RFQs come in from buyers across the country. You see what's in your region and bid what you want.
Founding member spots are limited by region. Once your territory is taken, it's closed.
Register for Beta AccessHere's why we're building the fabricator network before opening to buyers.
The backstoryIn 2010 I built a platform called TanksAndEquipment.com.
The idea was simple — give pressure vessel buyers a place to post RFQs and give fabricators a place to quote them. No middlemen. Just buyers and code shops doing business directly.
It worked. Buyers showed up.
Schlumberger found the platform. They posted RFQs for 41 pressure vessels.
Real projects. Real specs. Real budget.
Not one code shop responded.
Not because the work wasn't real. Not because the specs were incomplete.
Because I made the same mistake every marketplace makes — I built the buyer side before I built the supplier side.
There were no fabricators on the platform. The RFQs sat there unanswered.
I called code shops directly to find out why.
Every one of them said the same thing — they didn't trust it. They thought the site was a backdoor way for competitors or buyers to collect their pricing structure.
In 2010, industrial procurement still ran on phone calls, fax machines, and relationships built over decades.
The idea of posting an RFQ on a website felt foreign — and for a lot of shops, it felt like a trap.
I shut it down.
Walked away.
And spent the next several years thinking about what I'd do differently.
VesselRFQ is what I'd do differently.
ThomasNet. IQS. PVMA. Those are listings. You pay to be found and hope a buyer calls.
VesselRFQ is a marketplace. Buyers come with a specific vessel and a budget. Fabricators in that region bid the job.
Three to four shops maximum bid any single RFQ.
Nobody sees anyone else's number.
Same as every project you've ever quoted offline.
Freight sorts out geography naturally.
The closest competitive shop wins on merit, not on who blinks first.
No race to the bottom.
No public bid opening.
Just real jobs bid the way you've always bid them.
Beta is free. No monthly fees. No cost to access or bid RFQs in your region.
Founding members also have a voice in how many shops are on the platform.
Fewer shops means more RFQs per shop and more exclusivity.
That decision belongs to the people who built this marketplace with us.
When you win a job through the marketplace, VesselRFQ collects 4% of the award value.
You add it to your quote price. The buyer pays it. Not you.
Tell me about your shop. I review every application personally.
I'll be in touch shortly to discuss next steps.
— Bret Mundt, VesselRFQ
I've been on every side of this transaction.
As an owner's rep, I purchased pressure vessels for major industrial projects.
As a capital project manager for a heavy industrial contractor — that also operated as a code shop — I estimated tanks and heat exchangers, coordinated delivery, and managed installation.
As a senior industrial construction manager for a consulting engineering firm, I coordinated the installation of pressure vessels and capital equipment across major industrial projects.
And I spent nearly five years at an ASME code shop doing what you do — sitting at the estimating desk quoting pressure vessels.
I also ran my own industrial construction services company for 19 years.
That's 36 years of watching the same broken process repeat itself from every angle. VesselRFQ exists because I finally decided to fix it.