TL;DR
An alternate bid is a separately priced add-on or substitution listed alongside the base bid, letting the owner see the cost of an option, like upgrading to a metal roof or adding a third bay, without committing to it. Additive alternates price extras; deductive ones price removals if the base exceeds budget.
What it means
An alternate bid is a separately priced add-on or substitution listed alongside the base bid, letting the owner see the cost of an option, like upgrading to a metal roof or adding a third bay, without committing to it. Additive alternates price extras; deductive ones price removals if the base exceeds budget. Owners accept or reject each one when awarding the contract, and the accepted set becomes part of the contract sum. The structure keeps competing proposals comparable because every bidder prices the identical base scope plus identical options.
Where it sits in the glossary
Alternate bid is part of the Pricing group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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