Question 1

What is BIDS?

Accepted Answer

BIDS (Business Intelligence and Discovery System) is a free government opportunity discovery platform for small businesses. It aggregates federal contract solicitations, grants, and award data from 15 federal data feeds and matches them to your business profile automatically.

Question 2

What is Award Intelligence?

Accepted Answer

Award Intelligence helps you get ahead of the next competition — available on the Intelligence plan. The live award feed shows who recently won federal contracts and grants, how much they received, and when their contract ends. Recompete Watch ranks previously-closed solicitations by how soon they are predicted to open again.

Question 3

Is BIDS really free?

Accepted Answer

Yes — the core platform is free with no credit card. Sign up, build your profile, get matched federal opportunities, and receive a weekly email digest. Intelligence ($10/month) is for businesses that want to move faster: same-day alerts, early signals on upcoming bids, state opportunities, and tools to track your contract history. Agent ($49/month) adds Opportunity Briefs, outreach drafts, agency outreach, and hands-on submission help.

Question 4

What is the Agent tier?

Accepted Answer

Agent ($49/month) is for businesses actively submitting proposals. It includes Opportunity Briefs, outreach drafts, the BIDS Agent browser extension, Guided Portal Sessions, and Submission Workspace. All Intelligence features are included.

Question 5

What is the difference between Guided Portal Sessions and BIDS Agent?

Accepted Answer

Both use your saved BIDS company profile and require the Agent plan. Guided Portal Sessions run in a secure cloud browser BIDS opens on the official site. BIDS Agent is a Chrome or Edge extension that autofills forms on portals you open yourself.

Question 6

What are Opportunities, Matched, Forecasts, Awards, Vehicles, Teaming, and Competitors?

Accepted Answer

Opportunities are open work; Matched is your ranked shortlist; Forecasts are early signals; Awards show who won and when contracts end; Vehicles explain how agencies buy; Competitors map who else wins; Teaming finds partners. See /features for the full walkthrough.

Question 7

How does opportunity matching work?

Accepted Answer

When you set up your profile (or scan your website), BIDS extracts business descriptor keywords and NAICS codes. Every 6 hours, newly ingested opportunities are scored against your profile using keyword and NAICS overlap. Opportunities scoring above 40% are added to your notification queue and surfaced in your dashboard with a match score.

Question 8

How do I build or update my profile?

Accepted Answer

Go to Profile → Business Details. Enter your website URL and click "Scan" to extract keywords automatically, or add tags manually. The more specific your tags and NAICS codes, the better your matches. You can update your profile at any time.

Question 9

How often does BIDS update its data?

Accepted Answer

All federal sources are refreshed every 6 hours. The match cron runs every hour, so new matches are queued within 30–90 minutes of a new opportunity being ingested. Free accounts receive a weekly email digest; Intelligence and Agent plans add real-time and daily alerts.

Question 10

What notification frequencies are available?

Accepted Answer

The free plan includes a weekly digest (one email per week). The Intelligence and Agent plans unlock real-time (email as soon as a match is found) and daily (one digest per day). Change your preference anytime in Profile → Preferences.

Question 11

What is the "intelligence" notification source toggle?

Accepted Answer

The Award Intelligence toggle is available on the Intelligence ($10/month) tier. When enabled, BIDS sends you match notifications when a federal award from USASpending, NIH RePORTER, NSF, or SBIR.gov aligns with your profile — the same matching logic used for solicitations. You can turn it off in Profile → Preferences at any time without affecting your other notification sources. Award records remain visible on the Awards page regardless of the toggle setting.

Question 12

What is SAM.gov registration and do I need it?

Accepted Answer

SAM.gov (System for Award Management) registration is required to bid on most federal contracts. It's separate from BIDS — BIDS helps you find opportunities, but you'll need an active SAM.gov registration to be eligible to respond to many of them. Enter your SAM.gov active status and expiration date in your Profile so BIDS can filter and remind you appropriately.

Question 13

What are OTA and CSO notices?

Accepted Answer

Other Transaction Authority (OTA) and Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) are specialized DoD contracting mechanisms. They operate outside the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), allowing faster and more flexible awards — especially for technology and R&D. BIDS specifically monitors SAM.gov for these notices and tags them with the OTA badge so they're easy to filter for.

Question 14

I'm not getting matches. What should I check?

Accepted Answer

A few things to check: (1) Your profile tags should be specific — "cybersecurity" matches better than "technology". (2) Make sure your NAICS codes are set — NAICS matches score 100% automatically. (3) Check Profile → Preferences to confirm your notification sources are enabled. (4) New opportunities are ingested every 6 hours, so if you just signed up, check back in a few hours.

Question 15

How do I save or track an opportunity?

Accepted Answer

Click "Save" on any opportunity card in your dashboard to add it to your Saved list. Saved opportunities are available under the Saved tab in the navigation.

Question 16

Does BIDS cover state and local opportunities?

Accepted Answer

Yes — almost all 50 state procurement portals are live, with more added regularly. Tennessee includes Board of Regents higher-ed bids and statewide CPO RFP/ITB solicitations; Edison supplier email alerts are planned next. Maryland uses the eMMA email/xlsx pipeline. State and local matches are included in the Intelligence ($10/month) tier.

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