Comparison

WinAContract vs Contracts Finder

Contracts Finder is the UK Cabinet Office's free portal for central government and wider public sector contracts above £12k / £30k. WinAContract is a faster commercial aggregator covering Contracts Finder plus four other portals.

Try WinAContract (free)

WinAContract vs Contracts Finder — feature comparison

Feature	WinAContract	Contracts Finder
Pricing	Free + paid tiers	Free
Contracts Finder notices
Find a Tender Service notices Only CF — not FTS
Public Contracts Scotland
Sell2Wales
eTendersNI
Daily keyword alerts		Basic RSS only
Value band filtering		Limited
Buyer profile pages
Historical award analysis
AI bid writing integration
Saved searches
API access	Paid plans	OCDS feed (developer use)
UI speed	Fast	Slow on complex filters

Where WinAContract wins

5 portals in 1 search — never miss a tender hidden on a portal you forgot to check.
Daily keyword alerts delivered to your inbox — no manual checking required.
Buyer intelligence: typical contract values, win-rate patterns, incumbent suppliers.
Cross-portal deduplication so you don't see the same contract twice.
Faster UI with sector, region, value, and deadline filters applied simultaneously.
Integrated with BidWriter for AI-assisted responses.

Where Contracts Finder wins

Completely free, no account required for browsing.
Official government source — legally authoritative for compliance references.
Structured OCDS feed for developers integrating procurement data.
Includes some below-£12k transparency notices that commercial aggregators may miss.

What Contracts Finder covers

Contracts Finder is run by the UK Cabinet Office and lists every UK public-sector contract above £12,000 (central government) or £30,000 (other public bodies). Publication is mandatory under the Procurement Act 2023. It's the primary UK portal for mid-value procurement.

Key limitation: Contracts Finder does not include above-threshold notices from Find a Tender Service. Contracts above ~£139k services / ~£5.4M works must be listed on FTS (the post-Brexit replacement for OJEU) in addition to Contracts Finder. If you only check CF, you miss the highest-value contracts.

When Contracts Finder is enough

If you're mainly bidding for mid-value UK-wide contracts, Contracts Finder covers most of what you need. It has enough search to find contracts by keyword, sector code (CPV), and location. RSS feeds let you pull new notices into a feed reader if you don't want email alerts.

You only need central government and English local authority coverage.
You're comfortable checking a portal daily or using RSS.
You don't need buyer-level analytics.
Your contract value range is £12k-£139k (above FTS threshold means you also need FTS).

When you need a Contracts Finder alternative

Most UK suppliers find Contracts Finder becomes insufficient as their bidding operation scales. Specific pain points that push suppliers to alternatives:

Missing FTS notices — you've lost a high-value contract because you only saw it late after someone else spotted it on Find a Tender Service.
Devolved coverage — you work with Scottish, Welsh, or NI buyers and have to check those portals separately.
Time pressure — checking the portal daily is eating time your team should spend on bid responses.
No buyer intelligence — you're bidding blind without knowing what a buyer typically spends, who wins their contracts, or when their current contracts expire.

How to switch from Contracts Finder to WinAContract

No migration is required — both work alongside each other. To replace your current Contracts Finder workflow:

1. Sign up for a free WinAContract account at winacontract.co.uk.
2. Set up 2-3 keyword alerts covering your core services.
3. Review daily alert emails. Any tender you would have found on CF appears here, plus the ones from FTS and the devolved portals.
4. Once you trust the coverage, stop checking Contracts Finder directly.

Frequently asked questions

Is Contracts Finder the only place UK tenders are published?

No. Contracts Finder covers central government above £12k and other public bodies above £30k. Higher-value contracts (~£139k services, ~£5.4M works) are also listed on Find a Tender Service. Scottish contracts are on Public Contracts Scotland, Welsh on Sell2Wales, Northern Irish on eTendersNI. Relying only on Contracts Finder means missing significant chunks of the UK tender market.

Is WinAContract a government service?

No. WinAContract is a commercial aggregator that indexes data from official government portals. The notices themselves originate on gov.uk sources and remain the authoritative record — we just make them easier to search across five portals at once.

Does WinAContract charge for what Contracts Finder offers for free?

Basic search on WinAContract is free — no credit card required. Paid plans add daily keyword alerts, advanced buyer analytics, saved searches, and API access. Everything Contracts Finder provides is also free on WinAContract.

How up-to-date is WinAContract compared to Contracts Finder?

Contracts Finder is near real-time as buyers upload notices. WinAContract syncs multiple times daily from each source portal — new notices typically appear within a few hours. For time-critical applications where seconds matter, use the official portal; for daily workflows the lag is irrelevant.

Can I migrate my Contracts Finder saved searches?

No automatic import — Contracts Finder doesn't export saved searches. But recreating them on WinAContract takes 2 minutes per keyword set. Once recreated, alerts arrive daily by email.

Does WinAContract include Contracts Finder notices?

Yes. Every Contracts Finder notice appears in WinAContract search, alongside Find a Tender Service, Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales, and eTendersNI. We dedupe across sources so a contract listed on both CF and FTS appears once.

What is the Contracts Finder OCDS feed?

Open Contracting Data Standard — a structured JSON feed Contracts Finder publishes for developers integrating procurement data. Useful if you're building your own tooling. WinAContract offers a similar feed on paid plans but with cross-portal coverage and enrichment (buyer profiles, sector classifications, deduplication).

Try WinAContract for free — no credit card

Full search across every UK public-sector portal. Daily keyword alerts. Switch from Contracts Finder in 2 minutes.

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WinAContract vs Contracts Finder — feature comparison

Feature	WinAContract	Contracts Finder
Pricing	Free + paid tiers	Free
Contracts Finder notices
Find a Tender Service notices Only CF — not FTS
Public Contracts Scotland
Sell2Wales
eTendersNI
Daily keyword alerts		Basic RSS only
Value band filtering		Limited
Buyer profile pages
Historical award analysis
AI bid writing integration
Saved searches
API access	Paid plans	OCDS feed (developer use)
UI speed	Fast	Slow on complex filters

What Contracts Finder covers

When Contracts Finder is enough

You only need central government and English local authority coverage.

You're comfortable checking a portal daily or using RSS.

You don't need buyer-level analytics.

Your contract value range is £12k-£139k (above FTS threshold means you also need FTS).

When you need a Contracts Finder alternative

Most UK suppliers find Contracts Finder becomes insufficient as their bidding operation scales. Specific pain points that push suppliers to alternatives:

Missing FTS notices — you've lost a high-value contract because you only saw it late after someone else spotted it on Find a Tender Service.

Devolved coverage — you work with Scottish, Welsh, or NI buyers and have to check those portals separately.

Time pressure — checking the portal daily is eating time your team should spend on bid responses.

No buyer intelligence — you're bidding blind without knowing what a buyer typically spends, who wins their contracts, or when their current contracts expire.