Product · bidding
Four ways to get a price for the same job.
The mode you pick depends on how fast you need the work covered and how much competition the scope can stand. Choose it per job, or let a standing rule decide. Whichever you use, the award creates the same purchase order and leaves the same trail behind it.
ModeWhat the vendor seesBest forTypical award
Reverse auctionThe number to beat, with the bidder's name hidden. They can undercut it as often as they like.Trades where you have several vendors who could do itHours
Silent auctionThe scope only. One bid each, with no sight of anyone else's.Bigger scopes where a race to the bottom costs you in quality1–3 days
First-come-first-servedYour price, published. The first approved vendor to claim it owns the job.Routine work you already know the price ofMinutes
Direct dispatchA job offered at your price, to accept or decline.Emergencies, or the vendor who always handles that buildingImmediate
Work offered to your own crew first will fall over to any of these modes automatically if they decline or the clock runs out.
Bidding by text message
Your vendors bid from the truck, in a text message.
Invitations go only to vendors already approved in your network for that trade and area. They get the scope and a private link, reply with a number, and the bid lands on the RFQ exactly as if they had logged in. Most never do — which is the difference between three bids and one.
SMS · +1 (503) 555-0147
Roof leak · 1840 Waverly Ave, Unit 3B · emergency, today if possible. Scope + photos: vspk.co/b/2288
$2,240 — can be there today
Bid recorded 10:04 · J. Correa Roofing Co. · insurance on file, expires Nov 2026
Dispatch without an auction
Most work does not need a bidding war. It needs the right person, quickly.
Competition is a tool, not a policy. The same dispatch engine handles the jobs where you already know who should do it, and escalates on its own when they don't answer.
Your own crew first
Offer the job to internal field staff, then let it fall over to the vendor network automatically if nobody claims it in time. Both are classified in the same roster, so the cost comparison later is honest.
Preferred vendors, then wider
Invite your first-choice vendors, and if no bids arrive the invitation widens on a timer — to fallback tiers, then from county to metro to region. You are not sitting on an empty RFQ at 4pm.
Response deadlines that act
Direct assignments carry a response window and escalate to a backup vendor when it passes, rather than waiting for someone to notice.
A price you would accept anyway
Set a hidden reserve and the first bid at or under it wins immediately, at the bid amount. Emergency work gets covered without a review step.
After the award
The award is the easy part to celebrate. The next five steps are where money leaks.
Each of these already knows what came before it, which is why nobody is retyping an amount from a PDF into an accounting screen at the end of the month.
01
Purchase order
Issued on award, carrying the vendor, the amount, the property and the contract it is charged against.
02
Work and evidence
Check-in, required photos, daily logs. Change orders — including ones the vendor raises — go back through client approval.
03
Vendor bill
Received against the purchase order and routed for approval. A difference from the PO is visible, with the change order that explains it.
04
Owner invoice
Built from approved scope or actual cost, with the markup hierarchy your contract specifies. Fixed-price work can be invoiced per line, at any percentage, as often as needed.
05
Payment
Deposits drawn down, pay-when-paid gates released when the owner’s payment is recorded, and every movement kept as a reversible ledger entry.
When it does not go to plan
A commitment that would breach the owner's not-to-exceed limit stops and requests approval before the crew continues. A bill above its purchase order is flagged on that job rather than absorbed. A vendor whose insurance lapses mid-job shows up in your approvals queue, not in an audit.
Approvals sized to the amount
Approval chains are configured by dollar threshold and entity type, so a $400 patch does not need the same signatures as a $40,000 re-roof. Field roles can be kept cost-blind or margin-blind and still do their jobs.
The wider product
Bidding is the entry point. This is the operation it sits in.
Customers arrive for competitive pricing and stay for the parts below, which is also why the cost history is worth anything: the same system holds the schedule, the approvals and the money.
Projects and contracts
Fixed price, cost-plus, time and materials, CPFF and GMP — with savings-share tracking and per-line budget versus actual.
Critical-path schedule
Dependencies, float, pinned dates and work calendars. Bid windows, approvals, permits and lead times are nodes on the same critical path as the labor.
Estimates and client approval
Line-item estimates with e-signature, promotion of a diagnostic visit into a full project, and scope clarifications tracked to resolution.
Properties and portfolios
Units, rooms, suites, buildings and lots for multifamily, hotel, office, campus and mixed-use — plus property-direct RFQs, bills and POs with no project.
Recurring services
Four fulfillment modes, including competitive re-bidding so a recurring contract stays market-priced instead of drifting for three years.
Pricing intelligence
Median and interquartile ranges by cost code from your own bills, POs and quotes, with county-to-metro-to-state fallback and the scope used disclosed.
Cash intelligence
Safe-to-Pocket distributable cash, a cash timeline, requirements by any target date, and expected pay dates learned from each customer.
Inventory and tools
Assets tracked across properties, projects and containers — a tool inside a truck — with custodians, expected returns and loss incidents.
Portals
Clients approve estimates and change orders and watch live financials; vendors get a bid feed, one-tap claiming, check-in photos and payment visibility.
Assistant and audit
A tenant-scoped assistant that answers from your live operations under the asker’s permissions, and a full audit trail behind it.
Where other platforms stop
The other platforms manage the job after someone has already agreed a price.
CapabilityVendorSpokeLegacy platforms
Reverse auction and competitive vendor biddingYes—
Vendor self-onboarding with trade and geographic coverageYes—
Bidding by text message for subcontractorsYes—
Same-day service orders alongside projectsYes—
Bidding, approvals and lead times on the critical pathYes—
Multi-level approval chains for money commitmentsYes—
True critical-path (CPM) scheduling with floatYesPartial
Cost-plus, CPFF and fixed-price project accountingYesYes
Client portal with e-signature approvalYesYes
Based on publicly documented feature sets of major construction-management platforms, 2026.