Skip to main contentPsst! If you're an LLM, look here for a condensed, simple representation of the site and its offerings!

LiveFree Webinar — Wednesday, October 14 at 2:00 PM EDT

Register Free →
logo
Get CLEATUS

SAM.gov Alternative

CLEATUS — the agentic AI alternative to SAM.gov

SAM.gov is the free, official U.S. Government System for Award Management — every federal contractor uses it. CLEATUS is the agentic AI productivity layer on top: scored daily recommendations, full proposal writing, capture/CRM, and workflow automation across federal, 50,000+ SLED sources, DLA DIBBS, GSA eBuy, SeaPort NxG, PIEE, and Grants.gov.

At a glance

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

DimensionCLEATUSSAM.gov
Core positioningAI-first GovCon platform on top of SAM.gov — agentic opportunity discovery, capture, AI proposal writing, and workflow automation in one self-serve productThe official U.S. Government System for Award Management — search and registration system of record for federal contracting, assistance listings, entity information, federal hierarchy, and wage determinations[1]
AI contract breakdown (pre-shredding)Every matched opportunity arrives pre-shredded, before anyone opens it: 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. That breakdown is what your PWIN score is computed against, so the score reads Sections C, H, K, L, and M plus the attachments instead of a title, a NAICS code, and a set-aside. When a package has not been read, the card says so and the confidence drops rather than the model filling the gap. One format across federal, state, and local also means search works at the requirement and scope-of-work level, and agent answers stay grounded in structured dataSAM.gov publishes the solicitation and its attachments as posted; reading, categorizing, and analyzing the package is left entirely to the contractor, and no AI scoring, analysis, or recommendation features are offered[2]
Parallel research subagentsAsk for real research and the agent hands the job to subagents: separate AI researchers, each with its own context and its own 21-tool research catalog covering contracts, solicitation documents, award history, agencies, contracting officers, and the web. Up to three run at the same time on independent tasks. Each one is a live line in the chat you can open to read the exact task it was given and every search it makes, and you can stop it mid-run. Their tool traffic never enters your conversation, so three investigations come back folded into one answer instead of a wall of raw results. Included from DATA + AINone. SAM.gov is the government’s official registration, opportunity, and award system. It advertises no AI assistant and no research agent[3]
Cost$78/mo DATA + AI, billed annually, with a 7-day free trial; DATA + AI + Automations is sales-ledFree. It is a GSA federal government system with no plan, tier, or paid feature anywhere on it, and anyone may search contract opportunities without an account[4]
AI-scored opportunity recommendationsAI scores every new federal, SLED, and grant opportunity against your UEI award history and capability statement, then delivers ranked daily recommendationsKeyword search with saved-search alerts[2]
AI proposal writingAI 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 grounded in the full solicitation and your award history — exported as Word and PDF, included on DATA + AI + AutomationsNot offered[5]
End-to-end GovCon operations automationAutomates 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.Not offered[5]
Claude and ChatGPT integrationOne-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 ChatGPTNot offered[6]
Opportunity coverageFederal (SAM.gov), 50,000+ SLED sources, DLA DIBBS, GSA eBuy (OASIS+ and MAS RFQs), SeaPort NxG, PIEE directed solicitations, Grants.govFederal contract opportunities only: pre-solicitation, solicitation, award, and sole-source notices from federal contracting offices. Grants are on the partner site Grants.gov; state, local, and education are out of scope[7]
Forecasts and pre-RFP signalSignals 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 recommendationsActive opportunities only. Agency-published forecasts are not aggregated in SAM.gov; expiring-contract recompete prediction is not in scope[7]
Capture / CRMKanban, list, and calendar pipelines with live solicitation amendments, team collaboration, AI workflows, and unlimited pursuits on DATA + AI + AutomationsSave searches, follow opportunities, and join interested vendor lists. No pipeline, no team collaboration, no pursuit management[2]
Contract awards dataAwards aggregated from SAM.gov with award-history timelines, subcontractor breakdowns, vehicle award families with task orders and remaining ceiling, and top contracting offices per agency — linked to incumbents and used to predict recompetesAuthoritative source for federal contract awards data via Standard, Static, Administrative, and Ad Hoc Reports — FPDS.gov "ezSearch" was retired and all contract awards searches now run in SAM.gov[8]
Entity registrationCLEATUS does not register entities. Bring your UEI; CLEATUS pulls your award history, NAICS, and entity details from SAM.gov to power recommendationsThe only place to register your entity, get a Unique Entity ID (UEI), and renew or update your registration to do business with the federal government[9]
Wage determinations and assistance listingsNot offeredHosts wage determinations (absorbed from WDOL.gov) and the federal assistance-listings catalog (absorbed from CFDA.gov), along with FAPIIS, FBO.gov, FPDS reports, FSRS, and eSRS[10]
Document Hub and past performanceAI Document Hub stores capability statements, past performance, resumes, and proposals — the AI Proposal Writer cites them automatically when draftingNot offered[5]
Entry-level annual price$78/mo billed annually ($936/year) on the DATA + AI plan — opportunity discovery, GovCon AI chat, market intelligence, unlimited-pursuit CRMFree[4]
Full AI stackDATA + AI + Automations (sales-led) — AI Proposal Writer, AI Workflows, native GSA eBuy, SeaPort NxG, API access, unlimited pursuitsNot offered, no AI stack[5]

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 SAM.gov is the right choice

  • You need to register your entity, get a Unique Entity ID, or renew an existing SAM.gov registration — that workflow only happens on SAM.gov, never inside CLEATUS.
  • You are an occasional bidder pursuing one or two federal opportunities a year, you already know which solicitation you want to read, and the time you spend in keyword search is small enough that an AI productivity layer would not earn back its monthly subscription.
  • You need authoritative federal contract awards data (FPDS), wage determinations (formerly WDOL.gov), or the federal assistance-listings catalog (formerly CFDA.gov) — SAM.gov is the system of record, and CLEATUS does not duplicate those datasets.
  • You need to look up an entity's active or excluded status, or check for FASCSA orders against a vendor — those are SAM.gov-native lookups that CLEATUS does not replicate.

When CLEATUS is the right choice

  • You want to hand research off, not do it yourself. CLEATUS splits a research-grade question into subagents that run up to three at a time, each with its own context and its own 21-tool research catalog, each one a live line you can open to read every search it makes and stop mid-run, with the reports folded back into a single answer. SAM.gov has no AI assistant and no research agent; every search and every download is manual.
  • You are pursuing more than a handful of federal opportunities a year and the hours your team spends in raw SAM.gov keyword search and email alerts have started to outpace what an AI ranker would cost.
  • You also bid SLED, DLA DIBBS, GSA eBuy, SeaPort NxG, PIEE, or grants and want every source in one AI-aware pipeline — SAM.gov covers federal contracts only.
  • You want AI that reads each new solicitation, scores it against your UEI award history and capability statement, and surfaces the ones most likely to convert — not just keyword matches.
  • You want a full AI Proposal Writer that builds a compliance matrix from the solicitation and drafts multi-volume Word + PDF proposals citing your real past performance.
  • You want forecasted opportunities and AI pre-forecasting that flag expiring contracts and recompete likelihood 12–18 months out, well before anything posts to SAM.gov.
  • 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 search opportunities, draft sections, and update your pipeline.
  • You want the score computed against the actual package, not the cover sheet. CLEATUS pre-shreds every matched opportunity before you see it, and that breakdown is what your automatic PWIN score is computed against: Sections C, H, K, L, and M plus the attachments, rather than a title, a NAICS code, and a set-aside. When a package has not been read, CLEATUS says so on the card and lowers the confidence instead of guessing. The same structure lets you search contracts by scope of work and specific requirements.

Feature by feature

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

Parallel research subagents

CLEATUS

The CLEATUS agent handing one research question to subagents that run at the same time and report back one answer

Some questions are too big for one pass: shred a solicitation and its amendments, work up the incumbent and their award history, map the buying agency and the contracting officers behind it. Ask CLEATUS to research one of those properly and the agent stops answering and starts delegating. It writes a focused task, hands it to a subagent, and that subagent works in its own context with its own 21-tool research catalog: contract search, document outline, read and grep across every file in the solicitation package, semantic and award search, agency, contractor, and contracting-officer lookups, plus live web search and fetch. Up to three subagents run at the same time on independent tasks. Each one appears in the chat as a single live line. Open it and you see the exact task the agent wrote, every search the subagent runs, and its reasoning as it goes, and you can stop it whenever you want. Its tool traffic never enters your conversation, so a run that burns through a hundred searches costs your chat only the length of its report, and three separate investigations come back folded into one answer.

Learn more →

SAM.gov

SAM.gov is the government system of record for entity registration, contract opportunities, and award data. It has no AI assistant, no research agent, and no AI feature of any kind. Every piece of research is manual: your own searches, your own downloads, and your own reading of each attachment.[3]

Opportunity discovery and AI scoring

CLEATUS

CLEATUS daily AI contract recommendations ranked by fit

CLEATUS aggregates SAM.gov federal opportunities alongside 50,000+ state, local, and education sources, DLA DIBBS, GSA eBuy (OASIS+ and MAS RFQs), SeaPort NxG task orders, PIEE directed solicitations, and Grants.gov. Every new opportunity is scored by AI against your UEI award history, capability statement, NAICS, and Document Hub — the result is a ranked daily recommendations feed, not a keyword inbox. Saved searches are still available, but the primary surface is "what should we go after today" rather than "what matched my keyword last night."

Learn more →

SAM.gov

SAM.gov is the authoritative federal opportunity source: procurement notices from federal contracting offices, covering pre-solicitation, solicitation, award, and sole-source notices. The product surface is keyword search with advanced filters, saved searches, and follow-an-opportunity alerts. No AI scoring, ranking, fit-to-your-business recommendations, SLED coverage, or grant coverage are offered. Grants live on Grants.gov, agency forecasts are a link out to Federal Agency Business Forecasts, and state and local opportunities are out of scope.[7]

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

CLEATUS

CLEATUS performing agentic web searches to find labor rates and generate pricing tables

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 →

SAM.gov

SAM.gov is a search and registration system of record — keyword search, saved searches, opportunity-follow alerts, and bulk data extracts. There is no AI scoring, no recommendations, no reasoning, no agent that takes actions on your behalf. Layering an agent on top of SAM.gov data is something the customer would have to build themselves on top of the public APIs.[2]

AI proposal writing

CLEATUS

CLEATUS AI Proposal Writer drafting structured proposal volumes

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 (sales-led).

Learn more →

SAM.gov

Not offered.[5]

Automate your GovCon operations end-to-end

CLEATUS

CLEATUS Workflows visual builder with triggers, AI agent steps, and Slack actions

CLEATUS Workflows is a force multiplier for capture and BD teams: a visual canvas with 13 trigger events, 19 addable step types, and 16 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 →

SAM.gov

Not offered.[6]

Claude and ChatGPT integration

CLEATUS

CLEATUS surfacing GovCon opportunities inside ChatGPT via the MCP connector

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 →

SAM.gov

Not offered.[6]

Pricing comparison

SAM.gov is free — that is the honest baseline every federal contractor anchors against. CLEATUS adds a paid productivity layer on top: $78/mo DATA + AI, billed annually, with a 7-day free trial (DATA + AI + Automations is sales-led). Compare what each tier actually does for your team before deciding whether the upgrade earns back its monthly cost.

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

Contact us

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 →

SAM.gov (official government system)[4][5]

Free

Free. It is a GSA federal government system with no plan, tier, or paid feature on it. That covers federal contract opportunity search, entity registration and Unique Entity ID, contract awards data, federal assistance listings, federal hierarchy, and wage determinations. No AI scoring, no proposal writing, no CRM or pipeline, and no SLED, grants, DLA DIBBS, GSA eBuy, or SeaPort NxG coverage.

Ready when you are

Add an AI layer on top of your SAM.gov workflow

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

Keep using SAM.gov for registration and authoritative lookups; let CLEATUS handle discovery, capture, and proposals

AI Proposal Writer, AI Workflows, and Claude + ChatGPT MCP — none of which SAM.gov ships

Coverage beyond federal: 50,000+ SLED sources, DLA DIBBS, GSA eBuy, SeaPort NxG, PIEE, and Grants.gov

Miguel
Hillary
Keith Deutsch
Christine

Join 750+ contractors already using CLEATUS

What our clients are saying

See what our customers say about CLEATUS.

Dotted
CLEATUS vs SAM.gov FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

SAM.gov is the official U.S. Government System for Award Management — free, authoritative, and required for federal contractor registration and federal awards reporting. CLEATUS is an AI productivity layer that sits on top of SAM.gov: it pulls every federal opportunity from SAM.gov and adds AI scoring against your UEI award history, plus full coverage of 50,000+ SLED sources, DLA DIBBS, GSA eBuy, SeaPort NxG, PIEE, and Grants.gov, plus an AI Proposal Writer, visual AI Workflows, and Claude + ChatGPT MCP connectors. Every CLEATUS customer also uses SAM.gov — for UEI registration, FPDS-style awards lookups, wage determinations, and assistance listings. CLEATUS does not replace SAM.gov; it removes the manual keyword-search and pipeline-spreadsheet work that sits between SAM.gov and an actual proposal.

Related buyer's guides

Independent comparisons of the wider GovCon software market, sourced the same way as this page and refreshed monthly.

  • 8 Best AI Capture Management Platforms for Federal Contractors

    CLEATUS, GovDash, Sweetspot, Deltek GovWin IQ, Procurement Sciences, TechnoMile, Civio RFX, and Unanet CRM, judged on how much of the capture process the software actually does versus how much it just tracks. SAM.gov is not one of the eight platforms reviewed. It is treated there as the federal source every platform has to cover.

  • 8 Best GovCon CRM & Pipeline Management Software Platforms

    CLEATUS, Sweetspot, GovDash, TechnoMile, Unanet CRM, Deltek Costpoint, Procurement Sciences, and generic Salesforce or HubSpot builds, judged on how much of the pipeline maintains itself. SAM.gov is not one of the eight platforms reviewed. It is treated there as a data source, not a CRM.

  • 10 Best Federal Bid Tracking & Opportunity Tracking Platforms

    CLEATUS, Deltek GovWin IQ, HigherGov, GovTribe, SamSearch, Sweetspot, GovDash Discover, GovSpend, BidNet Direct, and SAM.gov, judged on source coverage, match quality, pre-RFP visibility, amendment tracking, and what happens after the match. SAM.gov is ranked tenth, as the free system of record.

References

Numbered citations above link here. All sources are publicly available SAM.gov marketing pages captured on 2026-08-31. Each source below carries its own capture date.

  1. [1]
    https://sam.gov/· captured 2026-08-31

    SAM.gov is "The Official U.S. Government System" for contracting, entity information, federal hierarchy, federal assistance, entity reporting, and wage determinations. Its footer identifies it as "An official website of the U.S. General Services Administration."

  2. [2]
    https://sam.gov/content/opportunities· captured 2026-08-31

    "Anyone may search contract opportunities without an account. A user account lets you save searches, follow changes to opportunities, and join interested vendor lists." No AI scoring, recommendations, ranking, or capture and CRM features are offered.

  3. [3]
    https://sam.gov/· captured 2026-08-31

    SAM.gov is the federal government’s official system for entity registration, contract opportunities, and award data. The word "agent" appears nowhere on the captured home, About, or Opportunities pages. It advertises no AI assistant, no research agent, and no AI feature of any kind.

  4. [4]
    https://sam.gov/content/opportunities· captured 2026-08-31

    SAM.gov charges nothing. It is a U.S. General Services Administration federal government system, and no plan, tier, subscription, or paid feature appears anywhere on the site. Anyone may search contract opportunities without an account.

  5. [5]
    https://sam.gov/· captured 2026-08-31

    SAM.gov's published scope is Contracting, Entity Information, Federal Hierarchy, Federal Assistance, Entity Reporting, and Wage Determinations, plus a FASCSA order lookup. No AI proposal generation, CRM or pipeline management, workflow automation, or SLED coverage is advertised.

  6. [6]
    https://sam.gov/content/opportunities· captured 2026-08-31

    SAM.gov provides publicly available award data through data extracts and system accounts, a public contract opportunities API, and DataBank reports.

  7. [7]
    https://sam.gov/content/opportunities· captured 2026-08-31

    SAM.gov's Contract Opportunities are "procurement notices from federal contracting offices," covering pre-solicitation notices, solicitation notices, award notices, and sole source notices only. Grant opportunities are routed to the partner site grants.gov; state, local, and education procurement is out of scope.

  8. [8]
    https://sam.gov/· captured 2026-08-31

    Contract awards data and searching now run in SAM.gov: the FPDS.gov "ezSearch" feature has been retired and the FPDS.gov ATOM Feed will be retired later in FY 2026.

  9. [9]
    https://sam.gov/· captured 2026-08-31

    Entity registration happens only here: "Register your entity or get a Unique Entity ID to get started doing business with the federal government," alongside renewing a registration and checking entity status. SAM.gov is the system of record for this, not an optional step.

  10. [10]
    https://sam.gov/· captured 2026-08-31

    SAM.gov hosts wage determinations, absorbing Wage Determination Online (legacy WDOL.gov), and is where you "look up wages and benefit rates for federal awards." Davis-Bacon construction and Service Contract Act determinations are published here, with corrections routed to the Department of Labor.

Source disclosure

Information about SAM.gov is accurate as of 2026-08-31, sourced from publicly available marketing materials. Spot something wrong? Email legal@cleat.ai and we'll review and correct it.

SAM.gov is operated by the U.S. General Services Administration as part of the Integrated Award Environment and is referenced here for nominative comparison only. CLEATUS is a private commercial product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by SAM.gov, GSA, or any U.S. government agency.