Section M, Evaluation Criteria

Section M is the RFP section that defines how the government will evaluate and rank competing proposals, specifying evaluation factors, their relative weights or order of importance, and the basis for the award decision.

What is Section M?

Section M (Evaluation Factors for Award) is the most strategically important section of any RFP. It is part of the Uniform Contract Format under FAR 15.304, which requires agencies to identify all significant evaluation factors and subfactors, state their relative importance, and disclose the basis for award. Section M answers the question: "What does the government value and how much?"

Section M must clearly communicate:

• Evaluation factors: the major categories used to assess proposals (typically Technical Approach, Management, Past Performance, and Price/Cost)
• Subfactors: breakdowns within each major factor
• Relative importance: typically expressed as "in descending order of importance" or with explicit weights (e.g., "Technical is approximately twice as important as Past Performance")
• Award basis: whether the government will use best value tradeoff, lowest price technically acceptable (LPTA), or another method
• Price/cost evaluation approach: whether the government will evaluate total evaluated price, options, and escalation

Common factor structures include:

• Technical Approach (most important)
• Management/Staffing Approach
• Past Performance
• Price/Cost (evaluated but not scored in best value tradeoffs)

When Section M states that "Technical is more important than Past Performance, and Past Performance is significantly more important than Price," a contractor should invest heavily in their technical volume and not sacrifice quality to save a few percentage points on price.

Why Section M matters for government contractors

Section M is the blueprint for your entire win strategy. Every page of your proposal should be written to address specific evaluation factors and subfactors in Section M. A compliance matrix that maps Section M factors to proposal sections ensures evaluators can find and score your response to every criterion. Failure to address an evaluation factor, even if you perform the capability, results in zero credit from evaluators who can only score what they can see. Proposal professionals sometimes describe the craft of proposal writing as "writing to Section M", every claim you make should tie back to a scored evaluation criterion.

Example

A Navy RFP contains Section M with three factors: (1) Technical Approach, most important, evaluated adjectivally (Outstanding/Good/Acceptable/Marginal/Unacceptable); (2) Past Performance, second in importance, evaluated as substantial confidence/satisfactory confidence/limited confidence/no confidence; (3) Price, evaluated but not scored, used for reasonableness. A contractor who submits an "Outstanding" technical proposal with "substantial confidence" past performance and a price 15% above the lowest bidder can still win because Section M says technical outweighs price. A contractor who submits the lowest price but earns only an "Acceptable" technical rating loses.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the government change evaluation criteria after an RFP is released?

Yes, but only through a formal amendment to the solicitation posted on SAM.gov. Changing evaluation criteria without an amendment is grounds for a bid protest. Offerors who submitted proposals based on the original Section M must be given the opportunity to revise if material changes are made.

What is an "adjectival rating" in Section M?

An adjectival rating system uses descriptive labels, Outstanding, Good, Acceptable, Marginal, Unacceptable, to convey the quality level of each proposal element. These ratings are used in best value tradeoffs and allow the source selection authority to compare proposals qualitatively. The ratings are defined in FAR 15.305 or in the agency's own source selection procedures.

Does Section M have to disclose the exact weights of each factor?

FAR 15.304 requires agencies to state the relative importance of evaluation factors, but does not require disclosure of specific numerical weights. Agencies may describe importance using ordinal language (most important, second in importance) or percentage ranges. Specific point values assigned to each factor typically remain internal to the source selection process.

What should I do if Section M is vague about how factors are weighted?

Ask a question during the RFP Q&A period. If the agency refuses to clarify the weighting, build your proposal assuming the listed order of importance is the guide, invest your pages proportionally. Vague Section M language is also a potential protest ground if the resulting award decision appears inconsistent with the stated criteria.