RFI vs RFP: which should you send to vendors?
An RFP asks for a proposal. An RFI asks for information. For most software evaluations, you want the latter — and you want to send it before you've decided on a shortlist.
If you've spent any time in procurement, you've heard both terms — RFI and RFP — often used interchangeably. They are not interchangeable. Confusing them is one of the most common mistakes software buyers make, and it costs time, creates vendor confusion, and produces worse outcomes.
The definitions
RFI (Request for Information) is exactly what it says: you're asking vendors to provide information about their product, capabilities, and how they meet your specific requirements. An RFI is a structured questionnaire. The vendor answers your questions. You compare their answers.
RFP (Request for Proposal) asks vendors to propose a solution to your problem. It's a much more open-ended document. You describe your challenge, and you invite vendors to tell you how they would solve it — at what cost, over what timeline, with what resources.
When to use each
For software evaluation, you almost always want an RFI rather than an RFP. Here's why:
Proposals are free text; questionnaires produce structured data. When a vendor writes a free-text proposal, they write to their strengths. They emphasise what they do well and gloss over gaps. When you send them a structured RFI with specific capability questions, they have to answer each one — including the capabilities they don't have.
Proposals are hard to compare. Five proposals from five vendors are five completely different documents with different formats, different emphases, and different levels of detail. Five completed RFIs from five vendors are five datasets in the same structure. Comparison is instant.
Proposals invite selling; questionnaires invite honesty. A proposal is a sales document. An RFI is closer to a technical assessment. Vendors who know you're comparing structured capability answers are more careful than vendors who know you're reading a narrative they wrote themselves.
The four answer types that change everything
The key to a useful RFI is constraining how vendors answer. The most effective structure we've seen across hundreds of evaluations uses four options for each capability:
- Out of the box — fully available, no configuration required
- Requires configuration / development — possible, but needs work and potentially additional cost
- On the roadmap — planned but not yet available
- Not available — doesn't do it
These four options are mutually exclusive, they're comparable across vendors, and they're honest. A vendor who marks something as "requires configuration" when it's actually "on the roadmap" is providing misleading information you can challenge. A vendor who writes a narrative answer has much more room to obscure reality.
When RFPs do make sense
RFPs make sense when you're buying services rather than software — consulting engagements, implementation projects, outsourced operations. They also make sense in public sector procurement where regulations require open-form proposals.
For COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) software evaluation, the answer is almost always: send an RFI.
Timing: RFI before or after the demo?
This is debated. Our recommendation is demo first, RFI second — for two reasons.
First, the demo filters. If a vendor performs poorly in a structured, independent demo scoring session, you don't need to invest in a full RFI process with them. The demo is lower cost to both sides than the RFI, and it surfaces basic fit issues quickly.
Second, the demo informs the RFI. After watching the demo, your team will have specific questions they want answered in writing. The RFI becomes sharper when it's informed by what you saw — and didn't see — in the live demonstration.