BidScribe
Back to Blog
BidScribe Team
loopio alternativerfp tool small businessai rfp softwareresponsive rfpio alternativecomparison

Loopio vs BidScribe: Why You Don't Need a $20k RFP Tool

TL;DR: Loopio is an excellent enterprise RFP platform — but at $20,000/year minimum, it's overkill for most teams. BidScribe starts at €99/month and delivers AI-powered RFP responses from day one, making it the best Loopio alternative for small and mid-sized teams. BidScribe starts at €99/month — 10-20x cheaper than enterprise alternatives.

Quick Refresher: What's an RFP?

A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a formal document that organizations use to solicit bids from vendors. The issuing company describes what they need, and vendors respond with detailed proposals explaining how they'd deliver — along with pricing, timelines, and qualifications. If you're new to RFPs, check out our complete guide to RFPs for a deeper dive.

For teams that respond to RFPs regularly, the process is repetitive and time-consuming — which is exactly why RFP tools exist.

If you're searching for a Loopio alternative, you're probably in one of two situations: either you've seen Loopio's pricing and realized it's not built for your team size, or you're using Loopio and wondering if you really need all those features.

Either way, this comparison will help you decide. We'll be honest — Loopio is a great product. But it's not the right fit for everyone.

The Core Difference

Loopio is an enterprise proposal management platform built for large, centralized proposal teams. It excels at content governance, multi-step review workflows, and managing hundreds of proposals across dozens of users.

BidScribe is an AI-first RFP response tool built for small and mid-sized teams who need to respond to RFPs quickly without enterprise complexity. It focuses on speed: upload an RFP, get AI-generated answers from your knowledge base, export a polished proposal.

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Document Parsing & Question Extraction

| Feature | Loopio | BidScribe | |---------|--------|-----------| | PDF upload | ✅ | ✅ | | DOCX upload | ✅ | ✅ | | Excel/spreadsheet RFPs | ✅ | ❌ (coming soon) | | Auto question extraction | ✅ | ✅ |

Verdict: Loopio supports more input formats, including Excel-based RFPs common in enterprise procurement. BidScribe covers the most common formats (PDF, DOCX) and is adding spreadsheet support.

AI Answer Generation

| Feature | Loopio | BidScribe | |---------|--------|-----------| | AI-generated answers | ✅ (Generative AI) | ✅ | | Uses your content library | ✅ | ✅ | | Knowledge base upload | ✅ (manual tagging) | ✅ (automatic indexing) | | Library maintenance required | Yes — significant | Minimal |

Verdict: Both tools offer AI answer generation, but the approach differs. Loopio requires you to build and maintain a structured content library with manual tagging — a process that can take weeks to set up. BidScribe automatically indexes your uploaded documents and generates answers immediately. For small teams without a dedicated librarian, BidScribe's approach is significantly easier.

Collaboration & Workflows

| Feature | Loopio | BidScribe | |---------|--------|-----------| | Multi-step review workflows | ✅ (advanced) | Basic review | | Role-based access control | ✅ | ✅ | | SME assignment | ✅ | ❌ | | Approval chains | ✅ | ❌ | | Salesforce integration | ✅ | ❌ (planned) |

Verdict: This is where Loopio clearly wins. If you have a 10+ person proposal team with complex approval workflows and need tight CRM integration, Loopio's collaboration features are best-in-class. BidScribe focuses on the core writing workflow and is better suited for teams of 1-5.

Export & Output

| Feature | Loopio | BidScribe | |---------|--------|-----------| | DOCX export | ✅ | ✅ | | PDF export | ✅ | ✅ (via DOCX) | | Branded templates | ✅ | Coming soon | | Multi-language | ✅ | ❌ (planned) |

Verdict: Loopio offers more polished export options and multi-language support. BidScribe covers the essentials — DOCX export with clean formatting — and is expanding its template library.

Pricing: The Elephant in the Room

This is where the comparison gets stark.

| | Loopio | BidScribe | |---|--------|-----------| | Entry price | $20,000/year (10 seats) | €99/month (~€1,188/year) | | Mid tier | Custom (higher) | €249/month | | Enterprise | Custom (much higher) | €499/month | | Free tier | ❌ | ✅ (free trial) | | Self-serve signup | ❌ (sales call required) | ✅ | | Contract | Annual | Monthly |

BidScribe is 10-20x cheaper than Loopio. For a team of 2-3 people responding to 10-20 RFPs per month, Loopio's $20,000/year minimum is hard to justify. BidScribe's Pro plan at €249/month gives you 5 users and 50 proposals/month — more than enough for most small teams.

And there's no sales call required. Sign up, upload your first RFP, and start generating answers in minutes.

Data Privacy & Compliance

| | Loopio | BidScribe | |---|--------|-----------| | GDPR compliant | Partial (Canadian company) | ✅ Full (EU-hosted) | | Data hosting | Canada/US | EU | | SOC 2 | ✅ | In progress |

Verdict: For European companies, BidScribe's EU data hosting and full GDPR compliance is a significant advantage. Loopio is SOC 2 certified, which matters for enterprise compliance requirements.

What to Look for in Any RFP Tool

Before comparing specific products, it helps to know what actually matters in an RFP tool — regardless of which one you choose. Here's a vendor-neutral buyer's guide:

1. How Does It Handle Your Existing Content?

Every RFP tool promises to "leverage your past work." The question is how. Some tools require you to manually tag and categorize every answer in a structured content library — which can take weeks or months to set up. Others automatically index uploaded documents and match content to questions on the fly.

Ask yourself: does your team have the bandwidth to build and maintain a content library? If not, look for tools with automatic indexing.

2. What's the Real Onboarding Time?

Vendors love to quote "time to first value," but the reality varies wildly. Enterprise platforms often need 4-8 weeks of setup, training, and content migration before you see results. Simpler tools let you upload a document and start generating answers the same day.

If you're evaluating tools, ask for a realistic onboarding timeline — not the best-case scenario.

3. Does AI Quality Meet Your Standards?

AI-generated answers range from "good first draft" to "completely unusable" depending on the tool, the quality of your source content, and the complexity of the question. The best RFP tools let you review and edit every AI-generated answer before it goes into your final proposal.

Always test with a real RFP from your industry, not the vendor's demo data.

4. What Are the True Costs?

Look beyond the sticker price. Consider per-user fees, storage limits, overage charges, training costs, and contract lock-in. A tool that costs $500/month with no hidden fees may deliver better ROI than a "free trial" that requires a $20k annual commitment.

5. Data Privacy and Compliance

Your RFP responses contain sensitive business information — pricing, technical architecture, client references. Make sure you understand where your data is stored, who has access, and whether the tool meets your compliance requirements (GDPR, SOC 2, etc.).

This is especially important for European companies or anyone working with government contracts.

6. Will It Grow With You?

Pick a tool that fits your team today but can scale. If you're a 3-person team, you don't need enterprise workflows — but you might in two years. Look for tools with clear upgrade paths and flexible pricing tiers.

Where Loopio Wins

Let's be fair. Loopio is the better choice if:

  • You have 10+ proposal writers who need structured collaboration workflows
  • You respond to 50+ RFPs per month across multiple teams and regions
  • You need deep CRM integrations (Salesforce, Highspot, etc.)
  • Multi-language support is critical for your global team
  • You need SOC 2 certification for enterprise compliance
  • Budget is not a constraint — your organization has allocated $20k+ for proposal tools

Loopio is an award-winning platform for a reason. For large enterprise teams, it delivers real ROI.

Where BidScribe Wins

BidScribe is the better choice if:

  • You're a team of 1-5 people who handle RFPs alongside other responsibilities
  • You need to start immediately — no 6-week onboarding or sales calls
  • Budget matters — you can't justify $20k/year for proposal software
  • You want AI-first workflows — generate drafts instantly, not after weeks of library setup
  • GDPR and EU data hosting are requirements, not nice-to-haves
  • You want monthly billing with the flexibility to cancel anytime

BidScribe reduces RFP response time from 30 hours to 3 hours — at a fraction of the cost.

The Bottom Line

The RFP tool market has a gap. On one side, you have enterprise platforms like Loopio and Responsive that cost $20,000-50,000+ per year. On the other, you have generic document tools like PandaDoc that aren't built for RFPs.

BidScribe fills that gap. It's an AI-powered RFP tool built specifically for small and mid-sized teams, with transparent pricing starting at €99/month. You get the core capability — AI-generated proposal responses from your knowledge base — without the enterprise overhead.

If you're a 50-person proposal department managing hundreds of RFPs across global offices, go with Loopio. You'll use every feature.

If you're a 2-5 person team that needs to respond to RFPs faster without spending a fortune, BidScribe is built for you.

Ready to see the difference? Try BidScribe free — upload your first RFP and get AI-generated answers in minutes. No credit card required, no sales call needed.