What Is RFP & RFI (Request for Proposal / Request for Information)?

The two documents serve different stages of a procurement-driven agency search, and treating them the same way is a common, costly mistake. An RFI response should be efficient and largely reusable: broad capability information, relevant case studies, basic qualification criteria, since the client is still casting a wide net and has not yet committed real evaluation time to any single agency. An RFP response is where the real investment belongs, since it is being read closely by a shortlist the client has already narrowed to serious contenders.

RFP-driven searches are most common with larger client organizations that run formal procurement processes, and the space around winning them is active and well-populated with dedicated content and tooling. Platforms and publishers like Loopio, Pitchsite, and R3 Worldwide all publish directly into this space, evidence that the RFP-response process is treated as its own specialized discipline within agency new business, not an afterthought bolted onto general sales.

The scale of investment justified by an RFP versus an RFI should track the odds of winning. R3 Worldwide's 2024 benchmark found an average pitch win rate of 22% (19% for mid-sized agencies), while Pitchsite's 2026 blended figure came in at 43%. Pouring RFI-stage effort into a response that should have taken a fraction of the time, before the shortlist is even set, is a common way agencies waste new-business capacity on searches they were never seriously positioned to win.