 3: Customer budget.** Estimate the customer's likely budget or ceiling from the signals available: funding lines, a signaled IGCE, the prior contract's value adjusted for scope and escalation, comparable awards. Give a range, not a false point, and state the basis. **Step 4: Competitor prices.** For each competitor in the competitive assessment, estimate a likely price using the method in `references/ptw-method.md`: their assessed cost structure, their assessed posture (aggressive / market / premium), and their likely solution scope. Produce a range per competitor. **Step 5: PTW range and target.** Combine the budget ceiling and the competitor price estimates into a price-to-win range, then set a target price within it, consistent with the evaluation posture from Step 2. For LPTA, the target is at or below the lowest credible competitor price while staying realistic. For best-value, the target is the highest price the team's non-price advantage can justify against the field. **Step 6: Reconcile and find levers.** Compare the PTW target against the team's bottom-up cost view. If cost is at or below target, confirm the margin. If cost exceeds target, identify the specific levers (from `ptw-method.md`) that could close the gap and quantify each. If no realistic combination of levers closes the gap without making the bid unrealistic or unprofitable, **say so plainly** — that finding feeds straight back to the bid/no-bid decision. **Step 7: Write and validate.** Write `04-price-to-win.md` using `templates/price-to-win.md`. Run its validation checklist: the evaluation posture is identified, every estimate is a sourced range not a false precision point, the target is consistent with the posture, and the cost-to-target gap is either closed with named levers or honestly declared unbridgeable. ## Output One artifact: `04-price-to-win.md` in the pursuit workspace. Present the user with: the recommended target price (as a range with a point recommendation), the PTW range and how it was bounded, the gap to the team's cost and the levers to close it, and the pricing risks. ## References - `references/ptw-method.md`: estimating budgets and competitor prices, the cost drivers, and the pricing levers. - `references/pricing-by-evaluation-type.md`: how PTW posture differs for LPTA, best-value tradeoff, and cost-reimbursement with realism analysis. - `templates/price-to-win.md`: the analysis artifact template and its validation checklist. ## Guardrails - **PTW is not the cost estimate.** Never substitute the team's bottom-up cost for the price-to-win target. They answer different questions. - **Ranges, not false precision.** Budget and competitor-price estimates are ranges with a stated basis. A single confident number is a lie about the uncertainty. - **Realism cuts both ways.** A price below what the work can credibly be done for is a risk, not a win — especially under cost-realism evaluation, where the government can adjust an unrealistically low cost upward for scoring. - **An unbridgeable gap is a finding.** If the work cannot be priced to win profitably, report that clearly; it belongs back in the bid/no-bid decision. - **Decision support only.** The target informs the human pricing decision; it does not set the price.