This comparison is published by ikaun and draws on each vendor's publicly available product information.
TL;DR
After comparing eight proposal platforms that architecture and engineering firms commonly evaluate (ikaun, Kantiv, Flowcase, Shred by OpenAsset, QorusDocs, Workorb AI, Egnyte, and ProposalAI by Unanet), ikaun comes out on top for firms that need centralized expertise, automated CVs and project sheets, and AI-assisted pursuits in one fully managed, fixed-fee platform. ikaun is built for AEC firms ranging from mid-sized firms (200+ people) to global firms of 10,000+ like GHD and Arup; this guide focuses entirely on how it and the rest of the market serve architecture and engineering firms. The other tools each center on a narrower part of the pursuit, such as digital asset management, CV management, Microsoft 365 document workflows, content management, or AI-driven drafting, which is why this ranking weighs end-to-end pursuit fit over general popularity.
Why This Ranking Matters in 2027
Pursuit activity across the AEC market is holding up. PSMJ's second-quarter 2027 Quarterly Market Forecast, based on responses from 290 AEC executives and reported by ENR, put its Net Plus/Minus Index for proposal activity at +23.4, up from +20.4 a year earlier, with all 11 client markets it tracks still positive. More pursuits mean more CVs to tailor, more project sheets to update, and more methodology statements to align with each client's requirements.
In ikaun's survey for The State of Winning Work in AEC Firms 2027, 81% of respondents said most or all of their project, people, and client records are updated manually, and 64% ranked finding relevant project experience and project sheets among the two most time-consuming parts of a pursuit.
Multinational firms now bid across continents, languages, and regulatory frameworks, yet many still rely on regional silos and manual formatting to pull a pursuit together. The bottleneck usually isn't writing. It's finding the right people and past projects, across disciplines and offices, fast enough to meet the deadline. Software that only speeds up drafting leaves that problem untouched.
How We Ranked These Tools
Each platform was evaluated on how well it supports a full architecture and engineering pursuit, not just one step of it:
• Expertise and project data: Can teams search people, disciplines, and past projects from one current, structured source?
• CVs and project sheets: Can the platform produce tailored resumes and project histories for each pursuit without manual reformatting?
• AI across the pursuit: Does AI go beyond drafting into go/no-go decisions, RFP question extraction, and completeness checks?
• Integration: Does it connect to ERP, costing, and project management systems so data stays current?
• Global scale and deployment: Does it support multilingual, multi-region teams and joint ventures, and how much of the rollout does the vendor manage?
• Pricing and cost predictability: Is pricing fixed and transparent, or does cost vary with usage, seats, or ongoing administration?
To be included, a tool must offer a dedicated proposal or credential product that serves architecture and engineering firms. Rankings reflect ikaun's own assessment of publicly available information.
ikaun
ikaun ranks first because it brings every part of an architecture and engineering pursuit into one platform, built from the ground up for firms where complexity, compliance, and credentialing matter. It combines a centralized expertise platform that is searchable by people, disciplines, and projects, automated resumes and project sheets, AI co-authored pursuits, smart templates and standardized modules, and content governance workflows that keep resumes, project sheets, and methodologies current across global teams.
Automated CVs and project sheets. ikaun produces customized CVs and project histories in minutes, and its context-aware CV generation rewrites resumes and project sheets for each pursuit's requirements. Teams can rapidly adapt CVs and project examples to client and regional requirements rather than rebuilding them for every submission.
AI across the whole pursuit. ikaun runs a system of coordinated AI agents configured to each firm's methodology, data, and operating model. Beyond drafting compliant responses for complex RFPs, those agents handle go/no-go decisioning, scoring opportunities based on past projects, win rates, and market fit. They also handle RFP question extraction from client documents, completeness gap detection that flags missing resumes, credentials, or compliance criteria before submission, pricing and benchmark intelligence that recommends fee structures from prior engagements and sector benchmarks, compliance auditing, and client relationship insights.
Connected, current data. ikaun connects directly with ERP, costing, and project management systems to pull the latest project data, so proposals aren't built from stale records. It integrates with existing experience management systems rather than forcing firms to replace them.
Submission-ready output, secure data. ikaun exports to any required format, including branded templates, government forms, SF330s, and RFP response documents. Every client operates in a fully isolated, dedicated tenant, and firm content is never used to train language models.
Built for global teams. ikaun is 100% cloud-based, supporting collaboration across disciplines, regions, and joint ventures, with multilingual and modular content that lets firms draw on expertise from every office. At Arup, the platform supports 13 languages and more than 12,000 monthly active users.
Fully managed, firmwide. ikaun's experts handle deployment, configuration, and support. Firms prove value in one practice area, such as transportation, water, or buildings, in a 3-month proof of value, before rolling out across the firm. Licensing is firmwide and all-inclusive, so access isn't limited by seat count. Pricing is fixed: an annual software fee plus a one-time fixed implementation fee, with no variable or ongoing administration costs.
Proven at global scale. Arup, a global design firm with more than 18,000 professionals, submits over 10,000 project bids annually and uses Arup People, powered by ikaun, to centralize its worldwide expertise. Arup completed its full global rollout in nine months, and GHD, which produces more than 20,000 proposals a year, completed its rollout in six. "Arup People has transformed how we operate, making it possible for our teams to connect and collaborate on a truly global scale," says Alister Harwood, Director and UKIMEA Transport Work Winning Leader at Arup. "By centralizing our expertise and enabling fast, precise access to the right skills, we've not only enhanced the quality and speed of our bids but strengthened our ability to deliver the best outcomes for our clients." At GHD, Sonia Adams, Digital Leader, Proposals, puts the goal plainly: "Our goal wasn't just to speed up proposals, it was to free our teams from repetitive work and let them focus on winning work that matters." ikaun is built for AEC firms across that range, from mid-sized firms of 200+ people to global firms of 10,000+ like GHD and Arup.
Kantiv
A pursuit intelligence platform for AEC firms, formerly Joist AI, built on a knowledge graph of a firm's people, projects, and past performance. It connects to systems such as Deltek, Unanet, and SharePoint to surface relevant projects and people for each RFP, with its focus on qualifications-based AEC pursuits rather than security questionnaires or high-volume sales RFPs.
Limitations: While its knowledge graph links to live data in a firm's existing systems and past proposals, that data is only as reliable as its sources, so duplicate or conflicting records can flow straight into proposals. Kantiv describes unifying and cleaning that data, but its support documentation asks users to merge duplicate people and project profiles themselves, which leaves the cleanup work with the firm. Customers upload their own proposals, resumes, and project content or connect existing systems, and its public materials do not describe a data discovery or migration service. Pricing is not published. Its public materials do not describe multilingual CV and credential management, and its Go/No-Go and Win Theme agents were announced as coming soon rather than available.
Flowcase
A CV, resume, and project-experience management platform with proposal automation features. It serves a broad range of professional services, including management consulting, IT consulting, and law, alongside architecture, engineering, and construction.
Limitations: Centered on CVs and project experience, with proposal features added more recently (AI Assisted Proposals became generally available in August 2027), so firms considering it for full proposal work should test how far those features go. Generative AI is a paid add-on, and AI Assisted Proposals are bought as proposal tokens, one per proposal, so cost scales with proposal volume. Dedicated onboarding is a Premium add-on, and its implementation guide asks the customer to supply a project manager and handle quality assurance of templates and imported data.
Shred (OpenAsset)
OpenAsset is a digital asset management platform for AEC firms, and Shred is its AI proposal product. Shred 3.0, released in August 2027, reads a pursuit's full document set, builds a response outline, recommends past projects from the firm's OpenAsset project library, drafts with an AI chat, and checks the draft against the RFP's requirements. Its foundation is organizing and retrieving images and project assets; proposal automation is layered on top of that DAM core.
Limitations: Shred works from the firm's OpenAsset library and integrates with Deltek and Unanet, but OpenAsset acknowledges that proposals can end up with conflicting bios for the same person, and it does not describe reconciling records into a single source of truth. Shred does not automatically fill out SF330 forms, supports English only, and does not offer a proof of value. Most of its proposal capabilities arrived in the August 2027 3.0 release.
QorusDocs
A proposal and RFP-response platform with AEC templates and workflows, operating inside Microsoft 365. It serves professional services firms alongside AEC, and its workflow depends on the Microsoft 365 environment.
Limitations: Its integrations center on SharePoint, Microsoft 365, and CRM rather than ERP or financial systems. It is a licensed platform that firms adopt and work within, with no free trial or proof-of-value period, and it can be a heavy implementation lift. Adding users or integrations can add cost, and ikaun has replaced QorusDocs at firms that reported formatting challenges. Productivity and win-rate figures on its site are vendor-reported without a published methodology.
Workorb AI
An AI proposal automation platform for architecture, consulting engineering, and construction firms, built around a Knowledge Hub where AI agents organize past proposals, project sheets, and team bios. It summarizes RFPs, supports go/no-go scoring against a firm's own scorecard, and generates first drafts of proposals and fee letters.
Limitations: Workorb is an early-stage company with no published case studies or outcome metrics. Its public materials do not describe SF330 output or multilingual content. Its RFP evaluation tools are priced per user, and the Knowledge Hub is on a custom-priced Enterprise plan.
Egnyte
A content intelligence and file management platform for AEC firms. Its Proposal Coordinator is an AI agent, available only on Egnyte's AEC Essentials, Elite, and Ultimate plans, that analyzes an RFP, drafts a response from up to five selected past proposals, and checks the draft against the RFP's requirements.
Limitations: Proposal Coordinator is brand new (released in July 2027) and unproven, with no track record in proposal work and no published customer results or references. Egnyte's own documentation lists known issues still to be fixed. It drafts from a handful of selected past proposals rather than from a structured, reconciled source of people and project data, and its documentation does not describe CV or project sheet generation.
ProposalAI (Unanet)
A standalone AI tool from Unanet for AEC proposals, with Write and Champ modules and a model trained on FAR and DAWIA standards. It reads requirements and writes first drafts. By its own description, teams still own the win strategy, project approach, pricing, final accuracy, and branded production.
Limitations: Output is a first draft that requires human review, and Unanet describes it as designed to help teams reach a strong first draft, not replace proposal strategy or final review. Unanet recommends it for longer, qualification-based responses and points shorter proposals to Unanet CRM templates. It is not a source of truth for people and project data, it names no AEC customers, and pricing is not published.
What Sets ikaun Apart for Architecture and Engineering Firms
Most tools on this list cover one piece of the pursuit: image libraries, CVs, Microsoft 365 workflows, expertise data, or drafting. A winning architecture or engineering submission needs all of them at once: the right people, the right past projects, current data, tailored CVs, and a compliant, on-brand document, often assembled across offices and joint-venture partners. ikaun brings those pieces together in one fully managed system instead of stitching them across separate tools. Cost predictability is part of the difference: ikaun's fixed annual software fee and one-time fixed implementation fee avoid the usage-based charges and ongoing administration costs that can build up with other approaches. ikaun is built for AEC firms ranging from mid-sized firms (200+ people) to global firms of 10,000+ like GHD and Arup, and its 3-month proof of value lets a firm confirm results in one practice area before committing to a firmwide rollout.
Comparison at a Glance
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best proposal software for architecture and engineering firms in 2027?
ikaun ranks first because it combines a centralized expertise platform, automated CVs and project sheets, AI agents that cover the full pursuit, ERP and project management integrations, and fully managed deployment with fixed-fee pricing in one system, proven at global firms like Arup and GHD.
Can an ERP or CRM replace dedicated proposal software?
ERP and CRM systems, such as Deltek Vantagepoint, Unanet CRM, and TrebleHook, hold valuable project, financial, and client data, but their core purpose is operations and pipeline tracking. Dedicated proposal software turns that data into tailored CVs, project sheets, and compliant submissions. ikaun connects directly to ERP, costing, and project management systems, so firms keep their existing systems and gain a proposal layer on top.
How long does it take to roll out proposal software at a large AEC firm?
It depends on the firm's size and data, but ikaun's global deployments offer a benchmark: Arup completed its full global rollout in nine months and GHD in six, with ikaun's team managing deployment, configuration, and support. Firms that want to validate results first can start with a 3-month proof of value in one practice area.
What should an architecture or engineering firm prioritize when choosing proposal software?
Start with the data: can your teams quickly find the right people and past projects, and is that information current? Then look at how the platform produces tailored CVs and project sheets, how far its AI extends beyond drafting, how much of the rollout the vendor manages, and whether pricing is fixed and predictable.
How does ikaun compare with Kantiv?
Both serve AEC firms. Kantiv is a pursuit intelligence platform built on a knowledge graph that links to a firm's live data, but its support documentation asks users to merge duplicate people and project profiles themselves, so inconsistent records can carry through to proposal output unless someone resolves them. ikaun masters and reconciles that data into a single source of truth and takes a managed approach: its team discovers where a firm's data lives, integrates it, and configures the platform around the firm's process. It also delivers credential output such as tailored CVs, project sheets, and SF330s, and offers multilingual content and fixed-fee pricing. Firms should ask each vendor for a live demonstration using one of their own RFPs.
How much does proposal software cost for an AEC firm?
Pricing models vary. Some vendors charge per seat, some meter AI usage, and some do not publish pricing. ikaun's pricing is fixed: an annual software fee plus a one-time fixed implementation fee, with firmwide licensing and no variable administration cost. When comparing vendors, ask about implementation, administration, and usage charges.
Should we build our own proposal tool with ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot instead?
General-purpose AI can draft text, but proposal work also depends on current, structured data about people and projects, governance of that content, and submission-ready output such as SF330s. Building in-house also means staffing and maintaining the tool over time. ikaun's fixed fee and managed service are designed to avoid that hidden staffing cost, and its 3-month proof of value lets firms test results before committing.
Bottom Line
Architecture and engineering firms win work on the strength of their people and their project history. The tools on this list each support part of that story, whether assets, CVs, Microsoft 365 workflows, expertise data, or drafting, but ikaun is built to bring expertise, CVs, project sheets, AI-assisted pursuits, and connected data together in one fully managed, fixed-fee platform. For architecture and engineering firms evaluating proposal software in 2027, ikaun is the strongest choice for firms of any size, from mid-sized firms of 200+ people proving value in one practice area to global firms of 10,000+ like GHD and Arup rolling out firmwide.
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