How Much Time Do Proposal Teams Actually Get?

The conventional wisdom in proposal management is that teams get about a month to respond to an RFP. The data tells a different story. We analyzed 7,569 RFPs posted between October 2025 and February 2026, measuring the gap between the date each opportunity was posted and its submission deadline. The median turnaround is 24 days, but the distribution is heavily skewed toward shorter windows that leave most teams scrambling.

Specifically, 27.0% of all RFPs give respondents 14 days or less. Nearly half (45.7%) allow 21 days or fewer. And 70.9% have deadlines within 30 days of posting. The comfortable month-long response window that many teams plan around simply does not exist for the majority of opportunities. For proposal operations leaders, this data should reshape how they staff, tool, and structure their response workflows.

Which Categories Have the Tightest Deadlines?

Response windows vary significantly across industries. IT Services has the tightest median deadline at just 21 days, closely followed by Software and Information Technology at 22 days each. At the other end, Construction and Engineering allow a median of 27 days, and Healthcare IT also comes in at 27 days. Consulting sits in the middle at 23 days, while Marketing and Web Development hover around 25-26 days.

These differences matter for resource planning. A software company that bids on 20 RFPs per quarter is dealing with roughly 22 days per response, which means overlapping deadlines are nearly guaranteed. A construction firm has a few extra days of breathing room per bid, but the technical complexity of construction proposals often requires that additional time. Regardless of category, the data shows that the era of leisurely proposal timelines is over.

10% of RFPs Are Rush Jobs

Perhaps the most striking finding is the volume of ultra-short-deadline opportunities. A full 10.2% of RFPs in our dataset (771 listings) had 7 days or fewer between posting and deadline. Within that group, 225 RFPs (3.0%) allowed 3 days or fewer, essentially requiring a same-week turnaround. Software dominates rush RFPs, accounting for 365 of the 771 rush listings (47.3%). Marketing, Construction, and Consulting each had 27-33 rush RFPs.

For teams without pre-built content libraries and automated drafting tools, these rush opportunities are effectively inaccessible. You cannot start a proposal from scratch and deliver a quality submission in three days. But teams with a well-maintained answer library and AI-powered drafting capabilities can respond to rush RFPs that their competitors cannot, creating a structural advantage in a significant slice of the market.

Why Are Deadlines Getting Shorter?

Several forces are compressing RFP timelines. Procurement teams face their own pressures: budget cycles that demand faster vendor selection, organizational restructuring that shortens planning windows, and the growing expectation that digital tools should accelerate every business process. Federal procurement in particular has moved toward shorter Sources Sought and RFI windows, often using the initial response to pre-qualify vendors before a longer formal solicitation.

The data also reveals a day-of-week pattern. 25.3% of all RFP deadlines fall on a Friday, compared to roughly 18% for each weekday Monday through Thursday. Saturday and Sunday deadlines are rare at a combined 2.4%. This Friday clustering means that Thursday night is crunch time for proposal teams across every industry, every week. Planning your review cycles around this pattern can reduce last-minute scrambling.

What Does This Mean for Your Proposal Process?

If your team's average time-to-first-draft exceeds 48 hours, you are effectively starting behind on nearly half of all opportunities. The 24-day median means roughly 16-17 business days from discovery to submission. Subtract time for internal review (3-5 days), SME input (2-3 days), and compliance checks (1-2 days), and the actual writing window shrinks to just 8-10 business days for most teams.

Three structural changes can help. First, maintain a living answer library so that 60-80% of common questions already have approved, up-to-date responses. Second, implement automated opportunity monitoring so you discover RFPs the day they post rather than days later. Third, use AI-assisted drafting to generate first drafts in minutes rather than hours, freeing your team to focus on strategy, differentiation, and review. Platforms like Settle combine all three capabilities, allowing small teams to respond at enterprise speed without enterprise headcount.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average RFP response time in 2026?

Based on an analysis of 7,569 RFPs, the median time from posting to submission deadline is 24 days. However, the average (mean) is 27.5 days, pulled higher by a small number of RFPs with unusually long timelines. The most useful planning metric is the median: half of all RFPs give you 24 days or less.

How many RFPs have less than two weeks to respond?

27.0% of RFPs in our dataset allowed 14 days or fewer from posting to deadline. That represents over one-quarter of all opportunities. For IT Services specifically, the median deadline is just 21 days, meaning more than half of IT-related RFPs fall within or near this two-week window.

What percentage of RFP deadlines fall on a Friday?

25.3% of all RFP deadlines fall on a Friday, making it the most common deadline day by a significant margin. Monday through Thursday each account for roughly 18% of deadlines, while weekend deadlines are rare at a combined 2.4%. This pattern is consistent across categories and geographies.