Highway agencies choose alternative contracting methods (ACMs) to for a wide variety of reasons, primarily their potential for superior cost and schedule performance. Most literature focuses on these two factors by analyzing aggregate datasets covering a wide- ranging contract values. These analyses create two voids that this paper attempts to explore: (1) ACMs provide a wide variety of benefits, which cost and schedule performance alone do not identify; and (2) projects of differing contract values benefit differently. This paper investigates the selection criteria for ACMs and why US agencies chose ACMs for projects at the extreme ends of the cost spectrum (defined as projects at the upper and lower 10th percentiles for each delivery method) and what benefits are realized, above and beyond cost and schedule performance. These findings are presented through a survey of 291 US projects, interviews of sixteen US agency representatives, literature review, agency ACM manual content analysis.