No tool · Manual process
Alternatives to manual portal checking (2026)
Manual portal checking costs no licence fee, but each portal has its own login, language and search, and someone must check each one. Sell to State puts 73 live markets in one search with one daily alert email, for US$49/month.
Facts checked on from the vendors' public pages. Sources
Manual Portal Checking
- Price
- Staff time
- Coverage
- Each portal you check
- API
- Some portals
- MCP server
- No
Sell to State
- Price
- US$19/3 days; US$49/month
- Coverage
- 73 live markets, 120 more in the backlog
- API
- Yes
- MCP server
- Yes
What manual portal checking is
Each country publishes tenders on its own portals: SAM.gov in the US, TED in the EU, PNCP in Brazil, AusTender in Australia and hundreds more. Many are free to search, and some send email alerts. The cost is the time to log in, search and copy the results, in each language.
What manual portal checking costs
The official portals are mostly free. The cost is staff time: the hours that a person spends to check each portal, translate and copy results. Multiply those hours by the hourly cost of that person.
Manual Portal Checking vs Sell to State, row by row
"Not stated" means that we did not find the fact on the vendor's public pages on 4 November 2026. It does not mean "no".
| Row | Manual Portal Checking | Sell to State |
|---|---|---|
| Markets covered | Each portal that you log in to | 73 live markets; 120 more in the backlog |
| Sources | One portal per login | Official portals and open data of each live market. The docs list the sources of each country. |
| Data | What each portal shows | Tenders, contract awards, 175,895 buyers, 2,079,622 suppliers |
| Published price | Free portals; you pay in staff time | US$19 for 3 days, US$49/month, or US$499/year |
| Pricing model | Staff time | Flat price, self-serve checkout |
| Users | Each person needs a login per portal | One price covers the whole team |
| Free plan or trial | Most official portals are free to search | Free account; US$19 3-day pass |
| Alerts | Portal emails, where a portal sends them | Saved tender searches. A daily or weekly email (06:00 UTC) with the count of new matches. |
| API | Some portals publish an API (for example TED, SAM.gov, Find a Tender) | REST API, 120 requests a minute per key |
| MCP server | No | Yes. app.selltostate.com/api/mcp, listed in the official MCP Registry |
Where manual portal checking is the better choice
- No licence fee.
- The official source, with no delay from a third party.
- Full portal features, for example bid submission.
Where Sell to State fits
- You sell in more than one or two countries.
- You want one search and one daily alert email for all of them.
- You want past awards and supplier history in one place.
Sell to State data: 73 live markets
- Contract awards
- 12,806,903
- Buyers
- 175,895
- Suppliers
- 2,079,622
Questions
Is it cheaper to check portals by hand?
There is no licence fee, but there is staff time for each portal. When you watch more than one or two portals, compare those hours with US$49/month.
Which portals have an API?
TED (EU), SAM.gov (US), Find a Tender (UK) and PNCP (Brazil) publish APIs. Each one has its own format.
Do I still need the portal to bid?
Yes. You submit the bid on the official portal. Sell to State helps you find the tender and the buyer's history.
What are the alternatives to manual portal checking?
A tender aggregator: Sell to State, OpenOpps, TendersInfo, or a country tool such as GovTribe in the US.
How we checked
We read the public pricing, product and documentation pages of each vendor on 4 November 2026. When a site blocked our check, we read its archive.org copy. The Sell to State column comes from our own pricing page, docs and data. To report a correction, email hello@selltostate.com.
Try Sell to State
Tenders, contract awards, buyers and suppliers in 73 live markets, 120 more in the backlog. US$49/month for the whole team, with a REST API and an MCP server.