Last Updated on September 23, 2026
Every public tender notice you could want is already free. Paid tender alert services sell search, filtering and history on top. This guide reports what each one published on its own pricing page on 23 September 2026.
The mistake: paying for “access” to public contracts. GOV.UK’s guide for suppliers says Find a Tender “is free to use for everyone. There are no charges and you should not pay to view opportunities in the public sector.”
The free, official services
| Service | What it costs | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Find a Tender | Free. Registration only needed when you bid | Notices for procurements under the Procurement Act 2023, which took effect on 24 February 2025 |
| Contracts Finder | Free. You can search without an account | Contracts worth over £12,000 including VAT with government and its agencies. Mainly older procurements now |
Paid services that publish a price
| Service | Published price | Free option |
|---|---|---|
| BidStats | Standard £350 a year. Pro £800 a year with three seats included. Insights from £5k a year | Yes: 5 tender views a day, tenders from the last 90 days |
| BidSkim | Monitor £65 a month billed annually (£780 a year), or £79 on monthly billing. Predict £155 a month billed annually (£1,860 a year), or £189 on monthly billing. The page says it is not VAT registered and prices are final | Yes: browse live tenders and one sign-up scan |
| Stotles | Sales Studio Basic from £75 a month, Growth from £475 a month. Bid Studio Growth from £990 a month | Yes: tender tracking and pre-tenders |
| Tenders Direct | Tender alert subscriptions from £1,359 a year | Not stated on the pricing page |
Paid services that publish no price
| Service | What the page says |
|---|---|
| Tracker | A 3-day free trial and a free demo. No price on the tender alerts page |
What you are actually paying for
Not the notices. You are paying for someone else to search them, filter them to your trade and region, keep the history and, at the top end, tell you who the buyer and the incumbent are.
For a small firm, start with the free route: a saved search on Find a Tender and a regular look at Contracts Finder. Pay only when the time you spend searching costs more than the subscription. Our guide on how a UK firm gets onto public infrastructure work covers the routes in full.
Takeaway: pay for the filtering, never for the notices.
Method. We opened each service’s own pricing or product page, and GOV.UK’s pages for the free services, on 23 September 2026. We recorded only what was published.
Limits. Prices change. Apart from BidSkim, the pages we read did not say whether VAT is added. We did not test any service. No service paid to appear, and Whito does not broker tenders or sell introductions.
Sources, each read on 23 September 2026: GOV.UK, Procurement Act 2023 guide for suppliers · Find a Tender · GOV.UK, Contracts Finder · BidStats pricing · BidSkim pricing · Stotles pricing · Tenders Direct pricing · Tracker tender alerts
If a price or fact here is wrong, tell us and we will check it against the source. Corrections, right of reply and removals: whito.co.uk/corrections/.
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