A request for information (RFI) is exploratory. The buyer does not yet know exactly what to buy or who can supply it, so the RFI asks about capabilities, certifications, capacity, references and approach. It usually carries no price, or only an indicative one, and it is not used to award. Its output is a shortlist and a sharper requirement. An RFI is the right tool for a new category, a new region or an unfamiliar technology.
A request for proposal (RFP) is used when the need is clear but the way to meet it is not. Suppliers propose a solution, a team, a plan and a price, and the buyer evaluates quality and cost together with weighted criteria. RFPs suit services, software, projects and anything where the approach matters. A request for quotation (RFQ) is used when the specification is fixed, such as a part number, a bill of quantities or a standard service, and suppliers compete mainly on price, lead time and terms.
The three often run in sequence: an RFI to scan the market, an RFP to choose an approach and a supplier, and an RFQ or reverse auction to settle the price among qualified suppliers. The key design choice is the balance between quality and price. An RFI may be entirely qualitative, an RFQ almost entirely commercial, and an RFP somewhere in between. Setting that split deliberately, per event, avoids a hidden bias toward the cheapest response.
How iProcure handles RFI vs RFP vs RFQ
In iProcure all three are the same kind of event in the eRFx module, built with the same live guided setup. What changes is the evaluation model. You choose the balance between quality and price per event, starting from your organisation's default, so an RFI can be purely qualitative and an RFQ weighted almost entirely on price, with no built-in bias toward the cheapest response.