BidSonar vs BidStats
BidStats and BidSonar share a conviction: public procurement data shouldn't be enterprise-priced. BidStats offers free browsing — five tender views a day, last 90 days — with paid plans from £350 a year for unlimited views and email alerts. BidSonar is free without the caps: unlimited browsing, semantic matching against a plain-English profile, email alerts, grants alongside contracts, and 75,000+ organisation profiles. Both are honest tools at honest prices; only one knows what your business actually does.
Keyword vs semantic
BidStats is a keyword tool: you tune search terms and, on a paid plan, alerts fire when notices match them — precision, if you already know exactly what to search for. BidSonar matches semantically against a plain-English profile, so it surfaces relevant work you'd never have thought to search for, with a confidence score telling you how strong each match is. Keywords give control; semantic matching gives reach. If your terms are dialled in, BidStats is precise; if you'd miss opportunities phrased differently, BidSonar catches them.
The fine print of “free”
Both of us believe procurement data shouldn't be enterprise-priced, and BidStats is genuinely inexpensive. But its free tier caps at five tender views a day and ninety days of history, browse-only; email alerts start at £350/year for a single notifier, and export at £800/year. BidSonar's free tier has none of those browsing or alert caps — unlimited views, matching, and alerts, at no cost. The practical difference: the caps BidStats lifts on its £350/year plan — unlimited views and alerts — simply aren't there on BidSonar's free tier.
Coverage
BidStats draws from around three portals (Contracts Finder and OJEU) and is contracts-only. BidSonar covers the five official UK and EU feeds and adds grants from Innovate UK and UKRI, plus 75,000+ organisation profiles and a winnability read — incumbency and field openness — that BidStats doesn't offer. If you want tightly controlled keyword alerts on core UK contracts, BidStats does that well; if you want breadth, grants, and context, BidSonar goes further.
Choose BidStats if
- You want exact keyword control over alerts and you're happy to pay £350–£800/yr for it
- You've already tuned searches that work for you
- You want their multi-year archive on a Pro plan
Choose BidSonar if
- You'd rather not hit a five-views-a-day ceiling while evaluating
- You don't want to guess every phrase a procurement officer might use
- You want grants alongside contracts
- You want incumbency and field context, not just the notice
- Is BidSonar free like BidStats?
- BidStats' free tier caps at five tender views a day and ninety days of history, with email alerts starting at £350/year. BidSonar has no view caps and free alerts — what you pay for on BidStats is free here.
- Does BidSonar cover grants?
- Yes — Innovate UK and UKRI grants sit alongside contracts. BidStats is contracts-only.
- Keyword or semantic — which finds more?
- Honestly, both have a place. Keywords give precision when you know exactly what to search for; semantic matching surfaces relevant work you'd never have searched. BidSonar's confidence score bridges the two by telling you how strong each match is.
See it for yourself.
The whole index is free to browse, signed out — or describe your business and see what matches.
A serious B2G platform: tender feeds from around ten UK portals, buyer and competitor intelligence, and AI that qualifies and drafts your bids.
The enterprise option: UK market intelligence, spend analytics, early buying signals and buyer contacts, sold on annual subscription to BD teams.