A bid that complies with the basic requirements of an public body awarding a contract but is different from the Reference bid in certain key aspects. Where a public body indicates that it will accept variant bids, it may indicate that it is willing to accept variant bids that differ in certain prescribed areas from the reference bid or can allow bidders to submit whatever variations they see fit. The number of variant bids is normally limited by the public body due to the practicalities of evaluating the bids.