RFP Template: What to Include and What to Leave Out

Every procurement team has a template folder. Inside it sits an RFP document from two years ago, partially updated, with sections that made sense for that project but don't quite fit this one. Someone copies it, changes the dates and company name, adds a few questions, and publishes.

The result is an RFP that's technically complete but strategically unfocused. It asks vendors for information that doesn't help you decide. It buries the questions that actually differentiate vendors under pages of boilerplate. And it creates evaluation headaches downstream because the structure wasn't designed for comparison.

A good RFP template isn't about having every possible section. It's about having the right sections, structured so that vendor responses are comparable, scoreable, and useful.

The 7 essential RFP sections

Every RFP, regardless of industry or complexity, needs these seven sections. They form the skeleton that makes evaluation possible.

1. Company overview

Purpose: Give vendors enough context to understand who you are and why you're buying.

Include:

• Organization name, size, and industry
• Brief description of your business (2-3 sentences, not 2-3 pages)
• Why this procurement is happening now (new project, contract expiration, growth)

Leave out: Your full company history, mission statement, and organizational chart. Vendors need context, not a corporate biography. If your company overview runs longer than half a page, cut it.

2. Project scope

Purpose: Define what you're buying, what's included, and what's excluded.

Include:

• Clear description of the product, service, or solution you need
• Specific deliverables with acceptance criteria where possible
• Geographic or organizational scope (one office, all locations, specific departments)
• What is explicitly out of scope

Leave out: Implementation details that should be the vendor's decision. If you're buying a software platform, specify the outcomes you need, not the technical architecture you want the vendor to use. Let vendors propose their approach.

The scope section is where most RFPs either succeed or fail. Vague scope produces vague proposals. Specific scope produces specific, comparable proposals.

3. Requirements

Purpose: List the specific capabilities, qualifications, and standards vendors must meet.

Include:

• Functional requirements (what the solution must do)
• Technical requirements (integrations, security standards, data formats)
• Vendor qualifications (certifications, experience, team composition)
• Compliance requirements (industry regulations, data residency, audit standards)

Structure matters here. Group requirements by category and label each as mandatory or preferred. This maps directly to your scoring weights and tells vendors where to invest their response effort.

Leave out: Requirements that every vendor will meet identically. If you're buying enterprise software and require "the ability to export data to CSV," that's table stakes, not a differentiator. Focus your requirements section on the capabilities that will actually separate vendors.

4. Evaluation criteria

Purpose: Tell vendors exactly how you'll judge their responses.

Include:

• Each evaluation criterion (technical fit, pricing, implementation approach, vendor qualifications, support)
• The weight assigned to each criterion
• The scoring scale (1-5 is standard)
• Whether AI scoring, human scoring, or both will be used

Sharing your evaluation criteria with vendors is not optional if you want quality responses. When vendors know that security carries 3x weight and pricing carries 1x, they write detailed security sections instead of leading with the lowest price.

Leave out: Internal evaluation logistics (who is on the committee, how you'll run consensus meetings). Vendors need to know the criteria, not the process.

5. Timeline

Purpose: Set clear dates for every phase of the RFP process.

Include:

• RFP issuance date
• Q&A period (open and close dates)
• Proposal submission deadline (with timezone)
• Evaluation period
• Shortlist notification
• Vendor demos (if applicable)
• Final selection and contract award target

Leave out: Padded timelines that signal you're not serious about the dates. If your deadline is March 15, say March 15. Don't say "on or about mid-March."

Give vendors enough time to respond. Two weeks minimum for simple procurements. Three to four weeks for complex ones. Compressed timelines produce rushed, incomplete responses and discourage strong vendors from participating.

6. Submission instructions

Purpose: Tell vendors exactly how, where, and when to submit.

Include:

• Submission format (portal, email, upload link)
• Required file formats
• Page or word limits (if any)
• Contact person for questions
• Rules about communication (who vendors can and cannot contact)

Leave out: Onerous formatting requirements that don't serve the evaluation. Requiring 12-point Times New Roman with 1-inch margins and a signed cover page in triplicate does not improve response quality. It signals bureaucracy.

7. Terms and conditions

Purpose: Set the legal and commercial framework for the engagement.

Include:

• Contract type (fixed-price, time-and-materials, retainer)
• Contract duration and renewal terms
• Insurance and liability requirements
• Intellectual property ownership
• Confidentiality and NDA requirements
• Right to cancel the RFP without awarding

Leave out: Fifty pages of boilerplate legal terms attached as an appendix. If vendors need to involve their legal team just to understand your submission requirements, you've created an unnecessary barrier. Keep terms focused on what's material to this procurement and negotiate the full contract after selection.

Sections that differentiate vendors vs. sections that collect basic info

Not all RFP sections are created equal. Some sections generate responses that help you choose between vendors. Others collect information that's functionally identical across every submission.

High-differentiation sections (invest your evaluation effort here):

• Project scope and approach: How does each vendor plan to deliver?
• Technical requirements: Where do capabilities actually differ?
• Implementation and timeline: What's the vendor's specific plan?
• Pricing: How does total cost of ownership compare?

Low-differentiation sections (necessary but don't overweight):

• Company overview: Most vendors have a website
• Standard certifications: Vendors either have them or they don't
• Boilerplate legal compliance: Usually pass/fail, not scored

Weight your evaluation criteria accordingly. A common mistake is giving equal weight to every section, which dilutes the impact of the sections that actually reveal differences between vendors.

Sections that waste vendor time

These common RFP inclusions cost vendors hours of work and produce information that rarely influences the decision.

Overly detailed company history requirements. "Provide a complete history of your organization including founding date, ownership changes, and key milestones." You can find this on their website. Ask instead for relevant experience with similar projects.

Irrelevant certifications. Requiring ISO 27001 for a landscaping contract or CMMI Level 3 for a simple SaaS purchase adds burden without value. Match certification requirements to the actual risk profile of the procurement.

Redundant reference formats. "Provide 5 references with company name, contact name, phone, email, project description, project value, and dates of engagement." Three references with a paragraph about the engagement and a phone number are sufficient. You're going to call them, not build a database.

Multi-page "about your company" questionnaires. Twenty questions about organizational structure, D&I policies, community involvement, and corporate values may reflect your values, but they don't help you choose the best vendor for this specific project. Include 2-3 strategic questions instead of a generic questionnaire.

How to structure pricing requests for comparable numbers

Pricing is where most RFPs produce the least comparable data. Vendor A quotes a fixed price. Vendor B quotes hourly rates. Vendor C quotes a subscription with implementation fees broken out. Comparing them requires a finance degree and a Saturday afternoon.

Prescribe the pricing format

Tell vendors exactly how to present their pricing:

When every vendor fills in the same table, you get numbers you can actually compare side by side.

Ask for total cost of ownership

The license fee is never the full cost. Ask vendors to include implementation, data migration, training, ongoing support, and any fees that will appear in years 2 and 3. Vendors who quote low upfront and make up the difference in professional services look very different when you see the three-year total.

Industry-specific considerations

The seven core sections apply universally, but the content within them varies by industry.

IT and software procurement. Add sections on data security, uptime SLAs, API documentation, disaster recovery, and data portability. Include a security questionnaire as an appendix if your organization requires one.

Professional services. Focus on team composition (who will actually do the work, not just the partner who shows up for the pitch), methodology, and past project examples. Include a section on change management and knowledge transfer.

Construction and facilities. Add sections on safety records, bonding capacity, subcontractor management, warranty terms, and inspection/approval processes. Pricing structures should account for materials, labor, equipment, and contingency.

Healthcare. Compliance dominates. HIPAA, HITRUST, BAA requirements, data residency, and audit rights are often mandatory. Add a compliance section with pass/fail criteria for regulatory requirements.

Why AI-generated RFPs outperform templates

Templates are starting points. They give you structure, but the content is generic. You still need to customize every question, write evaluation criteria from scratch, assign scoring weights, and adapt the structure to your industry and procurement type.

That's a lot of customization applied to a document that was designed for someone else's procurement.

AI-generated RFPs start with your specific need. When you describe your procurement to Strutter AI, it asks clarifying questions about your industry, scope, budget, timeline, and priorities. Then it generates a complete RFP with:

• Sections tailored to your procurement type
• Questions that reflect your specific requirements
• Scoring weights calibrated to your stated priorities
• Industry-appropriate compliance and qualification criteria

The output isn't a template you need to customize. It's a draft you need to review. The difference saves hours of work and produces a more focused, evaluable RFP.

How Strutter generates a complete RFP

1. Describe your need in plain language. "We need a cloud-based CRM for 200 users with Salesforce migration support."
2. Answer clarifying questions. The AI asks about budget, timeline, integrations, compliance needs, and evaluation priorities.
3. Review the generated RFP. Sections, questions, weights, and criteria are all populated. Edit, add, remove, or restructure as needed.
4. Publish. Invite vendors and start collecting responses.

The entire process takes minutes, not weeks. And because the AI adapts to every input, no two generated RFPs are the same.

Build your next RFP on substance, not structure

The goal of an RFP is to collect the information you need to make a confident vendor selection. Every section should serve that goal. If a section doesn't help you differentiate vendors or evaluate fit, it's taking up space.

Start with the seven essential sections. Tailor the content to your specific procurement. Structure pricing so you get comparable numbers. And skip the boilerplate that wastes vendor time without improving your decision.

For a walkthrough of the full RFP lifecycle, see the step-by-step process guide. To understand what an RFP is and where templates fit in, start there. For the complete buyer-side workflow, see the Buyer RFP Guide.

Try Strutter AI free and generate a complete, tailored RFP from a plain-language description. No template required.