Methodology

How we compute the numbers you see on your dashboard, reports, and emails. No black box.

TL;DR. Every stat is derived from your own RFPs in our database, your hotels' real responses, and one external benchmark (ReadyBid 2025). Formulas below.

1. Hours saved per RFP

What we count as "saved": the time you would have spent manually contacting hotels, normalising replies into a spreadsheet, chasing non-responders, and building a side-by-side comparison.

hours_saved_per_rfp = manual_hours_baseline − easy_rfp_hours
where
manual_hours_baseline = 2.5h + 0.3h × hotels_contacted
easy_rfp_hours = 0.4h + 0.05h × hotels_contacted

Example: a sourcing with 8 hotels invited.

Manual: 2.5 + 0.3 × 8 = 4.9 hours
Easy RFP: 0.4 + 0.05 × 8 = 0.8 hours
Saved: 4.1 hours per sourcing

The 2.5h baseline + 0.3h/hotel multiplier match planner self-reports from our research interviews. We round down when in doubt — you'll never see a "saved 18 hours per RFP" claim from a single 5-hotel sourcing.

2. "Above industry response rate"

When the Analytics page shows "Your response rate is +42 pts above the industry average", we compare your actual numbers against the public ReadyBid 2025 benchmark.

your_response_rate = responses_received ÷ invitations_sent
industry_avg = 22% (ReadyBid 2025)
delta_pts = your_response_rate − industry_avg

Source: ReadyBid (Cvent) 2025 industry RFP benchmark. Industry average response rate across all RFPs platform-wide: ~22%. We re-fetch this number when ReadyBid publishes a new annual benchmark.

3. match score (TOPSIS composite)

Each proposal gets a 0–100 score combining price, location, reviews, perks, capacity, MICE-suitability, and value. We use a weighted TOPSIS algorithm, not a simple average.

composite = TOPSIS(
  price × w_price,
  reviews × w_reviews,
  perks × w_perks,
  location × w_location,
  mice × w_mice,
  capacity × w_capacity,
  value × w_value
)

The seven sub-scores are normalised across all proposals in your RFP (not against external benchmarks) so the best hotel for your specific brief always gets close to 100. Weights default to 1.0 each but you can re-tune them in Account → Score weights (Pro).

What each sub-score measures

Price — room rate, F&B minimum, meeting-room fee, normalised against the other proposals in your RFP.
Reviews — Booking.com + Google rating, weighted by review count to dampen low-volume noise.
Perks — concessions (Wi-Fi, breakfast, comp rooms, late checkout, etc.) tagged with $-value when possible.
Location — distance to event-centre OR airport, depending on what you mark as priority.
MICE — meeting-space adequacy: rooms × max capacity × AV/F&B readiness for your brief.
Capacity — fit between hotel's max capacity and your attendee count. Penalises both under- and over-fit.
Value — total cost ÷ TOPSIS-non-price-composite. Spots "expensive but worth it" winners.

4. Median first reply

The "median first reply" stat on your dashboard and on hotel cards is the 50th-percentile time between an invite being sent and the hotel's first response — across your whole account history, not just the active RFP.

median_first_reply = P50( response_received_at − sent_at )

If we don't have at least 3 reply samples for an account or hotel, we fall back to the platform-wide P50 (~24 hours).

5. Savings vs Cvent (and other tools)

When marketing pages mention "saves €X vs enterprise tools", that's the difference between Easy RFP's public price (Free €0, Pro €79/mo, Team €159/mo) and an enterprise RFP-platform license. We don't quote specific competitor prices unless they're publicly listed and sourced.

If you see a specific competitor price quoted anywhere on Easy RFP without a source link next to it, that's a bug. Please email [email protected] and we'll fix it.

6. Reproducibility

Want to verify any number on your dashboard?

Each numeric tile has a "How calculated →" link that opens this page anchored at the relevant section.
Export your raw RFP + proposal data anytime via Account → Export data (GDPR).
Spot a number that looks off? Email [email protected] with the screenshot.

Last revised 2026-05-12.