Is CLEATUS more expensive than HigherGov?

At list price, CLEATUS DATA + AI is $78/mo billed annually ($936/year). HigherGov starts at $500/year for one user (Starter), $2,500/year for up to 10 users (Standard), and $5,000/year for up to 50 users (Leader). DATA + AI is closer to HigherGov's entry pricing for opportunity discovery; the sales-led DATA + AI + Automations tier adds the AI Proposal Writer and AI Workflows, which HigherGov's public marketing does not advertise, and Claude/ChatGPT MCP connectors are included from DATA + AI, so the price comparison is not apples-to-apples.

Does CLEATUS cover state and local opportunities?

Yes. CLEATUS aggregates federal opportunities from SAM.gov plus 50,000+ state, local, and education (SLED) sources across all 50 states, alongside DLA DIBBS, GSA eBuy (OASIS+ and MAS RFQs), SeaPort NxG task orders, PIEE directed solicitations, and federal grants. HigherGov also covers SLED — listed as "1M+ opportunities at over 10,000 state, local, and education agencies" on their CRM page.

Can I get help writing proposals on both platforms?

CLEATUS ships an AI Proposal Writer (included on DATA + AI + Automations) that builds a compliance matrix and win-strategy plan from the solicitation, then drafts structured multi-volume proposals grounded in your award history and Document Hub — exporting real .docx and .pdf files. HigherGov does not offer an AI proposal-writer product; its platform is built around market intelligence and capture/CRM tooling. If end-to-end proposal drafting matters to you, that is a key differentiator.

Does HigherGov have anything CLEATUS doesn't?

Yes — there are real gaps to acknowledge. HigherGov maintains a capital-markets dataset covering M&A transactions, investors, and advisors in the government market, and a labor pricing tool covering 450K+ competitor prices for 25K+ job titles. CLEATUS does not currently offer either of these. If your work centers on M&A research or competitor labor-rate benchmarking, HigherGov is the stronger fit.

How was this comparison researched?

Every factual claim about HigherGov on this page is sourced from publicly available pages on highergov.com captured on 2026-05-19. The numbered References section above links to the live source URL behind each cited claim, and we retain the captured HTML, screenshots, and PDFs internally. Spot something wrong? Email legal@cleat.ai and we will review and correct it.

Subject: Side-by-side comparison of CLEATUS and HigherGov for government contractors.
CLEATUS positioning: AI-first GovCon platform — agentic opportunity discovery, AI proposal writer, capture pipelines, and AI workflows in one product.
HigherGov positioning: Market-intelligence platform with capture/CRM tooling, capital-markets data, and labor pricing benchmarks.
When HigherGov fits: Buyers who need deep market intel, M&A and investor data, or labor pricing benchmarks at a lower entry price.
When CLEATUS fits: Buyers who want AI agents handling capture and proposal work, automated workflows, and broad source coverage (federal + 50,000+ SLED + DLA DIBBS + GSA eBuy + SeaPort NxG + PIEE + grants).
Source: Comparison sourced from publicly available HigherGov marketing pages captured on 2026-05-19. Corrections: legal@cleat.ai.

HigherGov Alternative

CLEATUS — the agentic AI alternative to HigherGov™

Name: CLEATUS
Brand: CLEATUS
Rating: 5 (12 reviews)

If you are evaluating HigherGov for GovCon, see how CLEATUS compares on what actually matters — true agentic AI that calls tools and executes multi-step work, full AI proposal writing, AI Workflows, Claude + ChatGPT MCP, and transparent published pricing.

At a glance

A side-by-side read on the dimensions buyers most often ask us about. Each row about HigherGov traces back to a public source — see the disclosure below.

Dimension	CLEATUS	HigherGov
Core positioning	AI-first GovCon platform — agentic capture, proposal writing, and workflow automation in one product	Market intelligence platform with capture/CRM tooling built around it
AI contract breakdown (pre-shredding)	Every matched opportunity arrives pre-shredded: CLEATUS reads every page of the package (base solicitation, amendments, attachments, exhibits) and breaks it into one standardized Contract Breakdown following the Uniform Contract Format: scope, requirements, deliverables, deadlines, pricing, and evaluation criteria. One format across federal, state, and local means every contract reads the same way, search works at the requirement and scope-of-work level, matching and analysis draw on structured data rather than raw PDFs, and agent answers stay grounded with less hallucination risk	Positioned as market intelligence and pursuit management over a dataset of 56M+ contracts and 4.1M+ opportunities; an automatic page-by-page breakdown of each opportunity document package into a standardized analysis format is not advertised[1]
AI proposal writing	AI Proposal Writer opens every bid with a Proposal Plan built from your solicitation, checks steps off as the work lands, reconciles the plan when an amendment posts, and drafts multi-volume proposals with compliance matrices, win-strategy plans, and citations to your award history — exported as Word and PDF	No AI proposal-writer product
End-to-end GovCon operations automation	Automates your GovCon operations end-to-end — multi-step AI automations run capture screening, go/no-go prep, amendment monitoring, award-lead delivery, and team routing on autopilot. Force multiplier for capture and BD teams. Unlimited on DATA + AI + Automations.	No native automation runtime[2]
Claude and ChatGPT integration	One-click apps published in both official directories, the Claude.ai connector directory and the ChatGPT app store, connectable at /agents/claude and /agents/chatgpt, turn CLEATUS into a tool inside Claude.ai and ChatGPT	Hosted Government MCP endpoint working with Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Cursor, and other MCP-compatible clients, for searching and analyzing its opportunity, award, contractor, and document data[3]
Agentic AI document generation	AI Agent generates executive summaries, capability statements, past-performance narratives, pricing tables, and compliance matrices — exported as Word, PDF, Excel, or PowerPoint and stored in your Document Hub	No document-generation product
Opportunity coverage	Federal (SAM.gov), 50,000+ SLED sources, DLA DIBBS, GSA eBuy (OASIS+ and MAS RFQs), SeaPort NxG, PIEE directed solicitations, Grants.gov	Federal contracts and grants, plus 1M+ state, local, and education opportunities across all 50 states[4]
Forecasts and pre-RFP signal	Signals surface work before it posts: subcontract scopes inside primes, agency procurement forecasts, and AI-predicted recompetes scored for likelihood 12–18 months out, delivered as daily recommendations	Forecasted opportunities, anticipated recompetes, vulnerable incumbents, and subcontract leads[5]
Market intelligence depth	Agency hierarchies, top contracting offices ranked by award dollars, contracting-officer contacts, competitor award history with award-history timelines, subcontractor breakdowns, vehicle award families with task orders and remaining ceiling, and government locations	Reports a market-intel dataset of 56M+ contracts, 7.8M+ grants, 4.1M+ opportunities, and 1.5M+ awardees[1]
Capture and pursuit management	Kanban, list, and calendar pipelines with live solicitation amendments, team collaboration, AI workflows, and unlimited pursuits on DATA + AI + Automations	Pipelines, pursuits, and task tools positioned as a government-contracting CRM[6]
API access	Public REST API with OAuth, plus Zapier, on DATA + AI + Automations. See /integrations	REST API access listed on every paid tier[2]
Capital markets / M&A data	Not a focus — CLEATUS centers on capture and proposals	Dedicated capital-markets dataset covering M&A transactions, investors, and advisors[7]
Labor pricing benchmarks	Not currently offered	Labor pricing tool covering 450K+ competitor prices for 25K+ job titles[8]
Entry-level annual price	$78/mo billed annually ($936/year) on the DATA + AI plan — opportunity discovery, GovCon AI chat, market intelligence	$500/year on the Starter plan for one user[9]
Full AI stack	DATA + AI + Automations (sales-led) — AI Proposal Writer, AI Workflows, native GSA eBuy, SeaPort NxG, API access, unlimited pursuits	Standard $2,500/year for up to 10 users; Leader $5,000/year for up to 50 users[10]

When each platform is the right choice

Two real tools. They optimize for different work. Here is where each one shines — straight, not spun.

When HigherGov is the right choice

You primarily need a deep market-intelligence dataset — contracting-officer profiles, awardee research, M&A activity, and labor pricing benchmarks.
Your work centers on capital-markets and investor research alongside GovCon market intel in the same workspace.
Proposal generation is not part of what you need a platform for, and you already have a process for it elsewhere.

When CLEATUS is the right choice

You want an AI Proposal Writer that reads the full solicitation, builds the compliance matrix and win-strategy plan, and drafts multi-volume Word and PDF proposals from a Proposal Plan that checks itself off and reconciles against amendments — not just an outline.
You want to automate your GovCon operations end-to-end — multi-step AI automations that screen opportunities, prep go/no-go briefs, alert on amendments, deliver award leads, and route work to the right person on autopilot, as a force multiplier for your capture and BD team.
You want CLEATUS available as a tool inside Claude.ai and ChatGPT via first-party MCP connectors, so the AI assistant your team already uses can read contracts, draft documents, and update your pipeline.
You want an AI Document Hub that auto-references your past performance, capability statements, and resumes inside every proposal and contract analysis.
You bid across federal, SLED, DLA DIBBS, GSA eBuy, SeaPort NxG, PIEE, and grants and want all of it in one AI-aware pipeline.
Every opportunity you open is already analyzed. CLEATUS pre-shreds each matched opportunity, reading every page of the document package and breaking it into the same standardized Contract Breakdown. That structure makes matches and analysis richer, lets you search contracts by scope of work and specific requirements, keeps agent answers grounded in structured data with less hallucination risk, and means every contract you evaluate reads the same way.

Feature by feature

Four places where the platforms diverge most. Each row shows what CLEATUS ships on the left and how HigherGov addresses (or doesn't address) the same need on the right.

AI proposal writing

CLEATUS

CLEATUS AI Proposal Writer plans before it writes. Every proposal opens with a Proposal Plan built from your specific solicitation, running from "Review the solicitation" through "Format & assemble," with ready-to-send prompts written for each step and a Draft all button that runs the step as one batch. It extracts requirements and evaluation factors into a compliance matrix, drafts structured multi-volume proposals citing your real award history, checks steps off automatically as documents get drafted and compliance gets verified, reconciles the plan when an amendment posts, and exports professionally formatted Word and PDF files. Included on DATA + AI + Automations. The agent never fabricates past performance — it pulls from your UEI award history and Document Hub.

Learn more →

HigherGov™

No AI proposal-writer product.

Automate your GovCon operations end-to-end

CLEATUS

CLEATUS Workflows is a force multiplier for capture and BD teams: a visual canvas with 13 trigger events, 18 addable step types, and 15 distinct actions that runs multi-step GovCon processes on autopilot. Each AI Agent step is its own agent with a model you pick, a scoped tool set, and a structured output schema, so it returns typed fields that later steps branch on instead of a blob of prose. Chain as many as you like, run them in parallel, query contracts, and search your documents, then route with If/Else and Filter. Triggers fire on new recommendations, new opportunities, pipeline changes, pursuits created, updated, or archived, phase moves, amendments, awards, matched custom alerts, schedules, webhooks, or on demand. Actions cover Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, webhooks, in-app notifications, log note, add to or remove from pipeline, change phase, assign member, create task, save document, Google Drive, and SharePoint. A dedicated Start Proposal step launches the full proposal writer inside the pursuit and can wait for the structured bid package to finish before downstream steps read it, run a review, and route the draft. Start from a prebuilt template (including a full Shipley capture pipeline) or describe the automation in plain English and let the platform assemble it. Unlimited on DATA + AI + Automations.

Learn more →

HigherGov™

No native automation runtime.[2]

Claude and ChatGPT integration

CLEATUS

CLEATUS is published as a one-click app in both official directories, the Claude.ai connector directory and the ChatGPT app store. Under the hood these are first-party MCP (Model Context Protocol) connectors, connectable straight from your dashboard with no endpoint URLs or API keys to configure. Once connected, your AI assistant can search opportunities, read solicitations, draft proposal sections, look up contracting officers, and update your pipeline using natural language — without leaving Claude or ChatGPT. Included from the DATA + AI plan.

Learn more →

HigherGov™

HigherGov also ships a hosted Government MCP endpoint that works with Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Cursor, a real capability worth acknowledging. It is built for searching and analyzing HigherGov's market data. The difference is action scope: the CLEATUS connectors also draft proposal sections, generate documents, and update your pipeline.[3]

Agentic AI — tool calls, reasoning, and live web research

CLEATUS

CLEATUS is built on agentic AI — the kind that reasons, plans, and takes actions, not the kind that just writes text. The agent breaks your request into steps, then calls tools to execute them: semantic search across federal and SLED contracts, awards, contractors, agencies, people, and NAICS; grep and read across your Document Hub; autonomous web search for current wage determinations, market rates, and competitor history; file and spreadsheet generation; PWIN calculation against your past performance; and pipeline mutations. The same 33-tool agent is exposed inside Claude.ai and ChatGPT via the MCP connectors. Every answer cites sources and every mutation is logged.

Learn more →

HigherGov™

HigherGov is positioned as a market-intelligence and government-contracting CRM platform — its differentiator is dataset scale and research tools (FOIA, capital markets, labor pricing). Public marketing describes data, search, and CRM features, not an agent that reasons, calls tools, researches the web autonomously, or executes multi-step tasks on its own.[6]

Pricing comparison

CLEATUS DATA + AI is closer to HigherGov's entry pricing and includes the Claude + ChatGPT MCP connectors; DATA + AI + Automations adds the AI Proposal Writer and AI Workflows that HigherGov's public marketing does not advertise. Compare what you would pay against what each platform actually does for your team.

CLEATUS DATA + AI

$78/mo billed annually

Annual plan ($936/year). Opportunity discovery, GovCon AI chat, market intelligence, Claude + ChatGPT connectors, unlimited-pursuit CRM. No proposal writer, no workflows, no premium integrations.

See CLEATUS pricing →

CLEATUS DATA + AI + Automations

Sales-led. Adds AI Proposal Writer, unlimited AI Workflows, native GSA eBuy + SeaPort NxG ingestion, API access, Zapier, unlimited pursuits, unlimited Document Hub.

See CLEATUS pricing →

HigherGov Starter / Standard / Leader[9][10][11]

$500 / $2,500 / $5,000 per year

1 user / up to 10 users / up to 50 users respectively. Pricing as published on highergov.com/pricing.

Ready when you are

Switch your GovCon stack to CLEATUS

True agentic AI — plans, reasons, calls 33+ tools, searches the web, and executes multi-step GovCon tasks end-to-end

Daily AI contract matching against your capture profile — high-fit opportunities with compliance analysis delivered to your inbox every morning

An AI Proposal Writer and AI Workflows that HigherGov doesn't ship, plus Claude + ChatGPT MCP connectors included from DATA + AI

Dedicated CLEATUS account executive bundled with annual plans

Join 650+ contractors already using CLEATUS

What Our Clients are Saying

See what our customers saying about CLEATUS.

CLEATUS vs HigherGov FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

CLEATUS is an AI-first GovCon platform — it focuses on agentic opportunity discovery, an AI Proposal Writer that drafts multi-volume proposals, a visual AI Workflows builder, and first-party MCP connectors for Claude.ai and ChatGPT. HigherGov is primarily a market-intelligence platform with capture and CRM tooling layered on top. Both cover federal and SLED opportunities; the question is whether you want AI doing the capture and proposal work for you, or you want a deeper market-intel dataset with strong manual research tooling.

References

Numbered citations above link here. All sources are publicly available HigherGov marketing pages captured on 2026-05-19.

[1]
https://www.highergov.com/big-data-ai/· captured 2026-05-19
Reports a market-intel dataset of 56M+ contracts, 7.8M+ grants, 4.1M+ opportunities, and 1.5M+ awardees.
[2]
https://www.highergov.com/pricing/· captured 2026-05-19
Offers REST API access on every paid tier, including the Starter plan.
[3]
https://www.highergov.com/gov-mcp/· captured 2026-08-13
Ships a hosted Government MCP endpoint (highergov.com/mcp/) that "lets supported AI assistants search and analyze government opportunities, awards, contractors, documents, and related market intelligence using natural language" and "works with Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Cursor, and other MCP-compatible clients." Unlimited usage is marketed for teams with high-volume research, capture, and AI automation needs.
[4]
https://www.highergov.com/government-crm/· captured 2026-05-19
Covers state, local, and education opportunities — "1M+ opportunities at over 10,000 state, local, and education agencies across all 50 states."
[5]
https://www.highergov.com/government-crm/· captured 2026-05-19
Markets forecasted opportunities ("$500B forecasted opportunities") plus anticipated recompetes, vulnerable incumbents, and subcontract leads.
[6]
https://www.highergov.com/government-crm/· captured 2026-05-19
Includes pipeline and pursuit management tools positioned as a government-contracting CRM.
[7]
https://www.highergov.com/capital-markets/· captured 2026-05-19
Maintains a dedicated capital-markets dataset of M&A transactions, investors, and advisors in the government contracting market.
[8]
https://www.highergov.com/for-contractors/· captured 2026-05-19
Provides a labor pricing tool — "450K+ active competitor prices for 25K+ job titles."
[9]
https://www.highergov.com/pricing/· captured 2026-05-19
Starter plan is $500/year for 1 user (annual billing).
[10]
https://www.highergov.com/pricing/· captured 2026-05-19
Standard plan is $2,500/year for up to 10 users.
[11]
https://www.highergov.com/pricing/· captured 2026-05-19
Leader plan is $5,000/year for up to 50 users.

Source disclosure

Information about HigherGov is accurate as of 2026-05-19, sourced from publicly available marketing materials. Spot something wrong? Email legal@cleat.ai and we'll review and correct it.

HigherGov and the HigherGov logo are trademarks of their respective owner and are used here for nominative comparison only. CLEATUS is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by HigherGov.