InstantSam - Federal contracts, actually understood

Federal contracts,
actually understood

SAM.gov tells you a contract exists. It does not read the two hundred pages attached to it for you. InstantSam reads the whole package, tells you what it requires and what would disqualify you, and tells you in plain words the day anything changes.

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1.0 SCOPE. The 432d Communications Squadron requires the replacement of one hundred sixty (160) Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) batteries located in Building 64, Creech AFB, NV. 1.1 The Contractor shall furnish all labor, materials, tools, equipment, transportation, supervision and incidental items necessary to perform the work described herein, except as otherwise specified as Government furnished. 2.0 EXISTING EQUIPMENT. Enton 93PM-L-80 UPS, Serial Number EN205UJJ05, rated 50 kVA / 50 kW, 208V input and output, one (1) location comprising two (2) UPS systems and two (2) battery strings and cabinets. 2.1 REPLACEMENT BATTERY. DATASAFE 12HX400FR-BL or equal. Any proposed equal shall be submitted to the Contracting Officer for written approval not later than ten (10) calendar days prior to the date set for receipt of quotations. 3.0 CLIN 0001. UPS Battery with installation equipment, quantity one hundred sixty (160) each. 4.0 WORK INCLUDED. Furnishing and installing all batteries, new connectors, intercell cables and terminal hardware. The Government prefers all new hardware and does not accept the reuse of previously installed components except where expressly authorised in writing. 4.1 Following installation the Contractor shall connect and functionally test the system to confirm that the batteries are capable of handling rated load with no warnings, alarms or fault indications present at the UPS control panel. 5.0 PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE. All work shall be completed within ninety (90) calendar days after receipt of notice to proceed. 6.0 SITE ACCESS. Creech AFB is a controlled access installation. Contractor personnel shall submit base access requests not later than fourteen (14) calendar days prior to the intended date of first entry. Escort requirements apply in all controlled areas. 1.0 SCOPE. The 432d Communications Squadron requires the replacement of one hundred sixty (160) Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) batteries located in Building 64, Creech AFB, NV. 1.1 The Contractor shall furnish all labor, materials, tools, equipment, transportation, supervision and incidental items necessary to perform the work described herein, except as otherwise specified as Government furnished. 2.0 EXISTING EQUIPMENT. Enton 93PM-L-80 UPS, Serial Number EN205UJJ05, rated 50 kVA / 50 kW, 208V input and output, one (1) location comprising two (2) UPS systems and two (2) battery strings and cabinets. 2.1 REPLACEMENT BATTERY. DATASAFE 12HX400FR-BL or equal. Any proposed equal shall be submitted to the Contracting Officer for written approval not later than ten (10) calendar days prior to the date set for receipt of quotations. 3.0 CLIN 0001. UPS Battery with installation equipment, quantity one hundred sixty (160) each. 4.0 WORK INCLUDED. Furnishing and installing all batteries, new connectors, intercell cables and terminal hardware. The Government prefers all new hardware and does not accept the reuse of previously installed components except where expressly authorised in writing. 4.1 Following installation the Contractor shall connect and functionally test the system to confirm that the batteries are capable of handling rated load with no warnings, alarms or fault indications present at the UPS control panel. 5.0 PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE. All work shall be completed within ninety (90) calendar days after receipt of notice to proceed. 6.0 SITE ACCESS. Creech AFB is a controlled access installation. Contractor personnel shall submit base access requests not later than fourteen (14) calendar days prior to the intended date of first entry. Escort requirements apply in all controlled areas.

Find it, read it, decide it, learn from it

Most of this category stops at search. The work that loses bids happens after you have found the notice.

Find it

Every open federal notice, filtered by NAICS, agency, state and set-aside. Alerts report on themselves, so one catching far too much tells you it is set too wide.

Search and save
Filter by NAICS, set-aside, agency and deadline, and create a pursuit from any notice. Free forever.
Smart alertsPro
Save a search. Get an email and a push notification the moment a matching contract is posted, and a warning when the alert itself is catching far too much or nothing at all.
Your matchesPro
Everything your alerts have caught that is still open and not already a pursuit, closing soonest first.
Deadline calendar
Every upcoming response deadline, grouped by day, so nothing slips. Free forever.
Officer searchPro
Find the contracting officers who buy what you sell, see everything they are running right now, and reach them directly.

Read it

The attachments, not the summary. Every shall, must and required pulled out with the sentence it came from, and the disqualifying ones marked.

AI document reviewPro
Downloads every attachment, reads the PDFs and Word documents, and returns scope of work, mandatory requirements, submission instructions, evaluation criteria, risks and red flags.
Compliance checklistPro
Every “shall submit”, “must include” and “is required to”, pulled out of the solicitation with the sentence it came from. Items that would disqualify a proposal are marked as such. Shares the monthly document review allowance.
AI bid assistantPro
Ask anything about an opportunity and get answers grounded strictly in the notice itself. If it is not in the solicitation, it says so.
What work like this costsPro
What the government has actually paid for comparable work, from public award data, with the sample size shown so you can judge it.

Decide it

Strong match, worth a look, or probably not, traceable to your own profile. Amendment watch tells you the day a deadline moves.

Home
The app and the website open on what changed overnight, what closes this week, and what still needs a result recorded, most urgent first.
Amendment watchPro
Deadlines that move, set-asides that change, notices that are cancelled, and attachments that appear after you read the first version.
Daily digestPro
One email each morning with what needs you today, and silence on the days nothing does.
Certification remindersPro
Warned at sixty, thirty, fourteen, seven and one day before an 8(a), WOSB, HUBZone or SDVOSB status expires.
Fit assessmentPro
Every solicitation opens with strong match, worth a look, or probably not, and the reasons under it, each one traceable to your codes, your status or the clock.
Proposal filesPro
Every draft kept against the bid it belongs to, with versions, so the current one is never in doubt and the older ones are a tap away.

Learn from it

Who won, what they were paid, and what work like this normally costs, including on the bids you lost.

Pursuits
Move a pursuit from Watching to Bidding to Submitted, then Won, Lost or No bid, with the reason in one tap. What is waiting on you sorts to the top.
Bid capture
Record what you bid when you submit it, so the number is there when the outcome arrives.
Award outcomesPro
Who won, what they were paid, and how that compares to what you bid.
ReportsPro
Win rate, won value, median award and cycle time, and why pursuits ended, counted from the results you record. For your whole team or just your own work, with a summary by email each week or month.
Business searchPro
Look up any federal contractor. Registration status, location, NAICS codes.
Teaming partnersPro
Save the firms already winning work like yours, keep what you know about them, and put them on a bid as prime, sub or still talking.
Recompete RadarPro
Contracts in your trade and your states that end in six to eighteen months, with the incumbent and what they were paid. When a contract ends the work usually does not, and large firms pay a capture team to track exactly this.

Reading it is where most tools stop

A solicitation is not a document, it is a moving target. It gets amended, it gets cancelled, the deadline jumps forward, and eventually somebody wins it. InstantSam follows all of that and tells you.

Every morning

It opens on what changed, not on a search box

Most tools open on a list and wait for you to go looking. By the time it occurs to you to check, the amendment landed on Tuesday and the deadline moved.

InstantSam opens on the things that need a decision from you today. Amendments to bids you are watching, deadlines inside the week, and closed bids with no result recorded, ordered by what it costs you to ignore them.

It counts decisions, not notices. Four hundred new matches is not four hundred things to do, so they get a line of their own and stay out of the number at the top.

The InstantSam Home screen listing today's decisions

It watches for amendments

Agencies change notices constantly. The deadline moves, the set-aside changes, five new attachments appear, and the notice you read last week is no longer the one you are bidding on.

InstantSam links them together. When something you saved is amended you are told what changed, in plain words, the same day. One solicitation we tracked had eleven versions in five weeks.

What changed on a notice after an amendment

One email each morning

What closes soon, what changed, what closed, and what is no longer active. Nothing else.

If there is nothing worth saying, it does not send. A daily email that arrives every day whether or not it has news is an email people stop opening.

Your alerts report on themselves

A saved search quietly pulling four hundred notices a month is the most common reason people stop reading their own alerts. One that has caught nothing since the day it was created is worse, because it looks like there is no work out there.

Every alert shows what it caught and how much of it is still open, and says out loud when it needs narrowing or widening. An alert that is set up wrong should say so. These do.

Saved alerts, one warning that it catches too much

It tells you whether to bother

Tell us your NAICS codes and the set-aside statuses you hold. Once.

From then on every solicitation opens with a straight answer: strong match, worth a look, or probably not, with the reasons listed underneath. Each one traces to something real, your codes, your status, your registration, the days left on the clock. If it says probably not, you can see exactly which line decided it.

A notice with its fit assessment and reasons

It warns you before a status lapses

An 8(a), WOSB, HUBZone or SDVOSB certification found expired on submission day is a bid you cannot enter, and the renewal letter arrived months ago.

Record the expiry once and you are warned at sixty, thirty, fourteen, seven and one day, by email, whether or not you have opened the app that week.

It tells you who won

When something you are pursuing is awarded, we tell you who took it and what they were paid, usually within days of the award being posted.

You mark whether it was you in one tap. Over time that becomes the only honest record of what your work actually goes for, including the ones you lost.

An awarded notice showing the winner and the amount

Your drafts live on the bid

A proposal goes through six versions across three people, and the one that gets submitted is whichever was open at the time. Most teams keep them in a folder called Final, then Final v2, then Final FINAL.

InstantSam keeps every draft against the pursuit it belongs to. Upload it, upload it again after the revision, and both stay, numbered. The current version is the one at the top, always. Files are private to your team.

Proposal files with two versions of one document

It shows you who to bid with

Most contracts worth winning are too big for one small firm. Every one of them was won by somebody, and that somebody is in the public award record.

When you open a solicitation, InstantSam shows who has been winning that kind of work. Save any of them as a partner, write down what you know, and put them on a bid as prime, sub, or still talking. Nobody is contacted and nobody is matched. It is your own list of who you might call, built from who has already proved they can do the job.

Every result

It shows where your bids really end

A lost bid only teaches you something if somebody writes down why. When you mark a pursuit Lost or Did not bid, InstantSam asks for the reason in one tap: price, technical score, past performance, a requirement found too late.

Reports counts it all: win rate, won value, median award, how long bids take, and why pursuits ended, for your whole team or just your own work. On the website the same report can arrive by email every Monday, with a spreadsheet attached. While results are still unrecorded, it says the numbers are provisional instead of flattering you.

InstantSam Reports showing win rate, won value and why pursuits ended

Sample data

Why does everything else need a phone call?

Because most of it is sold to capture teams. Pricing usually sits behind a demo call, the contract usually runs a year, and the feature set assumes you have a proposal department.

That model works if you have one. If you are three people deciding tonight whether a contract is worth an evening, it was never built for you.

Read your next solicitation tonight

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Create your free account

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Open a solicitation in your trade

Search every open federal notice by NAICS code, agency or state.

Have the attachments read for you

Scope, mandatory requirements, how it is evaluated and what would disqualify you, each with the sentence it came from.

Federal contracts,actually understood