Solutions

One search across 13,000 state and local portals.

samsearch is an AI platform for state, local and education procurement. It crawls 13,000 state, local and education procurement portals, reaching around 50,000 buying agencies across all 50 states. That covers state governments, counties, cities, school districts, universities, and transit and utility authorities.

Search in plain English. Read a summary instead of a bid package. Be told when an addendum moves a date. Get the bids worth your time pushed to you.

Book a Demo

The SLED problem is not depth. It is scatter.

Federal work is hard because the packages are long. State and local work is hard because there is no single place it is published.

State, local & educationAddenda tracked · alerts on

BidNet DirectBonfirePeriscopeOpenGovIonwaveeMMABid ExpressVendor RegistryDemandStarProcureNowand thousands more

One feed

City of Mesa, AZDue in 21 days

Citywide fiber network expansion

via Bonfire

Dallas ISD, TXAddendum 3Due in 9 days

Student transportation services

via Ionwave

Harris County, TXDue in 34 days

Wastewater treatment plant O&M

via BidNet Direct

There is no SAM.gov for SLED

Every state runs its own system. Most large counties and cities run another. Districts and universities often run a third. A long tail of authorities post a PDF to a web page and nothing else.

No shared format, no shared taxonomy

Jurisdictions do not agree on categories, and most have no notion of a NAICS code. The same requirement is described a dozen ways across a dozen portals.

Registration walls, one per portal

Several sources require an account before you can even see a package. samsearch maintains that access so your team does not have to keep fifty logins alive.

One feed, with the source attached

Bids are normalised into consistent fields and indexed for semantic search. Each record keeps its jurisdiction and its portal, so every result is traceable back to where it was published.

Bid documents, read before you open them

A SLED package is shorter than a federal one and just as disqualifying. The conditions that rule you out are rarely in the summary.

AttachmentsRead on arrival5 files · 214 pages

PDFSolicitation W912DR26R001468 ppRead
PDFAttachment 1, Statement of work94 ppRead
PDFAttachment 2, Wage determination11 ppRead
XLSXAttachment 3, Pricing schedule4 ppRead
PDFAmendment 000237 ppRead

What it says

ScopeFacilities O&M across 14 buildings, 1.2M sq ft

EligibilityTotal small business set-aside, NAICS 561210

EvaluationTechnical significantly more important than price

WatchMandatory site visit added by Amendment 0002

214 pages, summarised before anyone opened the package.

The whole package, on arrival

Specifications and drawings. Bid forms and pricing sheets. Insurance, bonding and licensing conditions. Prevailing wage schedules. Everything is read as it lands.

A summary you can decide from

Scope, quantities, place of performance, key dates and the terms that most often disqualify a bidder. Written in plain English, before anyone opens a document.

The conditions that decide it

Bonding thresholds, insurance limits, local preference rules, licensing requirements and mandatory pre-bid attendance. These are pulled out as fields, not left inside a PDF.

Cited back to the page

Every extraction points to its document and page. You verify a citation rather than trusting a summary, which is what makes it usable on a real bid decision.

Addenda are tracked, and you are told

State and local addenda move deadlines and change scope exactly as federal amendments do. They are published with far less ceremony.

An addendum on a county solicitation is often a replacement PDF. No summary of what moved, posted to a portal you would have to remember to check. Teams find out the due date changed when they submit late.

What happens on an addendum

The package is read again
It is diffed against the previous version
Changed fields are listed, not buried
Tasks carrying old dates move with them
Everyone watching the bid is notified

Fields compared

Bid opening and question deadlines
Pre-bid meeting date and attendance
Quantities and specifications
Bonding and insurance requirements
Award criteria and evaluation method

Why it matters more here

Windows are short, often two to three weeks
Addenda land late in the window
Portals rarely email non-registered vendors
A missed addendum can void a bid outright

Every bid graded against your profile

Fill in a company profile once. Every new bid across 13,000 portals is read and scored against it, continuously.

Scored with its reasoning

Each recommendation carries a fit score and a plain-English reason citing the passage it came from. You can disagree with it, which is the point.

Territory applied first

State, jurisdiction type, named agency and place of performance are filtered before scoring. A service radius is a hard constraint, not a preference.

Local advantage recognised

Many jurisdictions weight or reserve awards for in-state, in-county or local vendors. Where you have a presence, that is a scored advantage and the grading knows it.

Licences and certifications matched

State contractor licences, DBE, MBE and WBE status, and prequalification where a jurisdiction requires it. Matched against what each bid actually asks for.

Saved searches that qualify before they email you

Across 13,000 portals and 50,000 agencies, a keyword alert is unusable. Qualification happens before the email is sent.

Save a search per territory
Most teams run one saved search per state or service area rather than one that returns everything. Keywords, a plain-English description, or your whole profile.
Every source is watched
New bids across all 13,000 portals are picked up continuously, and their documents processed rather than just their titles.
AI drops the weak matches
Each candidate is graded against your profile and territory. What survives is a shortlist, not everything that contained your keyword.
A digest you can act on
Daily or weekly, with the score and the reason on each item, and links straight to the bid rather than to a search page.

What is covered

Why teams search SLED at all

The market is larger than federal in aggregate, and it behaves nothing like it.

Less competition per bid

A county solicitation is seen by the vendors who happen to watch that county. The same work federally would draw a field several times larger.

Census state and local government finances

Local preference is a real edge

Many jurisdictions weight or reserve awards for local vendors. If you have a physical presence somewhere, that is a structural advantage federal work does not offer.

Faster cycles, smaller packages

SLED solicitations are often a fraction of the length of a federal RFP. Awards come in weeks rather than quarters, which suits teams that cannot carry a nine-month capture.

No federal registration to start

Most jurisdictions run their own vendor registration and do not require a SAM.gov UEI. SLED is where many companies win their first public-sector contract.

Co-op vehicles multiply one win

A contract awarded through a co-operative purchasing organisation can be used by other members without recompeting. One award can serve many buyers.

The work recurs

Facilities, transportation, food service, IT support and maintenance renew on predictable cycles at every jurisdiction. That makes the pipeline forecastable.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is SLED procurement?

SLED stands for state, local and education. It covers procurement by state governments, counties, cities, school districts, universities, and authorities such as transit, water and housing. In aggregate it is a larger market than federal contracting. Unlike federal work it has no single publication point, because every jurisdiction runs its own process and its own portal.

Where are state and local contracts published?

Nowhere central, which is the whole problem. Each state runs its own system. Most large counties and cities run another. Many districts and authorities post bids as a PDF on a departmental page. Commercial portals such as BidNet Direct, Bonfire, Periscope, OpenGov and Ionwave each aggregate a slice. samsearch crawls 13,000 of these portals, reaching around 50,000 buying agencies, and presents them as one feed with the source attached to every record.

How many state and local sources does samsearch cover?

13,000 portals, reaching around 50,000 buying agencies across all 50 states. Portals and agencies are different counts: one portal often serves many agencies, because a single commercial system can carry a whole state's counties. Coverage includes state governments, counties, cities, school districts, higher education, and transit, water, port and housing authorities, plus the long tail of jurisdictions that publish only to their own website.

Does samsearch summarise state and local bid documents?

Yes. Specifications, drawings, bid forms, pricing sheets and the insurance, bonding and licensing conditions are all read on arrival. You get a plain-English summary covering scope, quantities, place of performance, key dates and the terms that most often disqualify a bidder. Every extraction cites the document and page it came from.

Does samsearch track addenda on state and local bids?

Yes. Any bid you track is watched from then on. When an addendum posts, the package is re-read and diffed against the previous version, so you see which fields actually changed rather than a replacement PDF with no explanation. Due dates, quantities, specifications, bonding and insurance conditions and pre-bid meeting requirements are all compared. Everyone watching is notified and tasks carrying the old dates move.

Can I ask questions about a bid document?

Yes. Sammy reads the whole package and answers plain-English questions about scope, bonding, insurance, licensing, prevailing wage and award criteria. Each answer links to the source document and highlights the phrase it came from, so you are checking a citation rather than trusting a summary.

How is SLED different from federal contracting?

Three ways that matter. There is no central portal, so discovery is the hard part rather than qualification. Local preference is common, so a physical presence in a jurisdiction can be a scored advantage. And cycles are shorter, with smaller packages and awards in weeks rather than quarters. Registration is per jurisdiction rather than a single federal UEI, which is why many companies win their first public-sector contract at state or local level.

Can I search state and local alongside federal?

Yes, and most teams do. SLED, federal, education, DIBBS, GSA eBuy, grants, SBIR, forecasts, recompetes and subcontracting are searchable together or separately. You choose which sources a given saved search covers. Results from every market land on the same pipeline rather than in separate tools.

Can I filter to my state, county or city?

Yes. Filter by state, by jurisdiction type such as county or school district, by named agency, and by place of performance. Teams with a service radius normally save one search per territory and let the alerts do the watching.

Will I get alerted when a matching bid is posted?

Yes. Any search can be saved as a monitor and your company profile is matched against new bids continuously. Alerts are qualified with AI before they are sent, so the digest is a shortlist with a score and a reason on each item rather than a keyword dump. Daily, weekly or real-time.

How quickly do new state and local bids appear?

Sources are monitored continuously and most bids appear within hours of being posted to the original site. Speed matters more here than federally, because SLED response windows are frequently two to three weeks rather than a month or more.

Do you cover cooperative purchasing contracts?

Yes. Solicitations issued through co-operative purchasing organisations are indexed alongside direct jurisdiction bids. These are worth watching disproportionately. Winning a place on a co-op contract lets other member agencies buy from you without running their own competition, so one award can serve many buyers.

Do I need a federal registration to bid on state and local work?

Usually not. Most jurisdictions run their own vendor registration and do not require a SAM.gov UEI, though some that pass through federal funds do. Requirements are per jurisdiction. This is one reason SLED is a common entry point for companies that have not registered federally.

Can samsearch help write the bid response?

Yes. It drafts a response against the solicitation and your own approved content, structured to whatever the package asks for. Bid forms and standard attachments are filled from your company record. The draft is grounded in two sources and nothing else: the solicitation itself and content you own.

Who uses samsearch for state and local contracts?

Construction and trades firms, IT and professional services companies, facilities and janitorial contractors, staffing agencies, transportation providers, equipment and supply vendors, and consultants running capture for clients across several jurisdictions. The common factor is a service area covering more jurisdictions than a person can watch by hand.

See your territory in one feed.

A demo runs against your service area and your capabilities, not a prepared example.

Book a Demo

One search across 13,000 state and local portals.

Search in plain English. Read a summary instead of a bid package. Be told when an addendum moves a date. Get the bids worth your time pushed to you.

Book a Demo