GovCon Pursuit Brain

Real session, run 2026-10-04 with Claude Sonnet. The company and the RFP are made up for the test.

Cap the large business at 50% of what the Government pays you. Then confirm that cap in the RFP, which takes about 20 minutes: the limitation-on-subcontracting clause (the wiki cites FAR 52.219-14), any Section H text on it, and Section M. Where the RFP and the pages below differ, the RFP wins.

As described, the plan exceeds the cap. A large business doing most of the work would be paid more than half.

Assumed, because you gave no detail: you are small under the RFP's NAICS code, the work is services with no construction, the RFP uses the standard layout (Sections H, L, M) and the standard clause with nothing stricter, and you want sourced answers only.

What limits the plan

1. The cap. On a set-aside services contract (not construction), no more than 50% of the amount the Government pays for performance may go to subcontractors that are not similarly situated. The cap covers all of them together and is measured in dollars the Government pays.
2. The large business. The page defines a similarly situated entity as a first-tier subcontractor with the same small business program status that qualified you, and small under the NAICS code you assigned to its subcontract. A large business fails the second part, so every dollar paid to it counts against the 50%. That is my reading of the definition; the page does not name the large-business case. Work done by similarly situated small subcontractors does not count toward the cap. Work they pass on to a non-similarly-situated firm does.
3. Consequences. Compliance is audited per contract. The page lists negative past performance, suspension, and debarment among the consequences. Section H can add limitation-on-subcontracting terms beyond the standard clause, so read it too.
4. Your own size. Small status depends on the size standard for the RFP's NAICS code. The page ties services to receipts-based standards (average annual receipts over the prior five completed fiscal years) and employee counts to manufacturing and some others. The NAICS code in the RFP therefore decides whether your 40 employees matter. Size also includes affiliates, tested by ownership, common management, identity of interest, and the totality of the circumstances.
5. The one pairing the wiki describes. In SBA's Mentor-Protégé Program, a large mentor and a small protégé can form a joint venture that counts as small for contracts the protégé qualifies for. The protégé must perform at least 40% of the joint venture's work. The page describes this for joint ventures only, and your firm would have to be that large firm's protégé.

How you will be evaluated (LPTA)

1. Non-price factors are pass/fail. Among the proposals rated technically acceptable, the lowest price wins (FAR 15.101-2).
2. Exceeding a requirement earns no credit and only raises price. Extra capability from the large partner gets nothing. The target is cleanly acceptable at the lowest defensible price.
3. Price is always evaluated. The page lists the usual price checks: comparing the offers received, comparing with the Government's cost estimate, and market research. Read Section M for any language on price realism.
4. Past performance is normally evaluated (FAR 15.304(c)(3)). The usual tests are recency, relevancy, and quality. The RFP sets the recency window, and the RFP or the agency's procedure sets the rating scale.
5. Evaluators score against the Section M factors and nothing else. The agency can award on initial proposals without discussions if the RFP says so, so assume your first submission is the only one. Some RFPs mix pass/fail factors with tradeoff factors, and Section M says which is which.

Not covered by the wiki

The wiki has no page on these, and each matters for your plan:

1. Whether relying on a large subcontractor for much of the work can make you affiliated with it. The size page lists the affiliation tests and says nothing about affiliation through a subcontractor.
2. Army or other DoD supplement rules on LPTA and subcontracting.
3. Whether an evaluator credits a subcontractor's past performance to you.

Reply "answer from general knowledge" and I will cover them, labeled unsourced.

Past review date

Five of the ten pages below are past their review date: limitation-on-subcontracting, size-standards-and-naics, sba-mentor-protege, past-performance, and price-reasonableness. Each was due 2026-08-19, which is 46 days before today (2026-10-04). Those pages contain the 50% cap, the similarly situated test, the size test, the joint venture rule, and the price and past-performance points. Confirm each against the current FAR, the Army's supplement, and your RFP before you act. A percentage threshold like the cap can change within a year.

The FAR is also being rewritten (the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul). Which text applies depends on whether the buying agency has adopted the replacement for each part, and from what date. Section numbers moved in many parts, and contracts awarded under the replacement text carry its revised clauses. The pages cite numbers such as 52.219-14, 15.101-2, and 15.304. The overhaul page does not list which numbers moved, so use the numbers printed in your RFP.

Nine of the ten pages have status stable, which the source policy defines as compiled from public sources and not human-verified.

Pages used

Limits on the plan

Evaluation

Status: answered from 10 pages, 5 of them past review, with 3 questions that have no page. Next (about 20 minutes): paste the RFP's limitation-on-subcontracting clause, its NAICS code and size standard, and the price and past-performance language from Section M.