Tradeoff Process (Source Selection)

Source selection technique that is appropriate when it may be in the best interest of the government to consider award to other than the lowest priced offeror or other than the highest technically rated offeror. This process permits tradeoffs among cost or price and non-cost factors and allows the U.S. Government to accept other than the lowest-priced proposal. The perceived benefits of the higher priced proposal shall merit the additional cost, and the rationale for tradeoffs must be documented in the contract file. The following factors apply when using a tradeoff process: (1) all evaluation factors and subfactors that will affect contract award and their relative importance shall be stated in the solicitation, and (2) the solicitation shall state whether all evaluation factors other than cost or price, when combined, are significantly more important than, approximately equal to, or significantly less important than cost or price.