Working with firms whose clients bid for a living
The RFP.co partner programme: referral, reseller and implementation partnerships, and how to apply to join it.
Three kinds of partnership, which differ in who holds the customer relationship and who does the work. The distinction matters more than the label, because it decides who a buyer calls when a submission deadline is six hours away.
The three shapes
| Kind | Who holds the account | Who does the work | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Referral | We do, after the introduction | We do | Consultants and advisors who meet firms with a bidding problem but do not want to run the software |
| Implementation | We do | You do | Capture and proposal consultancies who configure, train and stay involved |
| Reseller | You do | You do | Agencies and managed service firms billing their own clients under their own agreement |
The middle row is the one most firms want and the one most often described as a reseller arrangement by mistake. Doing the work without holding the contract is a different commercial relationship, and it is worth naming correctly before anything is signed.
What an agency workspace actually does
A firm working on behalf of several clients does not want one workspace with everything in it, and it does not want separate subscriptions to reconcile either. The product holds a parent workspace with client workspaces beneath it.
Each client keeps its own profile, content and pursuits
Capability profiles, past performance, content library and response projects belong to the client workspace. This is what makes matching meaningful — a shared profile across five clients scores nothing well for any of them.
Client data does not cross between workspaces
Isolation is enforced at the data layer rather than by interface convention. Two clients competing for the same solicitation is a normal Tuesday in this business, and the separation has to survive it.
Billing rolls up to the parent
One subscription and one invoice covering the client workspaces beneath it, rather than a subscription per client to chase.
People move between workspaces without new accounts
A consultant working across four clients signs in once. Access is granted per workspace, and removing it removes it everywhere it applied.
Allowances are held at the parent
Seats, pursuits, AI generation and exports draw against the parent’s plan, so a busy month for one client does not require an upgrade for a different one.
This is available without a partnership
What a partner gets, and what is expected back
A named person, not a queue
Somebody who knows your accounts and can be reached about them. A partner escalating a client’s deadline through general support is a partnership that exists on paper.
Early sight of what is changing
Advance notice of changes that affect a workflow you have trained clients on. Finding out from a client is the failure mode this is meant to prevent.
Your questions weigh more in what gets built
A partner reporting the same friction across six clients is better evidence than six unconnected tickets, and it is treated that way.
A commercial arrangement in writing
Terms depend on which of the three shapes applies and on who carries the support obligation. They are agreed individually and put in an agreement rather than published, because a rate on a page is a rate every negotiation starts from.
Competence, in return
The expectation running the other way is that a partner configuring the product for a client understands it — the profile, the matching contributions, the compliance mapping and the delivery model. A misconfigured workspace produces bad matches, and the client blames the software.
What this is not
Not an affiliate link programme
There is no self-serve sign-up producing a tracking URL. Every arrangement involves a conversation, because every one of them differs on who supports the customer.
Not a directory listing
Nobody is listed as a partner for having signed something. A public listing follows delivered work, not the reverse.
Not a data-sharing arrangement
A partner does not receive client workspace data by virtue of being a partner. Access to a client’s workspace is granted by that client and revoked by them.
Not a substitute for the product being good enough
If a client only succeeds with a consultant permanently attached, that is a defect in the product rather than a business model. Partner friction reports are read on that basis.
Getting in touch
There is no application form, because the useful version of this conversation cannot be collected from one. Write to us with three things: which of the three shapes fits, roughly how many client firms you work with and what they bid for, and who you expect a client to call at four in the afternoon on a submission day.
The third question is the one that decides the shape of the arrangement, and answering it first saves both sides a round.
Contact the team
Partnerships, resale and implementation arrangements, and anything commercial.
What clients would be running
The lifecycle a partner configures and trains on, from discovery through submission and outcome.
Plans and allowances
What each plan includes, including the one that carries agency workspaces.
How client data is handled
Tenant isolation, encryption, access control and retention — the questions a client will ask you before they ask us.
Common questions
- Do I need a partnership to manage client workspaces?
No. Agency workspaces are a product capability on the plan that includes them. A firm can run several clients under one parent workspace today without any formal arrangement.
- Can two of my clients bid for the same solicitation?
Yes, and it is expected. Client workspaces are isolated at the data layer, so profiles, content and response projects do not cross between them — including when both are pursuing the same opportunity.
- What are the commission or margin terms?
They depend on which shape the arrangement takes and on who carries the support obligation, and they are agreed individually rather than published. A rate on a marketing page is a rate every subsequent negotiation starts from.
- Who supports the end client?
Whoever holds the account. Under a referral or implementation arrangement that is us; under a reseller arrangement it is you, with a named contact here behind you. Deciding this before signing is more important than the commercial terms.
- Is there a certification programme?
Not a formal one. The expectation is that a partner configuring a workspace understands the profile, the matching contributions and the compliance mapping well enough that a client is not troubleshooting a misconfiguration.
- Can a client take their workspace with them if we stop working together?
Yes. A client workspace and its data belong to the client, and access granted to a partner is granted and revoked by them.
Related
See what you are not bidding on.
Connect a source, describe what your company does, and look at the opportunities that come back before deciding whether any of this is worth your time.