Guide
TED tender alert tools compared
There are several ways to monitor TED for new tenders. The right choice depends on how much volume you get, how much time you can spend triaging, and whether you need scoring and bid support or just a daily list of links.
Free option: TED's own alerts and RSS
TED offers free advanced search, saved searches and RSS feeds. This is the best starting point if you have a narrow search and time to read every notice yourself. The downside is noise: every matching notice is sent to you, with no scoring, deduplication or bid support.
Best for: occasional bidders with very specific CPV codes and countries.
Limitations: No scoring, no multi-source coverage, no bid briefs, no pipeline tracking.
Paid tender aggregators
Several commercial platforms aggregate TED notices and add filters, email alerts and sometimes CRM-style tracking. Pricing varies by seat and data depth. Most focus on delivering notices rather than helping you decide which ones to bid on.
Best for: teams that need a clean inbox of notices and basic categorisation.
Limitations: Scoring is usually limited to keyword matching; bid-decision support is rare.
Bidly: alerts plus scoring and bid briefs
Bidly starts with the same TED data but adds a fit score for each notice based on your company profile, CPV codes, countries and value range. It also generates an AI bid brief with strengths, risks, required documents and a bid/no-bid recommendation. The goal is not more notices — it is fewer, better ones.
Best for: SMEs and consultancies that want to bid selectively and improve their win rate over time.
Coverage: TED, SAM.gov and Grants.gov in one radar.
What to compare when choosing a tool
Source coverage. Does it cover TED only, or also national portals, SAM.gov and Grants.gov?
Filtering precision. Can you filter by CPV code, value, country, notice type and procedure?
Scoring. Does it rank notices by fit to your business, or just forward everything?
Decision support. Does it help you decide whether to bid, or only tell you that a notice exists?
Cost and lock-in. Is pricing per user, per notice or flat? Can you export your data?
Start with the free option, then upgrade when volume wins
If you only bid occasionally, TED's free alerts may be enough. Once you are tracking multiple countries or CPV codes, the time saved by scoring and filtering usually pays for a paid tool. Bidly offers a free start so you can test whether the scored shortlist improves your pipeline before committing.
Always verify deadlines, eligibility and submission instructions on the original TED notice before bidding.