Aerial of a coastal community — tile-roof homes, palms over curving streets, a community pool and clubhouse mid-frame, ocean beyond

Your board hires the vendor either way.

What changes is what your board can see while it decides, and whether it can still pull up the certificates and the invoices a year later.

Start an RFP

The comparison

Hiring directly, row by row

Hiring each vendor yourself, compared with VendoRFP, row by row
What it comes down to	Hiring each vendor yourself	On VendoRFP
Vetting	References and licenses, by you	Screened before you see them
Insurance at renewal	You have to remember to ask	Expiration stored, and a lapse stops proposals
Where the invoices land	Email and paper, one sender per vendor	All in one place
Visit reports	Their word, or you drive out	A photo is required to record it
Replacing a vendor	Start the search again	Under contract in as little as 10 days
What the job is priced against	A guess, or you walk it	Common-area grounds, drawn on a satellite map
Who reads the proposals	You, in whatever form they arrive	You, on identical terms
Deciding as a board	Email threads and a show of hands	Per-member ballots, and the tally is the record
What the platform costs	Nothing, you do the work	Free to start. Publishing an RFP costs nothing

Vetting

Hiring each vendor yourself: References and licenses, by you
On VendoRFP: Screened before you see them

Insurance at renewal

Hiring each vendor yourself: You have to remember to ask
On VendoRFP: Expiration stored, and a lapse stops proposals

Where the invoices land

Hiring each vendor yourself: Email and paper, one sender per vendor
On VendoRFP: All in one place

Visit reports

Hiring each vendor yourself: Their word, or you drive out
On VendoRFP: A photo is required to record it

Replacing a vendor

Hiring each vendor yourself: Start the search again
On VendoRFP: Under contract in as little as 10 days

What the job is priced against

Hiring each vendor yourself: A guess, or you walk it
On VendoRFP: Common-area grounds, drawn on a satellite map

Who reads the proposals

Hiring each vendor yourself: You, in whatever form they arrive
On VendoRFP: You, on identical terms

Deciding as a board

Hiring each vendor yourself: Email threads and a show of hands
On VendoRFP: Per-member ballots, and the tally is the record

What the platform costs

Hiring each vendor yourself: Nothing, you do the work
On VendoRFP: Free to start. Publishing an RFP costs nothing

“Hiring each vendor yourself” is how a self-managed community does it today.

The RFP packet

The RFP packet every vendor reads

One document, two parts worth checking: the ground it prices against, and the date a vendor’s proposal is due.

1Scope of work

43.5acres

Approximate acreage, drawn by the community on a satellite map.

Item	Service	On the map
Pool	Landscaping	Located
Dog park	Landscaping	Located
Common area	Landscaping	Located
Playground	Landscaping	Located

2Submission

Proposals are submitted through VendoRFP by Saturday, November 7, 2026. A proposal states the vendor’s scope, its schedule, and its pricing. The customer reviews the companies and their proposals, selects a vendor, and contracts on VendoRFP.

Proposals due by Saturday, November 7, 2026.

A proposal should contain

Price every service this request lists.
State how often you would visit for each of them.
Attach proof of the insurance this request requires. VendoRFP verifies your certificate before your proposal can be sent.
List anything you would exclude from the mapped scope, and say why.

Hiring directly

Three cases where hiring directly is the right call

Run one contract with one vendor

A single landscaper on a handshake, renewed each spring by the same person, is not a paperwork problem. A platform adds a login to something that already works.

Keep a vendor older than the board

A vendor that has cut your grass for fifteen years will not be improved by an RFP process. Invite them in if you want the record. Do not make them re-propose to prove a point.

Chase the lowest possible number

The vendor sets its price and is paid that price. VendoRFP charges the community nothing on top of it. A board with the time to run its own RFPs and chase its own certificates already gets that for free, and should say so out loud when it decides.

The community

One community takes a separate vendor for each trade

Pool, courts, streets, planting, and walks are five separate contracts to place and renew.

Pickleball courts beside a clubhouse and parking, one of the separate trades a community contracts for

Five trades on one property. Hired directly, that is five contracts, five renewal dates and five inboxes.

See what one visit leaves behind

Proof of service

Every visit recorded with readings, photos, and times

Your board can open it in June and read about a visit that happened in March.

Visit reportRecorded

Service record

pool

Tue · Jul 21

completed

Weekly pool service. Skimmed, brushed and vacuumed, baskets emptied, water read.

Visit report

Requested
Tuesday, July 21, 2026 · 7:35 AM
On site
9:04 AM – 10:18 AM · 1h 14m on site
Completed
Tuesday, July 21, 2026 · 10:18 AM

2 photos · 1 at check-in, 1 of the finished work

What the vendor recorded

1 reading outside the normal range

Free chlorine recorded at 0.6 ppm — outside the normal 1–4 ppm range.

Water chemistry

Chlorine

0.6 ppm

7.4

Alkalinity

96 ppm

Cyanuric acid

42 ppm

Water temp

81 °F

Work performed

Baskets emptied

Skimmed ✓Vacuumed ✓Brushed walls ✓

At check-in

The finished work

Service (paid to the company in full): $170.00
Sales tax: $10.20

Total$180.20PaidPaid to the company

Recording a visit requires a photo of the finished work.

The numbers

How the process runs.

You can contract with an insured, verified vendor in as little as 10 days following your RFP submission.

10days

Fastest time to a contracted vendor

Calendar days, weekends included, counted from the day the RFP goes out. How long it takes depends on how quickly proposals come back and the board decides.

0days

Days a lapsed policy still counts

A policy keeps a vendor proposing through its expiration date, and the day after, it stops until the renewal is verified.

Publishing an RFP

A community account is free to start, and publishing an RFP is free.

The count begins the day the RFP goes out. The due date is the one printed on the example packet, above.

Try it against a vendor you already use.

Send an RFP for your next contract, or invite the vendor you already work with. A free account is all it takes.

Create a free account The other comparison