Most AI enablement purchases at a company of 50 to 500 people do not require a competitive solicitation, and running one anyway is the most common reason a program that should start in March starts in June. The spend usually sits below the threshold that triggers formal bidding, the service is not a commodity, and the people who would run the process have day jobs.
What replaces an RFP is not a handshake. It is three short documents: a threshold check, a single-source justification, and a scoped pilot. Written well they survive finance review better than a scoring matrix, because a matrix records a preference and a justification records a reason.
The two-week path in outline
Ten working days, five steps, one signer.
- Days 1 and 2. Pull your own purchasing policy and find the dollar figure above which competitive bids are required. Write it down.
- Days 3 to 5. Talk to two or three vendors, not five. Ask each to scope a first cohort rather than a year.
- Days 6 and 7. Draft the single-source justification. One page.
- Days 8 and 9. Send the justification and the pilot statement of work to whoever signs, with the price comparators attached.
- Day 10. Signature, or a named objection you can answer.
The slow version is not slower because the work is harder. It is slower because an RFP runs the steps in series: you cannot scope with one vendor while treating all vendors the same, so scoping waits for the award and the award waits for a committee.
Why a solicitation is the wrong instrument here
A competitive bid compares like against like. It works when the spec is tight enough that price is the only open variable: 400 laptops, a known model, delivered by a date. Hand five vendors that spec and the cheapest bid that meets it wins.
Corporate AI enablement does not behave that way. You are buying a change in how 60 people work, produced by a facilitator in a room with your documents. No spec captures that, so the one you write becomes a list of topics, and a topic list is exactly what a weak vendor matches on paper.
Firms that are good at this are often the worst at proposals, because the proposal rewards coverage and the work rewards judgment. The pattern repeats in what a cheap enablement vendor costs you: the bid you accept and the program you receive are different objects.
Then there is the clock. Vendors who sell RFP software publish cycle-time benchmarks for their own buyers, and they converge on six to twelve weeks from planning to signature, with mid-market services selections at four to six. Those numbers are self-interested and still the floor. For a program whose value depends on being in place before your license renewal, three months of process is not diligence.
Find your approval threshold before you talk to a vendor
This is the step people skip, and it decides the rest. Nearly every purchasing policy carries a figure above which competitive bids are required, and at this company size it is often higher than anyone recalls.
If your policy has no number, or nobody can find the policy, the federal thresholds are a defensible reference point, and plenty of private policies land on the same round figures. Under FAR 2.101 the micro-purchase threshold is $15,000 and the simplified acquisition threshold is $350,000, both raised in the inflation adjustment effective October 1, 2025, from $10,000 and $250,000. FAR 13.203 then says micro-purchases “may be awarded without soliciting competitive quotations if the contracting officer … considers the price to be reasonable.” Below $350,000, buyers may use streamlined procedures instead of full and open competition.
Set that against market pricing. A hands-on fluency program for a few cohorts runs roughly $2,000 to $15,000 depending on cohort count and session length; a custom automation build later runs $25,000 to $150,000. The first sits under the micro-purchase threshold used by the most rule-bound buyer in the country. The second does not, which argues for keeping the two decisions separate rather than bundling them into one procurement your policy will treat as capital spend.
One caution: do not scope the program to fit a threshold you have not read. Shaving a cohort to land at $14,500 and then finding your limit was $50,000 means you bought less than you needed for no reason.
Single source is not sole source
These are two different claims, and the gap between them is the whole game. Public procurement offices publish the distinction in plain language on their own waiver forms, CUNY and Virginia Tech among them:
- Sole source: only one vendor can supply this at all.
- Single source: several vendors could supply it, and one of them is in the organization’s best interest.
Sole source is almost never true of AI enablement services, and asserting it is how buyers lose two weeks. Dozens of firms sell training; a sole-source claim invites the reviewer to name a competitor, and they will.
Single source is usually true and far easier to defend, because the standard is best interest rather than uniqueness. One rule trips people up: in the public templates, price alone is never a valid reason to waive competition. “They were cheapest” is not a justification. “They were the only firm that would work on our own documents, and we checked that with the other two” is.
What the justification memo has to say
Borrow the structure from the people who have litigated it. FAR 6.303-2 sets out what a federal non-competitive justification must contain, and once you strip the government-specific clauses what remains is a one-page memo any CFO reads as complete. FAR 6.302 names the cases that permit other than full and open competition, among them one responsible source (6.302-1), compelling urgency (6.302-2), and expert services (6.302-3).
| What the federal rule requires | Your private-sector version |
|---|---|
| Nature of the action and estimated value | One line: what you buy, for how many people, at what price |
| Authority relied on | The clause in your own purchasing policy that permits it |
| The contractor’s unique qualifications | The two or three capabilities that narrowed the field, as tests rather than adjectives |
| Solicitation efforts made | Who else you talked to and what ruled them out |
| Determination that cost is fair and reasonable | Your price comparators (next section) |
| Market research conducted | How you found the field: peers, catalogs, list pricing |
| Interested sources | Vendors who asked to be considered and were not picked |
| Actions to remove barriers to future competition | How the next purchase stays contestable |
That last row earns more trust than anything else on the page. A reviewer’s real fear is not this purchase; it is that skipping competition once becomes a standing exemption. Saying how the renewal gets tested in twelve months answers it, and the renewal conversation when an enablement contract stops working covers what those tests should be.
Write the memo yourself. A justification drafted by the firm being justified reads exactly like what it is.
Proving the price is fair without competing bids
This is the one real objection to skipping a solicitation, and even the federal rule treats it as the condition rather than competition itself. Three answers do the work, none of them requiring five proposals.
Published catalog pricing. Self-serve corporate learning has list prices you can cite without a sales call. Coursera Teams lists at $399 per user per year on annual billing, for 2 to 499 seats, with volume discounts from 25 seats, as of October 2026. That frames the question properly: a catalog seat buys access, a facilitated program buys attendance and applied practice. Put both in the memo and let the reviewer see what the premium is for.
Two comparison quotes, not five. Two scoped quotes from firms you would hire set a range. Five from firms you would not hire establish only that you asked.
Unit economics rather than totals. Cost per participant hour compares across formats in a way program totals do not. Divide the quote by cohort size times session hours, set it beside a catalog seat price and a facilitator day rate, and a reviewer can judge it in a minute.
If the number still looks high, the scope may be the problem rather than the vendor. How much an enablement program costs breaks a quote into the parts you can cut without gutting the result, and underwriting the budget the way finance does puts attendee time on the cost side where it belongs.
The pilot cohort as a procurement instrument
Treat the first cohort as the diligence step, not a sales sweetener. One role, one set of your own documents, a fixed fee, and a written note of what you look at when it ends.
This does three things an RFP cannot. It turns a judgment no proposal can settle, whether this facilitator holds a room of skeptical managers, into one you make from a session you sat in. It almost always sits under your approval threshold, so it moves on a signature rather than a committee. And it gives the renewal an evidence base, which is what makes the larger second purchase defensible.
Define the exit before you sign: the artifacts the pilot must produce, the date you decide, and the terms on which you stop. What you should receive at the end of an engagement is the checklist to lift from, scaled to one cohort. A vendor who resists a defined exit is telling you something useful at no cost.
What legal needs the first time
Structure the first contract so the second needs no review. A master services agreement plus a short statement of work means the terms argument happens once; every later cohort is a new SOW against signed terms, which moves in days rather than weeks.
Four points deserve a look from your attorney.
Who owns the prompts, templates, and worked examples the sessions produce, which should be you. What the vendor may do with your documents, which should be nothing beyond the engagement, with deletion on a stated schedule. Whether named facilitators are committed or substitutable, the clause most likely to change what you get. And whether confidentiality covers what participants bring into the room, since people will paste live work into a session and that is the point of it.
Everything else is standard services language your template already handles.
Four cases that still deserve a full solicitation
Skipping the solicitation is the default for this category, not a rule. Run the full process when:
- The commitment clears your threshold by a wide margin, not a hair. An annual program across several teams is a different object from a pilot.
- A regulator, insurer, or customer contract requires competitive bidding for professional services. Grant-funded and government-adjacent buyers often have no discretion here.
- You cannot narrow the field. If three capable firms look alike after scoping calls, a structured comparison is the honest way to choose.
- The purchase sets a template other departments will copy. Then the process is the deliverable and worth building once.
Outside those four, a solicitation mostly buys the look of rigor. The documented alternative buys the rigor. The broader case for treating this as capability purchasing rather than course purchasing runs through the enablement playbook, and why it matters at all is argued in the case against assuming licenses produce capability.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an RFP to buy AI enablement services?
Usually not. Check your purchasing policy for the figure above which competitive bids are required. Most first programs for a company of 50 to 500 people land in the $2,000 to $15,000 range and sit below it, so a documented single-source justification and a signature are enough.
What is the difference between sole source and single source?
Sole source means only one vendor can supply the service. Single source means several could, and one is in your company’s best interest. AI enablement is almost never genuinely sole source, so claim single source. The standard you have to meet is best interest, not uniqueness.
How do I show the price is fair without competing bids?
Three comparators do it: published catalog pricing for self-serve alternatives, two scoped quotes from firms you would hire, and a cost-per-participant-hour figure a reviewer can compare across formats. Price alone is never a valid reason to waive competition in any public procurement policy, so do not lead with cheapness.
Who signs off if we have no procurement department?
Whoever holds the budget line, usually a COO, CFO, or the VP whose team is being trained. The useful question is not who signs but what they need attached, and a one-page justification with price comparators answers nearly every version of it.
How long does AI enablement procurement take without a solicitation?
About two weeks, most of it waiting on calendars rather than working. The threshold check takes an hour, scoping calls with two or three vendors take a week, and the memo takes an afternoon.
Will skipping the RFP cause an audit problem later?
Not if you document it. Auditors look for a written reason recorded at the time, evidence you considered alternatives, and a basis for the price. That is what the memo contains. The risk is an undocumented purchase, not a documented non-competitive award.
Can I run a pilot without committing to the full program?
Insist on it. One cohort at a fixed fee, with the decision date and the required artifacts written into the statement of work. Treat a vendor’s refusal to define a pilot exit as a finding.
What if procurement insists on three bids anyway?
Give them three scoped quotes rather than three RFP responses. The rule is usually about price competition, not a formal solicitation, and a scoping call produces a quote in days. Read the policy language before you concede the process.
Key takeaways
- Read your own approval threshold first. It decides whether a solicitation is required at all, and at this company size it is often higher than the team assumes.
- Claim single source, not sole source. Several firms could do this work; one is in your best interest, and that is the easier case to make.
- Build the memo from the elements FAR 6.303-2 already requires, above all what narrowed the field and how the next purchase stays contestable.
- Answer price reasonableness with comparators rather than bids: catalog pricing, two real quotes, a cost per participant hour.
- Scope a pilot cohort and define its exit in writing. It is the only diligence that shows whether the facilitation works.
- Run the full process when the commitment is large, a contract requires it, the field will not narrow, or the purchase sets a precedent others copy.
Working out which route your purchase belongs on is a short conversation. Book a free AI-readiness call and we will walk your threshold, your signer, and the scope of a first cohort, whether or not we end up the firm you hire.
Arthur Wandzel
