A plant service RFP is a written request that asks vendors to propose how they would design, install and care for the plants in your space, and what it would cost. Use one when several vendors could do the job and you want to compare how they would do it, not only what they charge. Keep it short, specific and focused on what you want the space to look and feel like.
We are Greenspace Plants. We have answered a lot of these requests. The best ones are clear about the look, clear about who does what, and clear about how plants get replaced. The weak ones are copied from a cleaning or landscaping template and miss the point.
Key takeaways
- An RFP fits when you want to judge approach, design and service quality, not price alone.
- Define the look you want, the areas covered, the visit schedule and what your own staff will and won't do.
- Ask every bidder for the same things: design concept, plant guarantee, pricing, term, insurance and references.
- Score proposals on a written rubric. Price is one line, not the whole grade.
- For a single office or restaurant, a site visit and a written scope may be all you need.
Table of Contents
- What a plant service RFP is, and when to use one
- Start with the space, not the spec
- What to put in the scope
- What bidders should submit
- Pricing, term and contract terms
- How to score and compare proposals
- Steps to run the process
- Our perspective
- Want proposals that start from a clear brief?
- FAQ
- Sources
What a plant service RFP is, and when to use one
An RFP, a request for proposals, asks vendors to describe their solution. A request for quotes asks for a price on a fixed list. The difference matters here.
Procurement guidance from the Municipal Research and Services Center says an RFP suits situations where you want to weigh technical factors like work plans, expertise and methodology, not just cost. Plants fit that test. Two vendors can quote the same price and deliver very different spaces.
An RFP makes sense when:
- You manage a large lobby, several floors or a multi-tenant building.
- A hotel, restaurant group or retail brand needs a consistent look across sites.
- Your organization requires competing proposals before you sign.
- You are replacing a vendor and want to reset expectations.
It is probably too much when you have one small office and want a handful of plants. There, ask two or three providers to visit, walk the space and send a written proposal. That is a mini-RFP, and it works.
Public-sector and private-sector RFPs
Many people searching this phrase are looking at government tenders. Federal opportunities are posted on CanadaBuys, which has carried interior plant maintenance notices. Cities and agencies post their own, such as the City of Vancouver bid portal.
This article is written for private buyers: office managers, workplace experience leads, interior designers, and hospitality and property teams. The structure still borrows from the public documents, because they are public and detailed.
Start with the space, not the spec
Most plant RFPs fail at the first page. They open with legal terms and bury what the buyer actually wants.
Begin with a short brief. Three or four sentences is enough.
- What kind of space is it, and who uses it?
- What should it feel like when someone walks in? Calm, lush, modern, warm?
- How does it reflect your brand?
- What has gone wrong before? Dead plants, messy pots, a vendor who never showed up?
That last question is gold for bidders. It tells them what you are worried about, and it lets you see who listens.
Add photos of the areas, floor plans or a list of locations, light conditions, and any rules about access or after-hours work.
What to put in the scope
A good scope reduces guessing. One maintenance-outsourcing guide puts it plainly: clarify asset boundaries, service levels and exclusions, including which tasks stay with your staff and which go to the vendor. Plants are no different.
Design and selection
Ask for a concept, not just a plant list. You want to see colour, scale, planter style and placement.
- Plant types suited to the actual light in each area
- Planter options and finishes
- Any moss walls, green walls or outdoor patio planting
- Who approves the design before installation
If you want a sense of what a strong concept looks like, our design portfolio shows finished spaces.
Installation
Spell out timing, access, delivery and cleanup. Ask how the vendor protects floors and works around business hours. Our guide to how commercial plant installation works shows what a sensible install day looks like.
Ongoing care
This is where the real value sits. A published Alberta Infrastructure bid for interior plant maintenance, listed on an aggregator, describes routine care that covers watering, pruning, fertilizing, pest control, soil maintenance and documented inventory. That is a useful checklist for any buyer, public or private.
In your RFP, ask for:
- Visit frequency for each area
- The tasks done at every visit
- How pests are handled, and whether the approach is preventive
- How the vendor reports what it did
- Who your point of contact is
Our page on plant care maintenance and our walkthrough of what a maintenance visit includes show how we handle this.
Replacements and guarantees
Plants decline. Light changes, seasons turn, someone props a door open in January. The RFP should ask:
- Are replacements included in the fee, or billed separately?
- What counts as a plant that needs replacing?
- How fast is a replacement made?
- Is there a written healthy-plant guarantee?
This single question separates vendors faster than any other. For a ready-made scope you can adapt, see our plant service scope of work.
Sustainability
If it matters to you, say so. The City of Vancouver's solicitation, for example, states it expects vendors to provide environmentally sensitive products or services wherever possible. Federal documents go further: a 2026 Canadian solicitation notes the government is advancing its net-zero by 2050 commitment and that future bids may require suppliers to measure or disclose emissions.
For a private buyer, ask practical things. How are old plants and pots handled? What happens to grow-pot waste? What products are used for pest control? An approach to vetting green claims is covered in this piece on evaluating eco-friendly vendor bids.
What bidders should submit
Give every vendor the same response format. It makes comparing easy and keeps you out of a stack of glossy brochures.
The Municipal Research and Services Center suggests an RFP should at minimum include a statement of need, a project schedule, evaluation criteria and a list of required elements, such as approach, key personnel and qualifications. For plants, we would ask for:
| Section | What to request |
|---|---|
| Company overview | Years in business, focus, locations served |
| Design concept | Sketch or mood board, plant and planter list |
| Service plan | Visit frequency, tasks, team, reporting |
| Guarantee | Written plant health and replacement terms |
| Pricing | One clear fee, with inclusions and exclusions listed |
| Term | Length, renewal, cancellation |
| Insurance | Certificates your building or brand requires |
| References | Two or three similar sites you can visit or call |
A 2012 federal tender for interior plant maintenance in Ottawa asked for a firm unit price in Canadian funds and proof of experience and past performance. Those two items are still the right core. Ask for a firm price, and ask for proof.
Do not skip references. A vendor who has served 400 locations can show you real spaces. A vendor who cannot is telling you something.
Pricing, term and contract terms
Pricing is where proposals get hard to compare. One vendor includes plant replacements, another charges extra. One counts planters, another doesn't.
Ask every bidder to separate:
- Design and installation (one-time)
- Planters and plants (purchase or rental)
- Ongoing care (monthly)
- Replacements
- Anything not included
Some real examples give you a sense of scale and structure. A 2026 request for quotes from the Yonge + St. Clair BIA in Toronto anticipated $45,000 to $50,000 a year, HST included, for floral displays and landscaping including planting, watering and maintenance. That is a street-level program, not an office, so treat it as one data point and not a benchmark for your lobby.
Our own entry point is Greenspace+, an all-inclusive monthly service from $299 per month. It covers design, installation, regular care and plant replacements, with no upfront costs and no long-term commitment. Your space will determine the final fee.
Term length
Public bodies often commit for years. The City of Vancouver's 2021 plant maintenance procurement required a three-year initial term with three two-year extension options, up to nine years, and prices held firm for the first 36 months unless agreed otherwise.
That suits a municipality. Most private buyers want more flexibility. Ask bidders what a shorter term costs, what a month-to-month option looks like, and how you can exit if service slips. Thinking about price and duration together is covered in this guide to managing maintenance contracts.
For clause language written with Canadian buyers in mind, read our plant maintenance contract terms.
Rent, buy or mix
Ask bidders to price more than one model if you are unsure:
- Rental or all-inclusive: one monthly fee, the vendor owns the plants and replaces them.
- Buyout with care: you own the plants and pay for service.
- Care only: you already have plants and need someone to look after them.
We lay these out side by side on our comparison page.
How to score and compare proposals
Write the scoring before the proposals land. It keeps you honest.
Here is a simple 100-point split we think works for design-led buyers:
| Criterion | Points |
|---|---|
| Design concept and fit with your brand | 30 |
| Service plan and reliability | 25 |
| Plant guarantee and replacement terms | 15 |
| Pricing clarity and value | 15 |
| References and track record | 10 |
| Sustainability and communication | 5 |
Adjust the weights. A restaurant may push design higher. A building with many tenants may push reliability up.
A written point-based scoring rubric keeps reviewers consistent, even though that example comes from a different field.
Then do the things a score cannot:
- Visit a reference site. Look at the plants, not the photos.
- Meet the person who will visit your space. The account lead matters as much as the company.
- Ask what happens when a plant fails. Listen for a clear, quick answer.
- Check the numbers add up. The cheapest bid with the most exclusions is rarely cheapest.
Don't give vendors too little time. MRSC recommends three to four weeks for a standard RFP. Good vendors need a site visit and time to design.
Steps to run the process
- Write the brief. The look, the feel, the problems to avoid.
- Define scope and boundaries. What the vendor does and what your team keeps.
- Choose three to five vendors. Commercial specialists, not general landscapers.
- Hold a site walk. Same day, same information for everyone.
- Set a deadline. Three to four weeks is fair.
- Score and shortlist. Use your rubric.
- Visit references and meet the team.
- Plan the handover. Ask for a transition plan, especially if you are replacing an incumbent.
The guide we cited earlier notes that a good outsourcing RFP should include transition and handover plans. Ask when the first visit happens and who is on site for installation.
Our perspective
We have been doing this since 2014, and we are commercial-only. That shapes how we read an RFP.
We design, install and care for plants in offices, hotels, restaurants and retail across Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. We look after 60,000+ plants in 400+ commercial locations. We are WBE Canada certified, a woman-owned business, and we run national programs for multi-location brands, including in the US.
Here is what we have learned. The RFPs that lead to great spaces talk about people and rooms. They say what the lobby should feel like and who walks through it. The ones that lead to frustration treat plants like a commodity.
Plants are alive. Light, traffic and season change them. So we think the best question to ask any vendor is simple: what happens in month six? Anyone can make an install look good on day one.
We also think you should compare us honestly. Ask for the guarantee in writing. Ask who your technician is. Ask to see a space that has been served for years. We are happy to answer all of it.
— Nicole
Want proposals that start from a clear brief?
If you are preparing an RFP, we can walk your space and send a design and service proposal you can score alongside the others. Greenspace+ bundles design, installation, care and replacements into one monthly fee, with no upfront costs and no long-term commitment. See how Greenspace+ works. Multi-location brand? Look at our national account program.
FAQ
Do I need an RFP for office plant service?
Not always. For one office or a single restaurant, a site visit and a written proposal from two or three providers is usually enough. Use a formal RFP when you have multiple locations, a large public space, or an internal rule requiring competing proposals.
What should a plant service RFP include?
A short brief on the look and feel, the areas covered, visit frequency, care tasks, replacement and guarantee terms, pricing format, contract term, insurance and references. Also say what your own staff will handle. Clear boundaries prevent most disputes later.
How long should vendors have to respond?
MRSC suggests three to four weeks for a standard RFP. Plant vendors need time to visit, assess light and prepare a design concept. Rushed timelines produce generic answers.
Where do I find public plant service RFPs in Canada?
Federal tenders are published on CanadaBuys. Cities, such as Vancouver, post their own opportunities on municipal bid portals. Business improvement areas and provincial bodies also publish requests.
Should price be the deciding factor?
Price matters, but it is one line in the score. Compare what is included first: replacements, guarantee, visit frequency and design. A low fee that excludes replacements can cost more over a year.
Sources
- MRSC, Purchased Services Contracts
- City of Vancouver, PS20210607 RFQ
- Government of Canada, Request for Proposal (2026)
- CanadaBuys, Interior Plant Maintenance Tender Notice
- Yonge + St. Clair BIA, Floral Display and Landscaping Services RFQ 2026
- What to Include in a Maintenance Outsourcing RFP