How it works
From a blank page to a decision your board can stand behind.
RFPFree runs the search the way a careful committee already would — structured questions, a level playing field, and a comparison you can defend. Here is the whole path.
- 01
A guided intake, not a blank template
Instead of starting from a generic template, you answer an interview about your organization, your current arrangement, and what this search needs to settle. The conversation shapes the narrative sections, the evaluation criteria, and a block of questions specific to what your committee cares about.
What it never touches is the core: fifteen fixed questions — fee schedule, minimums, AUM, team, custody, performance methodology, conflicts, regulatory history, references, and more — that appear in identical wording in every RFP. That is what makes two responses actually comparable.
- 02
You review and edit before anything goes out
The draft is yours to change. Rework the narrative, adjust the custom questions, set your deadlines and eligibility thresholds. The core questions are protected from edits so the comparison stays honest, but everything around them is yours.
Nothing is visible outside your organization while it is a draft. There is no query path that exposes a draft search to anyone else — that is enforced in the data layer, not left to a setting you might forget.
- 03
Private invitations to firms you choose
Publish privately and generate invitation links for the specific firms your committee wants to hear from. They bring their own credentials; you bring your own shortlist. There is no public board and no unsolicited bids.
Each firm answers the same structured questions — typed fields for anything comparable, free text only where prose belongs, like philosophy and approach. They can save and resume, and attach supporting documents.
- 04
Sealed until the deadline
Submissions stay sealed. Your organization cannot read a single response — not the answers, not the attachments — until the response deadline passes, and that is checked against server time, never a value a browser could spoof.
When the deadline arrives, submissions unseal together. No firm is disadvantaged by answering early, and no one on your side gets a preview.
- 05
A comparison grid that shows its work
Responses are normalized into a side-by-side grid: fees, service model, custody, team, terms. Every figure links back to the exact answer it came from. If a value has no source, it does not appear.
Fee schedules — tiered breakpoints, minimums, inclusions and exclusions — are turned into effective annual cost at your actual asset level, with the crossover points where the ranking changes. That arithmetic runs in code. The grid never scores, ranks, or suggests a choice.
- 06
A decision record for the board
When your committee chooses, RFPFree assembles a decision record: the scope, the criteria, the normalized fee comparison, and your stated rationale — formatted for minutes and for an auditor asking how the advisor was selected.
It is exportable, board-ready, and free, like everything else on the organization side.
Ready to run one?
Organizations never pay. Start a private search and invite the firms you already know.