PQQ, ITT and RFP: a buyer's guide to digital tenders

Tendering comes with its own alphabet, and if you do not run procurements often it can be hard to know which document you need and when. Here is what the main stages and acronyms actually do, in plain English, so you can pick the right route for a digital marketing, SEO or web project.

The tender process in plain English

At its simplest, a tender is a structured way to buy something significant fairly. You describe what you need, invite suppliers to respond, score the responses against set criteria, and award the work to the best fit. The formality scales with the value and the sector: a small private company might send a short brief to three agencies, while a public body follows a regulated, multi-stage process. The documents below are the building blocks.

PQQ: the pre-qualification stage

A pre-qualification questionnaire, sometimes called an SQ or selection questionnaire, comes first on larger tenders. It is a filter, not the main event. It checks that a supplier is a real, solvent, compliant business with relevant experience and insurance before you invite them to bid in full. If you are running a big procurement, a PQQ saves everyone time by shortlisting capable suppliers before the detailed work begins.

ITT: the invitation to tender

The invitation to tender is the main document. It sets out your specification, the scope of work, the evaluation criteria and the response format, and asks shortlisted suppliers for a full, priced proposal. A good ITT is specific about outcomes and fair about scoring; our guide on writing a digital tender brief covers what to include. This is the stage where the real comparison happens.

RFP and RFQ: proposals and quotes

Outside strict public procurement, you will often see RFP and RFQ. A request for proposal asks suppliers to propose an approach as well as a price, which suits digital marketing where the how matters as much as the cost. A request for quotation asks mainly for a price against a fixed, well-defined scope, which suits simpler, like-for-like work. Choose the RFP route when you want thinking, and the RFQ route when you already know exactly what you want built.

Which route fits digital marketing

For most SEO, paid media and web projects, an outcome-led ITT or RFP works best, because the value is in the strategy, not just the unit price. Reserve the full PQQ-then-ITT process for high-value or public sector contracts where formal pre-qualification is required. Whichever route you take, we welcome invitations across SEO, paid media, web design and integrated briefs.