Standing offer

A standing offer is a pre-arranged agreement listing suppliers and pre-approved prices from which a buyer purchases as needs arise, without running a new competition each time. The competition happens once, up front; the orders — call-ups — happen repeatedly over the offer's validity period.

The crucial commercial detail: a standing offer guarantees no volume. Being on it means you may be called up, not that you will be, and call-up share concentrates among listed suppliers who stay visible to the end-users actually writing the orders. For buyers the instrument cuts solicitation overhead on repetitive purchasing; for competitors outside the list, the moment to break in is the recompetition — the call-ups are already spoken for.

@misc{pi-2026-definitions-standing-offer,
  author = {{The Procurement Institution}},
  title  = {Standing offer — definition},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://procurementinstitution.org/definitions/standing-offer},
  note   = {Release 2026.10}
}