The essentials in 30 seconds
- The DPGF (décomposition du prix global et forfaitaire, the French bill of quantities) breaks a project down into trade packages and line items: work description, unit, quantity, plus a price column that each company fills in.
- The architect writes it: the scope is fixed once and for all, and the bids received can be compared item by item.
- One and the same document lives three times: internal estimate, tender template sent with prices blank, tracking document once the works contracts are awarded.
- Each line item comes down to three decisions: a complete work description, a measurable unit, a quantity set by you (never "as a whole" or "to be defined").
- The template goes out to at least two companies, always identical, prices blank.
What is a DPGF actually for?
The DPGF comes from French public procurement: it is the document that breaks down the price of a lump-sum contract, item by item, so the buyer understands what they are paying for. On private renovation projects, nobody imposes it on you. That is precisely why it is worth gold when you impose it yourself. Without a template, every company tendered drafts its quote in its own format: its wording, its units, its quantities measured its own way. Three free-form quotes for the same trade package describe three different projects, and we showed in our bid analysis method why their totals cannot be compared.
The DPGF reverses the relationship: you are the one who describes the works, sets the units and fixes the quantities. The company no longer chooses the scope, it puts its prices into yours. Two immediate consequences: the bids received can be read line against line, and the gaps stop being noise and become information: a disputed quantity, a price that steps out of line. The field rule that goes with it allows no exception: the template goes out to at least two companies, strictly identical, prices blank. That is the condition for the client to have a genuine choice, and for your final recommendation to be defensible.
A point of vocabulary that avoids a lot of confusion: the DPGF you price yourself remains an estimate, an internal working tool, never a "quote". Quotes are the companies' commercial and contractual documents. The DPGF organises the tender; the quotes are what bind.
Example: a DPGF excerpt, annotated line by line
Here is what one trade package of an interior renovation DPGF looks like, in this case a painting package for a Paris apartment, in its estimate version: the prices are the architect's, set from their price library and their site survey. This same structure will later go out to the companies, price columns emptied.
Package 05 – Painting / wall coverings (the architect's estimate version)
| No. | Work description | Unit | Qty | Unit price excl. VAT | Total excl. VAT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 05.1 | Protection of floors and furniture, sheeting of untreated areas | ft | 1 | €280 | €280 |
| 05.2 | Stripping of existing wallpaper, living room and hallway walls, including disposal | m² | 48 | €12 | €576 |
| 05.3 | Skim coat and smoothing compound on stripped walls, sanding included | m² | 48 | €18 | €864 |
| 05.4 | Matt acrylic paint, walls, 1 primer coat + 2 finishing coats | m² | 48 | €28 | €1,344 |
| 05.5 | Painting of living room and hallway ceilings, 1 primer + 2 finishing coats | m² | 22 | €30 | €660 |
| 05.6 | End-of-works cleaning for the package | ft | 1 | €150 | €150 |
| Total package 05 — Painting | €3,874 excl. VAT | ||||
Each column plays a precise role. The number (05.2) lets you point to a line item without ambiguity in an email, a site report or an analysis report. The description covers the finished work and everything it entails: the stripping including disposal, the paint primer coat included. Anything left unwritten will be billed as an extra by someone. The unit makes the item measurable: m², linear metre, unit, or lump sum ("ft", for the French forfait) reserved for genuinely indivisible global services. The quantity comes from your site survey, not from the company's estimate. The prices, finally, exist only in your version: the template sent to the companies carries the same lines, prices blank.
Note items 05.1 and 05.6: protection and cleaning. These are the lines free-form quotes omit most often, and that resurface as extras once the works have started. Writing them into the template forces every company to price them, or to state explicitly that they are included. The price ranges used here are consistent with those in our works estimating guide, which details the 2026 ratios for the Paris region, and are stated excluding VAT. The applicable rate depends on the dwelling and the nature of the works, as explained in our guide to French VAT at 10 or 20 %.
How to write each line item: description, unit, quantity
A DPGF is written trade package by trade package (demolition, plastering and drywall, electrical, plumbing, joinery, painting, flooring) and, inside each package, line item by line item. Three decisions per line:
- The work description. Describe the expected result and everything it entails, not a product brand: "20 × 20 wall tiles laid straight, adhesive and grouting included, up to a height of 1.80 m" says what has to be executed and what the price includes. A vague line ("wall repairs") will be interpreted differently by every company, and each interpretation will produce an incomparable price.
- The unit. Choose the unit that can be checked on site: m² for surfaces, linear metre for skirting boards and runs, unit for fixtures and fittings. A lump sum is legitimate for a genuinely global service (site set-up, cleaning); it becomes a trap as soon as it covers measurable work, because it makes the bid impossible to break down.
- The quantity. It comes out of your site survey, rounded with a reasonable, consistent margin. If a company disputes a quantity, that is good news: the question gets settled in writing before the bids are submitted, not mid-works.
On a full project, expect one DPGF per trade package or a multi-package workbook. The form matters little, as long as the numbering is continuous and each company receives exactly the packages that concern it. And keep the discipline on the level of detail: one line item = one homogeneous piece of work. A catch-all item ("complete bathroom renovation") cannot be compared; ten micro-lines for the same piece of work drown the analysis. The right granularity is the one that later lets you locate a price gap in a single read.
The three lives of a DPGF: estimate, tender, tracking
The strength of this document is that it is used not once but three times, and it is the same file that moves forward with the project:
- The internal estimate. During the design phase, you price each line item from your ratios and your price library. This is the budget you announce to the client: an architect's estimate, presented as such, with its ranges.
- The tender template. The same lines, prices emptied, go out to the companies tendered (two minimum, always). The bids come back on your structure, and the tender process can then run its course: levelling the scopes, line-by-line comparison, analysis report, and the client approving the award, in the form of a dated agreement in principle.
- The tracking document. Once the works contracts are awarded, the DPGF becomes the financial backbone of the project: its line items are where the interim payment applications, the additional works approved along the way and the omissions are booked. At the end of the project, it tells the story of the gap between the announced budget and the final cost, item by item, with no reconstruction from memory.
It is this third life that gets forgotten most. An architect who throws away their DPGF after the tender loses the very tool that justifies, at the end of the works, every euro of variance in front of their client.
The five mistakes that make a DPGF unusable
- Sending the estimate instead of the template. Your prices must never reach the companies: a bid drafted with your budget in view converges towards it mysteriously. The template goes out with prices blank, no exceptions.
- Leaving quantities blank or "to be confirmed". Every company will measure its own way, and you are back to the incomparable. If a quantity is genuinely uncertain, set a reference value and flag it: everyone prices on the same basis, to be adjusted later if need be.
- Multiplying the lump sums. "Shower room as a whole: ft" is not a line item, it is a capitulation. A lump sum cannot be levelled, cannot be compared, cannot be tracked.
- Forgetting the thankless items. Strip-out, disposal, protection, cleaning: absent from the template, they resurface as additional works, at full price and without competition.
- Changing the template between two sendings. Adding an item for the second company tendered, correcting a quantity for the third: every variation destroys the very comparability the document was meant to guarantee. A template is frozen before the first sending; if it has to evolve, the addendum goes out to every company, dated.
One last reflex, downstream: an abnormally low bid on your template remains a signal to investigate, never a bargain. It should trigger a check of the company's paperwork, ten-year liability insurance first, as detailed in our checklist for vetting a contractor before hiring.
So, what about Nodal?
Nodal turns the DPGF into a living object rather than a file you keep retyping: you build the template by trade package and line item, or import your existing DPGF (.xlsx or .csv) as it is, then send it to the companies tendered in one click, prices blank, in native spreadsheet format. Each company responds by filling in the same structure, including online through a secure link specific to its tender, and you track who has responded, on which items, and with what bid validity.
What follows stays in the same thread: line-by-line comparison with gaps against your estimate and against the lowest bid, award per trade package, a bid analysis report generated with your reasoned recommendation, and the client approving the selected bid from their own portal, recorded as a time-stamped approval. Your template, meanwhile, never gets retyped twice.
Article published on August 24, 2026. The prices in the excerpt are orders of magnitude excluding VAT, consistent with the 2026 ranges observed in the Paris region, given to illustrate the structure of the document; they are neither a rate card nor a commitment. Adjust them to your local market and to the complexity of each project.