To do business with companies, ESA has developed a procedure and an associated ESA Costing Software tool called ECOS for aggregating and calculating the price elements of the financial proposals through the entire contractual chain.

By using ECOS, the price proposal work is partitioned through the industrial structure, and the proposals are generated and integrated to higher levels electronically.

The information presented conforms to the ESA standard costing and pricing requirements introduced in the ESA Conditions to Tender, and represented by the ESA Price Breakdown Forms (PBF) which replace Procedures, Standards and Specifications (PSS).

From 30 March 2026, the use of ECOS 6 is mandatory for all activities.

View the set of ECOS 6 training videos:

1. Overview of price proposal in ECOS and login
   • In this first video we will present the price proposal process, how to login into ECOS and access your price proposals.
2. How to create a non-audited rates form
   • Learn how to create and edit a non-audited rates form in ECOS.
3. How to prepare a price proposal (Part 1)
   • Learn how to create a new price proposal, complete the project metadata, assign your rates form, fill in the escalation indices, manage proposal events and build your work breakdown structure.
4. How to prepare a price proposal (Part 2)
   • In this second part of how to prepare a price proposal we will present how to allocate your costs and fill in your milestone payment plan.
5. How to import a WBS and costs in ECOS
   • Learn how to download the Excel files to complete your work breakdown structure and costs, complete them correctly and import your data into ECOS.
6. How to manage subcontracting as an upper tier
   • View the subcontracting process and learn how to manage subcontracting in delegation mode: create a subcontract bundle, assign it to a subcontractor and review the subcontractor’s price proposal.
7. How to manage options in ECOS
   • Create a proposal option in addition to your baseline proposal: create a new proposal option, set up a new WBS tree, link it to your proposal option and submit it to ESA.
8. How to submit a price proposal
   • Learn how to initiate the submission process, run the consistency check and price compliance and then submit your price proposal. After submission, learn how to create a new version.

If you would like more training content in a written form, specially for contract and bid managers, please visit the Help section in esa-star ECOS.

More information about the ECOS Community and contact info can be found on the ECOS page.

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