Adjusted price: working out your final score in a Québec call for tenders

Two regimes, two formulas

It all depends on who issues the call for tenders.

A public body (a ministry, a government agency, an institution in the health or education networks) follows the Regulation respecting certain service contracts of public bodies. When it evaluates quality and then the quality-price ratio, the contract goes to the tender with the lowest adjusted price.

A municipality has followed, since April 1, 2026, the Act respecting contracting by municipal bodies. When it uses a system in which knowledge of the price is deferred, the contract goes to the tender with the highest final score.

Both regimes share the same logic. Quality is scored first, by a committee that does not know the prices. A proposal under 70 points is set aside. Price only comes into play afterwards, for the proposals that remain.

Public bodies: the adjusted price

The formula in Schedule 2 of the Regulation reads:

Adjusted price = Price submitted ÷ [1 + K × (Final score for quality − 70) ÷ 30]

K is the additional percentage the public body is willing to pay to move from a 70-point tender to a 100-point tender. The body sets it in the tender documents, between 15% and 30%. A tender at 70 points keeps its price as is. A tender at 100 points sees its price divided by 1 + K.

Take three fictional firms, with K = 20%:

Firm B wins with ten points fewer than A, because its price is low enough to make up for them. Firm C, the cheapest, does not count, because below 70 its tender is not acceptable.

Now change only K. At K = 30%, A's adjusted price is $86,957 and B's is $87,619, and this time A wins. Before you set your price, look for K in the tender documents.

The reverse calculation is often more useful. At K = 20%, each point above 70 is worth about 0.67% on the factor. To beat B, firm A could have gone up to $97,935. Above that, its fifteen extra quality points were no longer enough.

Municipalities: the final score

The Act respecting contracting by municipal bodies sets the formula in section 72:

Final score = (Interim score + F) × 10,000 ÷ Proposed price

The interim score is the quality score, out of 100. F is a factor between 0 and 50 that the municipality sets before publishing the call for tenders. Since April 1, 2026, that factor is disclosed only after the tenders are opened. You set your price without knowing it. For a firm that bids, this is in our view the most concrete change in the new Act.

Back to A and B:

Below 40, A's quality wins. Above it, B's price does. The higher F is, the more it dilutes the quality gap and the more the price weighs. At F = 0, the final score is simply the ratio of quality to price.

Since F is unknown when you file, the safest approach is to test your price across the whole range, from 0 to 50, against a plausible competitor. The calculator below does that calculation.

What changed on April 1, 2026

Municipal award rules used to sit in the Cities and Towns Act (sections 573 and following) and the Municipal Code of Québec (articles 935 and following). Those provisions have been repealed since April 1, 2026. The new Act keeps the same shape of calculation. The difference is when the factor becomes known. Under the old text, the factor was part of the weighting system announced with the call for tenders. Now it is set before publication but kept confidential until the opening.

Procedures started before that date remain under the old Acts. If you learned the formula with a fixed factor of 50, or by citing section 573.1.0.1.1 of the Cities and Towns Act, check the date of the call for tenders before relying on it.

Other award methods

Not every service proposal goes through these two formulas. The tender documents always say which one applies.

For public bodies, the contract can go to the lowest price among the tenders that reach the acceptable level on each criterion. It can also be awarded on quality alone when an official tariff sets the price. For architecture and engineering services related to construction work, the Regulation provides other routes, including negotiating the price with the best-scored tender, scoring the price by its distance from the median market price (quality then counts for 40 to 70 points out of 100), and design competitions.

For municipalities, a professional services contract that requires a public or written-invitation procedure must follow one of the methods in section 31: a price request to qualified enterprises, an overall evaluation of criteria (price then becomes one criterion among others, with a weighting method described in the tender documents), a system in which knowledge of the price is deferred or, for engineering, architecture and design, a competition.

What the formula teaches you

The formula sets an exchange rate between quality and price. Does adding a senior person who earns five points cost more than those five points bring in? With K known, the answer can be calculated. With F unknown, it can be calculated over a range.

The calculation has one limit: you don't know your quality score before the result. Work with a cautious range, and use your past feedback to narrow it from one call for tenders to the next.

How Clarido does it

Clarido does not calculate your score and does not tell you what price to file. It gathers what the calculation needs. At the decision step, it quotes word for word the passage of the tender documents that says how the contract will be awarded, and classifies it (points grid, price only or discretionary award). It shows the announced budget when the tender documents give one, the strength of your proof for each criterion of the grid, and your comparable mandates with their amounts.

With those in front of you, the calculator above becomes a decision tool rather than an exercise. Whether to bid, and at what price, stays your decision.

Sources

• Regulation respecting certain service contracts of public bodies, CQLR c. C-65.1, r. 4 (updated to July 1, 2026), s. 20 and Schedule 1 (lowest price), s. 21 and Schedule 2, ss. (1) to (9) (adjusted price, K between 15% and 30%), ss. 22 and 23 (quality only, tariff), ss. 40.1 to 40.8 (architecture and engineering related to construction work). legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/rc/C-65.1,%20r.%204
• Act respecting contracting by municipal bodies, CQLR c. C-65.01 (updated to August 12, 2026; sections cited in force since April 1, 2026), ss. 27 and 31 (award methods), s. 42 (overall evaluation of criteria), ss. 43 and 66 to 72 (deferred price, factor from 0 to 50, final score formula), s. 257 (procedures begun before the coming into force). legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/lc/C-65.01
• Cities and Towns Act, CQLR c. C-19, s. 573.1.0.1.1, version from April 19, 2018 to March 31, 2026 (factor from 0 to 50 stated in the weighting system), repealed April 1, 2026. legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/lc/C-19