Tender alerts solved the problem of the last decade: finding out that a notice exists. They send you everything that matches a keyword or a code, and for a while that felt like enough.
It is not enough anymore. The problem most companies have today is not finding tenders. It is the fifteen alerts that arrive every morning, all looking roughly relevant, each hiding its real requirements in a PDF. Somebody still has to read them all to find the two that matter. ConcursosGov does that part.
What tender alerts do well, and where they stop
Alerts are good at one thing: coverage. Set a filter and you will not miss a notice that matches it. That is real value, and it is also exactly where the work begins rather than ends.
Four things tender alerts leave to you
If you use tender alerts today, your team is doing these four jobs by hand. Each one is something ConcursosGov does before you open the list.
| The job | With tender alerts | With ConcursosGov |
|---|---|---|
| Ranking | Every match arrives in publication order. You decide which to open first. | Each tender scored from 0 to 100 on procedure type, capability match, base value, non-price criteria and location. |
| Reading | You download the documents and look for criteria, deadlines and requirements. | The AI reads the procedure programme and specifications. The decisive fields come out structured. |
| Deciding together | Decisions live in email threads, chats and someone's memory. | Interested, not interested, submitted or highlighted, each with author, date and note. |
| Reporting | Someone rebuilds the weekly list in a spreadsheet. | The filtered list exports to Excel with score, estimated effort, deadlines and decision. |
How ConcursosGov ranks what tender alerts would send
The ranking is the part that replaces most of the reading. Every tender gets a score from 0 to 100, built from five factors. By default, the type of procedure is worth 40 points, the match with your capabilities 30, the base value 15, the non-price award criteria 10 and the location 5.
Each account can adjust the weights. A company that only bids where quality decides can raise the weight of non-price criteria. A company that serves one region can raise the weight of location. Tender alerts cannot do this, because a keyword either matches or it does not.
The breakdown is shown next to every score. When a tender ranks lower than expected, the team can see which factor pulled it down and decide whether they agree.
The cost of a list that is not ranked
An unranked list has a hidden rule: the tender that gets read first is the one that arrived first, not the one you are most likely to win. On a busy week, the good tender at the bottom of the inbox gets opened on Thursday. By then the window for clarification questions, which closes in the first third of the submission period, may already be gone.
The reverse problem is just as expensive. A tender for ruggedised smartphones worth €912,930 looks attractive in an alert for an IT company. In ConcursosGov it arrives scored 25, because the object is hardware supply and the procedure does not suit the company. Fifteen seconds to dismiss, instead of an afternoon reading documents to reach the same conclusion.
One morning with tender alerts and one with ConcursosGov
Take an illustrative Tuesday. With tender alerts, the inbox holds fifteen new notices. Each email has a title, a contracting authority and a link. The person who handles tenders opens the promising ones, downloads the documents and reads enough of each to decide. By lunchtime, three have been read properly. Two were not worth it. The third was. It still needs a full reading in the afternoon.
With ConcursosGov, the same fifteen notices are in the list, sorted by score. The two at the top show base value, deadlines, award criteria and team requirements in plain fields. The person reads those two properly, marks them interested and leaves a note for a colleague. The rest are marked not interested in a few minutes, each with a one-line reason. By ten o'clock, the rest of the morning is free for the proposal itself.
The alerts did their job in both cases. They made sure the notices arrived. What changed is how much of the morning it took to turn fifteen notices into two decisions.
Fifteen notices is a plausible number for a company with a few broad keywords. On a busy week it can be thirty. The reading time grows with the number of alerts. The time it takes to screen a ranked list barely changes.
Switching from tender alerts takes an afternoon
There is nothing to migrate and no project to run. Most teams make the switch like this.
-
1Translate your alert filters into CPV codes. Look at the codes on the notices your alerts have been sending you, and on the contracts you have won on Portal BASE. Those are your starting codes.
-
2Create the account and add the codes. The first scored list arrives the same day, drawn from the notices currently open.
-
3Run both for two weeks. Keep your alerts during the trial. Check whether anything worth bidding for reached the alerts and not the list. If it did, add its code.
-
4Invite the team. Colleagues join by email invitation and see the same tenders and decisions from the start.
After two weeks you will know whether the ranked list misses anything your alerts catch, and how much reading it saved. That is a better basis for a decision than any comparison page, including this one.
What changes for the person who reads the alerts
In most companies, tender alerts land with one person. That person becomes the filter for the whole company, often without anyone deciding it. When they are on holiday, the alerts pile up. When they leave, the knowledge of which tenders were dropped and why leaves with them.
ConcursosGov changes that role. The list is shared, so the screening no longer depends on one inbox. Every decision is recorded with author, date and note, so the reasons stay with the company. The person who used to read every alert now spends their time on the tenders that reached the top, which is where their judgement was always most useful.
What ConcursosGov watches, and what it does not
ConcursosGov monitors Portal BASE every day, together with the procedure documents published with each notice. Portal BASE is the official source for Portuguese public contracts.
It does not monitor TED, the EU's Tenders Electronic Daily, or other procurement platforms. Some tender alert services cover those sources too. If part of your pipeline comes from them, keep that service for those sources. Some teams will end up with both: ConcursosGov for the Portuguese market they bid in every week, and a lighter alert for the rest.
Within your CPV codes, there is no cap. Every matching notice on Portal BASE reaches the list, whether the week is quiet or busy.
Who should keep using plain alerts
Honestly, some companies should. If you bid for one or two public tenders a year, an alert and an occasional look at Portal BASE are enough. ConcursosGov pays off on repetition: the more tenders you screen, the more time ranking and document reading save. For companies that bid regularly, the gap grows every week.
Before you cancel your tender alerts
Three checks make the decision safe.
Compare two weeks side by side. Keep both running during the trial and note every tender worth bidding for that reached the alerts but not the list. Each one usually points to a missing CPV code.
Check the sources your alerts cover. If they include TED or platforms outside Portal BASE, decide whether you still need that coverage.
Ask the people who use the list. If the team reaches decisions faster and nobody misses the inbox, the answer is already there.
If all three checks come back clean, cancelling is a small decision. If one of them raises a doubt, keep the alert for that specific source and let ConcursosGov handle the rest. There is no reason to treat it as all or nothing.
What it costs
Plans start at €490 a year on Solo with annual billing, or from €49 a month on monthly billing, and are separated by the number of CPV codes and users. There is no cap on tenders within your codes. Prices are published in full on the pricing page, with no form and no sales call needed to see them.
Frequently asked questions
What teams moving from alerts usually ask.
What is the difference between tender alerts and ConcursosGov?
Where does ConcursosGov get its data?
Will we miss tenders if we drop our alerts?
How long does it take to switch?
Is ConcursosGov an official Portal BASE service?
Can we change how the score is calculated?
Does ConcursosGov cover TED or other procurement platforms?
Can several colleagues use the same account?
