AICP Bidding Reference Guide: The Full Checklist (2026)

AICP released the Bidding Reference Guide alongside its 2026 Best Practices update specifically because so much bid risk gets created in the first phone call, before anyone opens a budget template. This article organizes the full guide into a working checklist, shows how the answers flow into an actual AICP budget, and flags where production companies most often get burned for skipping a question.

The Core Rule

The AICP Bidding Reference Guide is not a budgeting tool. It is a due diligence checklist for the conversation that happens before budgeting starts, the first call with the agency producer or brand contact once a director or company has been invited to bid.

As of February 2026, AICP packages this guidance as two companion documents. The Bidding Reference Guide is the question list itself. The Suggested Best Practices - Bidding (2026), released alongside it in March 2026, covers the behavioral and ethical norms around bidding, including guidance on invoicing for pitch fees. This article works from the Reference Guide's questions.

The guide exists because the commercial bidding process compresses enormous scope ambiguity into a very short window. A production company often has days, not weeks, to price a job accurately. Every question the agency contact cannot or will not answer on that first call is a risk the production company is pricing blind.

Critical Distinction: AICP is a US trade association, and this guide reflects US commercial production norms, including SAG talent rules, DGA/IATSE/Teamsters union structures, and the AICP A-through-W budget format. Productions bidding under other national frameworks, such as Germany's SCoPE GWA KVA structure, should use the equivalent regional checklist, not this one.

The Full Checklist

AICP groups its questions into two parts: the deal and scope questions for the first call, and the technical and delivery questions that follow once the project looks viable. The groupings below follow that structure, split into smaller categories for usability.

Deal Scope and Budget

• Has the creative and campaign been sold through to the advertiser's decision makers, and has it been tested or will it be?

• Has the director or artist already been approved to bid by the advertiser?

• What is the proposed budget, and is it "all in"? Does it cover social elements, stills, and behind-the-scenes, and does it cover post, talent, VFX, music, and finish?

• Is the project firm bid, cost-plus, or a blend? Cost-plus has multiple variants, including cost-plus fixed fee, and the structure changes how risk and markup are priced.

• Are there separate creative decks and budgets for any print, stills, or social elements?

• Is there money in the budget for treatments, research, or pitch fees?

• When is the treatment or bid due, and when will the project be fully awarded or started up?

Bidding Pool and Confidentiality

• Is this a single bid or a multi-bid, for example a triple bid?

• If multi-bid, who are the other directors or companies bidding, and is any of them a preferred or rostered vendor, a foreign-based company, a union signatory, or the incumbent on this campaign?

• Is any bidder an In-House Entity? If so, what is the plan to keep the independent company's bid confidential from it and from every other competitor?

• Has a mutual NDA been provided? If not, the production or post company should request one before sharing creative or cost thinking.

• Has the agency or advertiser already spoken with other directors or editors, meaning this company is arriving late to the bidding pool rather than concurrently with everyone else?

Timeline, Talent, and Specs

• Is there a proposed calendar, and are there elements, such as celebrity availability, that could shift the dates?

• When is the spot expected to air?

• Are there bidding or talent specs from the agency or advertiser, and does the advertiser have its own production, post, or specialized guidelines, such as green guidelines?

• Is the talent SAG or non-union?

• Is there celebrity travel, and who is paying and arranging it? AICP flags this as a distinct liability question, not just a cost line.

• Is a second unit required, whether for time-limited talent or for print, stills, BTS, or social elements?

• Are animals involved, and does the agency or advertiser require monitoring from a body such as the American Humane Association?

• Are product specialists needed, for example a dedicated pour specialist for a beverage shoot?

Location, Insurance, and Risk

• Where would the project film, is the advertiser open to filming outside the US, and are there talent or SAG restrictions that affect location choice?

• Will the job be covered by wrap-up insurance from the agency or advertiser, or should the production company bid for full insurance? If working through a foreign production service company, that company needs to know the insurance requirements up front.

• If the bid is through delivery of the finished spot rather than footage to editorial, has post-production insurance been put in place or bid for?

• Are helicopters, airplanes, or drones required, and is insurance coverage for them provided by the agency or advertiser, or does it need to be built into the production bid?

• May the production or post company use the finished spot on its reel or socials with full credit? This is worth settling before the shoot, not after.

Post and Creative Handoff

• Have conversations already happened with prospective editorial, VFX, or other post vendors? If so, the production company's bidders and director should get their contact information.

• Is the agency or advertiser open to editorial, VFX, or post suggestions from the director?

• Are stock footage or licensed materials needed, and are they already budgeted?

Tech and Deliverables

• What are the deliverables, and do they actually match the length of the creative? A :15 deliverable against creative written for a :60 or :90 is a scope mismatch, not a rounding error.

• What format will the project shoot on, HD or film? A specified look, such as film, can raise post costs, for example through film scanning.

• What is the shoot aspect ratio, and will every deliverable share it, or will some, such as a vertical social cut, need a different one?

• Will the agency or advertiser share its review schedule, so the post timeline reflects the real deadline pressure?

• Does editorial need transcoded footage the night the shoot wraps? If so, DIT overtime and an FTP service need to be in the bid.

• Does the source drive need to go to more than one vendor? If so, additional drives and shipping need to be budgeted.

• Is transcoding required before drives or data reach editorial, and what specifically needs to be delivered, hard drives, footage, or film negatives, to satisfy the contract?

• Is Q-take or another on-set streaming service needed for the client or for remote viewers?

AICP adds one explicit production note that sits outside the question list: the director should have a clear line of communication with the editor both before and after the shoot, and ideally before the first rough cut. That needs to be built into the schedule, not assumed.

Worked Example: A National Beverage Spot, First Call

A producer at an independent production company takes a first call about a 30-second national spot for a beverage brand, with an accompanying social package.

Running the checklist surfaces real scope, not assumed scope. The creative has been tested and sold through. The director has been cleared to bid, and it is a double bid against one other company, no In-House Entity involved, so confidentiality is a lighter lift than a triple bid would be. The agency states a budget of $650,000, but the producer asks the "all in" question directly and learns that figure covers the broadcast spot only. Digital and social versions are bid separately, with an estimated $80,000 pool, which immediately tells the producer this is a two-line budgeting job, not one.

The bid structure is cost-plus fixed fee, which changes how the production company prices its markup compared to a firm bid. Talent is SAG, one principal plus two day players. Wrap-up insurance is being arranged by the agency, but it excludes drone coverage, which the creative needs for one aerial shot, so the producer flags that a drone liability rider has to be priced into the bid separately. The deliverable check catches a near miss: the creative is scripted for :60, but the agency deliverable list only shows :30, which the producer confirms with the agency before bidding, rather than assuming a second cut length is needed. Editorial needs transcoded footage the night of the shoot, so DIT overtime and an FTP transfer service go into the bid as a line item, not an afterthought.

Every one of those answers lands in a specific place once the budget gets built: SAG talent and day players in the AICP format's Talent section, the fringe burden in Payroll Taxes and Fringes, the social package in a dedicated Social Versions section, the drone rider in Location and Travel Expenses, and the DIT overtime and FTP cost in Miscellaneous. The first call is where all of that gets decided. The budget just has to catch up to it accurately.

Where Production Companies Get Burned

1. Treating "all in" as confirmed instead of verified. A stated budget number means nothing until the production company knows exactly what it covers. Social, stills, post, VFX, music, and finish are each a separate yes or no, not an assumption.

2. Missing the confidentiality risk in a multi-bid. If an In-House Entity is one of the bidders, an unconfirmed confidentiality plan means a competitor, potentially the advertiser's own in-house team, may see the independent company's creative or cost thinking before the bid is even submitted.

3. Starting creative or cost work before an NDA is in place. AICP explicitly flags this as the production or post company's responsibility to request, not the agency's responsibility to offer.

4. Confusing firm bid with cost-plus. These are structurally different pricing models, and cost-plus itself has variants such as cost-plus fixed fee. Pricing a cost-plus job as if it were firm bid, or vice versa, misallocates risk and markup from the first draft of the budget.

5. Leaving insurance responsibility ambiguous. Wrap-up insurance versus full production insurance, post insurance for spot-delivery bids, and aircraft or drone coverage are each separate questions. An unconfirmed answer on any of them means a gap in coverage shows up on set, not on paper.

6. Missing a deliverable-to-creative length mismatch. A :15 deliverable against :60 creative, or a vertical deliverable with no separate aspect ratio plan, is a scope gap that normally surfaces as an unbudgeted change order mid-post.

7. Skipping the overnight transcode question. If editorial needs footage the night of the shoot, DIT overtime and an FTP service have a real cost. Treating this as a default rather than a confirmed requirement is a common place bids come in short.

How Splinde Handles This

The answers from an AICP bidding call do not stay answers on a page. They become line items, and every question above maps to a specific section of the AICP A-through-W format: SAG talent and day players into Talent, union fringes into Payroll Taxes and Fringes, a social package into a dedicated Social Versions section, and drone or aircraft riders into Location and Travel Expenses. Splinde's AICP Budget Template is built to the current 23-section standard, with Social Versions as a first-class section rather than a manually added row, and with union fringe rules for DGA, IATSE, and SAG applied automatically to the relevant crew and talent lines. Once the bid call answers are in hand, the budget built from them feeds directly into Splinde's Document Editor, so the numbers from that first call reach a client-ready offer without being re-typed.