Key Takeaways: How Long Should an RFP Response Actually Take?

• Standard Benchmark: Manual responses typically require 20-40 hours of work over 14+ days.

• The AI Advantage: AI-powered tools like Settle can cut this time down by 80%.

• Core Speed Inhibitors: Fragmented data, slow SME feedback loops, and manual question extraction.

In the world of B2B sales and government contracting, time is more than just money—it is your competitive edge. When a high-value Request for Proposal (RFP) hits your inbox, the clock starts ticking. But a common question persists among sales directors and proposal managers: How long should an RFP response actually take? If your team is spending weeks on a single bid, you may be losing out on other opportunities while driving up your customer acquisition costs.

Calculating the Standard RFP Response Timeline

Historically, the RFP process is long and fragmented. For a mid-sized RFP containing 50 to 100 questions, a manual workflow usually breaks down as follows:

• Discovery and Qualification (2-4 hours): Reviewing requirements to decide if the project is a good fit.

• Information Gathering (8-12 hours): Searching through old spreadsheets, sent emails, and past proposals to find similar answers.

• Drafting and Tailoring (10-15 hours): Writing new content and adjusting old answers to fit the specific needs of the prospect.

• Internal Review and Collaboration (5-10 hours): Chasing subject matter experts (SMEs) for technical or legal approvals.

• Final Formatting and Submission (2-4 hours): Ensuring the PDF or Word document meets all procurement guidelines.

This puts the total labor at roughly 27 to 45 hours. When you account for the fact that SMEs have other jobs, this work is often stretched across 15 to 20 business days.

Why Your Proposals Take Longer Than They Should

If your timeline exceeds these benchmarks, you are likely facing the "Knowledge Gap." This occurs when your team lacks a centralized proposal knowledge base. Instead of having a single source of truth for security responses and product information, your team has to reinvent the wheel for every bid.

Another major bottleneck is the review process. Without structured review workflows, comments get lost in email chains or Slack threads. This lack of enterprise-grade collaboration creates friction and slows down the final sign-off, often leading to stressful, last-minute submissions.

Leveraging AI to Shorten the Proposal Lifecycle

Modern growth-stage teams no longer rely on manual copying and pasting. Tools like Settle help automate these repetitive tasks, allowing small teams to compete at an enterprise scale. By implementing AI proposal software, you can change the math of your response time.

1. Instant Question Extraction

Manual data entry is a significant time sink. Settle allows users to upload RFP documents in PDF, Word, or Excel formats and automatically extracts the questions. This turns a multi-hour task into a few seconds of work.

2. AI-Powered Auto-Drafting

The most transformative way to save time is through bulk auto-drafting. Settle uses your Library of approved content to generate high-quality drafts instantly. Instead of starting from a blank page, your team starts with a 90% completed document, reducing the active writing time by up to 80%.

3. Seamless Team Collaboration

RFP response is a team sport. By using a centralized Inbox for assignments and threaded discussions, you can eliminate the 'wait time' between departments. When an SME is assigned a question in Settle, they get an immediate notification and can provide their input directly in the project workspace.

From Discovery to Submission: A Faster Workflow

Speed isn't just about writing; it's also about finding the right opportunities quickly. Many teams waste days manually searching procurement portals. Settle’s RFP Hunter provides a continuously refreshed feed of active RFPs, summarizing opportunities using AI so you can make a bid/no-bid decision in minutes rather than hours. This drives pipeline growth by ensuring you only spend time on high-fit opportunities.

Conclusion: Setting New Benchmarks

An RFP response should not take weeks. With the right technology, a 40-hour manual process can be condensed into a single afternoon of strategic refinement. By centralizing your knowledge and automating the repetitive drafting work, your team can submit more bids, improve accuracy, and ultimately win more deals.

To see how your team can accelerate its response time, tools like Settle offer the automation and structure needed to turn proposals into a competitive advantage.