What Bid Trawler is
Bid Trawler is a UK platform that helps small and medium businesses find and win government contracts. Its website says it hand-curates live tender opportunities from Find a Tender and Contracts Finder, scores how winnable each one is for your business, and gives you expert bid writing support when you decide to go for it.
It has two plans, as listed on its website in October 2026. Bid Trawler Lite is free forever and includes contract email alerts by sector, sub-sector and region, browsing and searching live tenders, frameworks and pre-market engagement notices, saving and watching contracts, AI company profile generation and its procurement knowledge hub. Bid Trawler Pro is listed from £150/month and adds AI tender matching, go/no-go scoring, tender pack review and downloads, an AI bid writer workspace, an AI compliance review, CRM, competitor intelligence, a project planner and dedicated support. Separately, it offers a managed bid writing service and what it calls no win, no fee bid writing.
What Bid Trawler does well
- Hands-on curation. Bid Trawler says its opportunities are hand-curated rather than simply fed through from the portals, which suits suppliers who would rather start from a shortlist.
- Help with the writing. An AI bid writer workspace, a compliance review and a managed bid writing service mean you can get help with the response itself. For a small team with little bid experience, that is valuable.
- Winnability scoring. Go/no-go scoring and a quick tender pack review are aimed at the decision of whether a contract is worth the effort.
- A free starting point. Lite is free forever, with email alerts and search across live tenders, frameworks and pre-market engagement notices.
How TenderSignal approaches the job
TenderSignal does the earlier step: finding and qualifying tenders. It covers England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. That means the national portals (Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales, eTendersNI and eTenders in Ireland) plus 600+ buyer portals that we check directly, including councils, NHS bodies, housing associations, universities and utilities, on platforms such as In-Tend, Delta eSourcing, ProContract, Atamis and Jaggaer.
Around one in four live tenders we carry is not on any national portal. Those notices are on the buyer's own portal, and checking hundreds of portals takes time. We do that for you, then match what we find to the sectors, regions and buyer types you set.
Pro costs £39/month + VAT, with monthly billing and no lock-in. It gives you every match delivered daily, buyer contact name, email and phone, an AI relevance score with the reasoning, matches not on the national portals, contracts coming up for renewal in your sectors and unlimited saved searches. Free lets you browse and discover, and the Free plan is £0 with no card: search, filter and sort every live tender yourself, open every tender page, see award history and competitor profiles, and keep one saved search with its matches in your account, with a weekly email of how many new tenders it found. Business starts at £99/month + VAT for teams. Details are on the pricing page.
What TenderSignal does not do is write your bid. There is no managed submission service and no bid library. We stop at helping you decide what to bid for and who to talk to.
Bid Trawler vs TenderSignal at a glance
Bid Trawler details are taken from its own website in October 2026. Where its site does not say, the table says so.
| Question | Bid Trawler | TenderSignal |
|---|---|---|
| Core idea | Curated tenders plus bid support | Tender discovery and qualification |
| Geography | UK public sector, from Find a Tender and Contracts Finder (Ireland not listed on its website) | UK and Ireland |
| Tender feed | Described as hand-curated from Find a Tender and Contracts Finder | National portals plus 600+ buyer portals, matched to your profile |
| Free option | Lite, free forever: email alerts, search, save and watch | Free plan at £0, no card: search every live tender, weekly count of new matches |
| Paid price | Pro from £150/month | Pro £39/month + VAT; Business from £99/month + VAT |
| Bid writing or review | AI bid writer workspace on Pro; managed bid writing service | Not offered |
| Buyer contacts | Not listed on its website | Free on tenders also on the national portals; all of them on Pro |
| AI | AI tender matching, go/no-go scoring and AI bid writing on Pro | AI relevance score with the reasoning, included on Pro |
Who each product suits
Bid Trawler may suit you if you are newer to bidding, want expert help with the writing, and prefer a curated shortlist with a human behind it. That support is what its paid plan is built around.
TenderSignal may suit you if you write your own bids, or have a bid team, and your problem is knowing about the right tenders early enough to prepare, including those that sit outside the national portals. It also suits you if you want a free plan to search with, no card, and a modest monthly price to step up when you want Pro to do the finding for you.
Using both is reasonable. TenderSignal can find and qualify the opportunity, name the buyer contact and flag the renewal. If you then want help writing the response, a bid writing service can take over from there.
Where to go next
Our alternatives hub compares more tools, and the tender alert software roundup covers the wider market. Browse by nation with the England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland hubs, or by sector, such as facilities management tenders. Look up any council or NHS body in the buyer directory, or begin with free tender alerts. Related comparison: Tenderbase.