Comparison

TenderTracker vs Contracts Finder

Contracts Finder is the UK government's free, official portal for sub-threshold contract opportunities. TenderTracker is a paid search platform (£99/month) that combines Contracts Finder with Find a Tender in one hourly-refreshed index of 264,250 notices, adding unified search, alerts, and buyer intelligence. You never need TenderTracker to bid; it exists to save you the time of watching two portals.

At a glance

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Contracts Finder	TenderTracker
Price	Free	£99/month (14-day free trial)
Sub-threshold contracts (Contracts Finder)
Above-threshold contracts (Find a Tender)
Official source of record
Full-text search across both portals
Email alerts	Saved-search emails	Configurable alerts across both portals
Buyer & supplier profiles
Contract statistics & market data
Browse by CPV category and location	Basic filters	Dedicated directory pages

What Contracts Finder Does Well

Contracts Finder is the authoritative source for sub-threshold public contracts in England: opportunities over £12,000 from central government and over £30,000 from the wider public sector. It is free, requires no account to browse, and publishes award information that shows who won and at what value. If you only bid occasionally, or only care about a single buyer you already know, the official portal may be all you need.

What TenderTracker Adds

TenderTracker currently tracks 72,610Contracts Finder notices alongside Find a Tender's above-threshold notices, refreshed hourly, so one search covers the whole market:

One index, both portals: no more running the same search twice with different filters and interfaces.
Alerts that span thresholds: a single alert catches a buyer's £25k pilot on Contracts Finder and the £2m follow-up on Find a Tender.
Buyer and supplier intelligence: profile pages showing each organisation's contract history, values, and active tenders.
Market context: procurement statistics, CPV category pages, and location directories for sizing a sector before you invest in bidding.

Which Should You Use?

Use Contracts Finder directly if you bid rarely, monitor one or two buyers, and don't mind checking two portals. Use TenderTracker if winning public sector work is a meaningful revenue channel and the time you spend searching, deduplicating, and monitoring two government portals is worth more than £99 a month. Either way, bidding itself always happens through the official channels linked from each notice.

Common questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Contracts Finder free to use?

Yes. Contracts Finder is the UK government's official, free portal for sub-threshold contract opportunities. Central government bodies must publish contracts over £12,000 there, and other public bodies contracts over £30,000. You never need a paid tool to view or bid on these contracts.

What does TenderTracker add over Contracts Finder?

TenderTracker combines Contracts Finder with Find a Tender (above-threshold notices) in one search index that refreshes hourly, currently covering 264,250 notices including 72,610 from Contracts Finder. It adds unified full-text search, configurable email alerts, buyer and supplier profiles, and procurement statistics. It costs £99/month after a 14-day free trial.

Do I still bid through Contracts Finder if I use TenderTracker?

Yes. TenderTracker is a discovery and monitoring tool; every notice links back to the official source, and bids are always submitted through the buyer's own procurement portal as instructed in the notice.