How are service provider proposals ranked on a project posting?

Proposals for a project are listed at the bottom of the Project Description page. The list shows the bids with sponsored placement first.  The proposals are then sorted by the time and date that a provider placed their proposal.  This sorting offers consistent benefits to all providers, including those who pay the higher featured proposal fee to gain prominent placement, because buyers are still able to manually sort by number of reviews or feedback rating.  This allows the buyer to decide which criterion is important when viewing the list of proposals for their project.