What is the difference between an open and closed bid?

A bid is the process by which an entity evaluates and chooses a supplier for their goods and services’ needs.

Bids can take two forms: "open" or "closed".

Open Bids

In open bids, all entities are able to access the bid documents and respond to them. Open bids are common when bidding on Government Contracts and Non-Profit Organizations to ensure fair evaluation.

Closed Bids

In closed bids, recipients of the bid are a short list of entities who get invited to respond to the closed bid. Such bids are mostly common for profit entities as they already have a set vendors list in which they use to determine who to invite to bid.