How BidClarity scores
government contracts — and why it works

The 0–100 match score

Every government contract in your monitored market receives a score of 0 to 100 against your specific capability profile. The score answers a single question: given what this business actually does, how well does this specific contract fit it?

It is not a keyword frequency counter. It is not a business category code (NAICS) match alone. It is a multi-dimensional assessment that weighs your products and services, your certifications and registrations, the opportunity's funding and contract terms, and your own contract history against what the contracting authority is specifically seeking — across all markets globally, from SAM.gov to the World Bank to TED Europa to India GeM.

Research from the Frontiers in Sustainability peer review confirms that AI evaluation systems applying "consistent weighting to predefined criteria" produce measurably better matching outcomes than systems relying on keyword search or manual filtering alone.¹

The five scoring dimensions

Every contract is evaluated across five dimensions, each worth a fixed number of points: capability match 25, eligibility & certifications 20, financial capacity 20, contract characteristics 15 and past performance 20 — 100 in total. Capability counts most, and eligibility is also a gate (below). Per-market weight matrices — adjusting for the eligibility-heavy nature of set-aside-prioritized markets, the past-performance-heavy nature of recompete-dominated markets, and the capacity-heavy nature of large-infrastructure markets — are in development against published procurement-outcome research from the OECD, OMB, World Bank, and EU corpora. See Per-market dimension weighting below for the calibration roadmap.

Research from Waseem et al. (Springer, 2023) demonstrates that multi-dimension AI evaluation — rather than single-factor keyword matching — produces the largest measurable improvement in bid-to-win conversion in procurement settings.³

Per-market dimension weighting

The five dimensions sum into a 0–100 score with fixed maximum points: capability match 25, eligibility & certifications 20, financial capacity 20, contract characteristics 15, past performance 20. The same points apply in every market today.

Per-market calibration — adjusting D2 (Eligibility) heavier in set-aside-prioritized markets (US small-business set-asides, Canadian Indigenous-business procurement, EU SME-prioritized frameworks), D5 (Past Performance) heavier in recompete-dominated markets per OMB ≥25% guidance and equivalent international procurement-evaluation standards, D3 (Financial Capacity) heavier in large-infrastructure markets (World Bank, AfDB, ADB, IDB, EU TED infrastructure tenders) — is in development against published procurement-outcome research and our own delivered-contract corpus. The empirical weight matrices and the markets they cover will be published here as they land.

How the global funding check works

Every HIGH match is annotated with the financing pathways that apply to its market and your profile. This is informational metadata on the contract — not a tier-affecting score. They are separate from Dimension 03 (financial capacity) and do not gate the tier. The point is to answer one practical question before you invest time in a proposal: can you finance delivery of this contract, and if so, through which programme?

Government contracts worldwide typically pay net-30 to net-90 days after milestone completion. For a $500K contract, that means potentially funding $500K in costs before receiving payment. Discovering this constraint after 40 hours of proposal work is one of the most common reasons qualified suppliers withdraw from contracts they could have won. BidClarity surfaces the applicable financing pathway before you open the tender document.

Find your row by market. The programme that applies depends on where the contract is issued and where your business is registered. If you operate across multiple regions, multiple rows may apply — check each one that matches your situation.

Inside the 5-step action plan

Every HIGH match includes a 5-step action plan generated specifically for that contract against your profile. It is not a generic checklist copied across all reports. It is generated fresh for each match — using the contract's specific requirements, your profile's specific characteristics, the market's specific compliance requirements, and the timeline available from the closing date.

Research from the Journal of Public Procurement (Andersson, Arbin & Rosenqvist, 2025) identifies structured AI-generated guidance as the primary mechanism for closing the gap between supplier capability and actual bid submission — the step where most SMEs drop out of the procurement process.⁴

What happens after you win — and how it sharpens future scoring

Scoring gets you to a submitted bid. Winning, delivering, and capturing the delivered work as past performance is a different problem — and the place where every other procurement-intelligence platform stops. BidClarity continues through delivery via BidClarity Fulfill, and Fulfill is designed to feed delivered-contract narratives back into your scoring profile.

Why your profile specificity changes everything

The score is only as accurate as the profile it is scored against. This is not a disclaimer — it is a mechanism that produces measurable results. A capability description of "IT services and consulting" generates a large volume of WATCH-range scores because the system cannot determine whether specific contracts are genuinely relevant to your business. A description of "Supply and installation of Cisco network switches, HP workstations, and Zebra barcode scanners to government facilities — NAICS 423430, 541512 — previous clients include US Army Corps of Engineers and Singapore Ministry of Finance" allows the engine to distinguish between a server rack procurement (strong match) and a software development RFP (weak match, filtered out).

Subscribers who include three NAICS codes, at least one specific product line or service type, and one relevant certification consistently receive more HIGH matches than subscribers with broad descriptions of equal length. The profile update at bidclarity.ai/profile-update takes under five minutes. With scoring v2 Coming soon, Fulfill closeouts will carry delivered contracts into the profile automatically, so every closeout strengthens the next scoring cycle without manual re-entry.

Recompete Radar — months before the current contract ends Coming soon

Recompete Radar is coming soon. Once it launches it will be a paid add-on on Scout (see the pricing page), included with Intelligence, Command and Enterprise. It will monitor a different data layer than the standard matching engine. Rather than active solicitations, it will monitor government contract award databases — published records of contracts already awarded, including their values, expiry dates, and the incumbents holding them — across all markets where this data is publicly accessible.

Recompete Radar is being built to deliver that positioning window.

For each approaching recompete matched to your profile, the radar will deliver: the incumbent holder and how long they have held the contract, a vulnerability signal based on public modification history and contract structure, a readiness plan with specific milestone dates, and a funding assessment at the contract's historical value. Additional markets will follow as award database APIs become publicly available.

Worked example: how a VA scanner-supply BPA scores

The mechanics above are easier to read against a concrete opportunity. The example below is synthetic — assembled from realistic public solicitation patterns — but the scoring path, dimension weights, and downstream outputs reflect how the live engine processes a comparable real solicitation. The subscriber profile is a fictional 30-person office-technology and document-imaging supplier based in Northern Virginia with an active SAM.gov registration, NAICS 423420 (Office Equipment Merchant Wholesalers) declared as primary, Small Business set-aside qualifying, and authorized-reseller agreements with Fujitsu, Kodak Alaris, and Canon imageFORMULA on file.

The opportunity. Department of Veterans Affairs · VHA Mid-Atlantic Region · Document Scanner Supply & Maintenance BPA · $1.2M base + 4 option years publishes on SAM.gov. Total Small Business Set-Aside. Period of performance Sep 2026 — Aug 2031. Twelve VHA facilities across DC, VA, WV, and PA. Section L identifies TAA country-of-origin compliance, throughput (90 ppm), optical resolution (600 dpi), and three-year on-site warranty with four-hour response as mandatory. Past-performance threshold is three federal supply contracts of comparable scope within five years.

The five dimensions, scored for the supply context.

• Capability match · 23/25. NAICS 423420 declared in profile matches the solicitation's primary NAICS. The firm holds active reseller authorizations for three of four manufacturers specified in the spec list, and stocked product lines satisfy 90 ppm throughput, 600 dpi optical resolution, three-year on-site warranty with four-hour SLA, and required connectivity. One gap surfaced: the fourth specified model (Reference Unit D) is not TAA-compliant — substitution path required.
• Eligibility · 20/20 · gate: pass. Active SAM.gov registration, Small Business size standard satisfied for NAICS 423420 (100-employee standard; firm is 30), set-aside category aligns. Buy American Act trade agreements applicability confirmed.
• Financial capacity · 16/20. A $1.2M base over five years is well inside the firm's revenue range, but Tranche A means buying inventory up front and waiting net-30 after delivery, so the firm carries the cost of the first shipments for about two months.
• Contract characteristics · 12/15. Total Small Business Set-Aside, five-year BPA (base + four options), 18 days to submission, 60-day post-award delivery requirement.
• Past performance · 17/20. Firm has five prior federal civilian supply contracts on file and two scanner-specific deliveries (one prior VA reference, one HHS reference). Threshold of three comparable contracts is met. The action plan recommends leading with the two VA-adjacent references for evaluation weighting.

Not part of the score yet Coming soon — win probability and strategic alignment with the firm's growth goals.

Composite score · 88/100 · HIGH MATCH — surfaces in the morning digest with a 5-step action plan: (1) confirm SAM.gov registration is active and NAICS 423420 set as primary; (2) resolve the TAA country-of-origin gap by substituting the non-compliant model for a TAA-compliant equivalent; (3) lock the SBA 7(a) working-capital draw and the commercial revolver to pre-position inventory cash for Tranche A; (4) pull authorized-reseller letters from the three covered manufacturers and draft the technical response with Section L's evaluation criteria explicit; (5) submit via SAM.gov by Day 18 and email the VA Contracting Officer to confirm receipt. Funding-pathway result is surfaced inline. Eligibility flags surface inline. The capture lead reads this report in four minutes and has a defensible bid/no-bid disposition.

What we don't claim

Calibration is the difference between an intelligence platform you can trust and one that overpromises. Plain about the limits:

• We score on observable RFP characteristics, not buyer intent. The platform reads what the contracting officer published — scope, requirements, evaluation criteria, agency, set-aside status, place of performance. We cannot see the contracting officer's preference, an incumbent's quiet conversations with the program office, or the unwritten agency priorities that sometimes shape source selection. Where pre-RFP relationship-building matters, our role is to surface the early signal in time for you to act — not to substitute for the relationship itself.
• Eligibility checks reflect requirements as stated. If the solicitation says "Small Business Set-Aside" and your profile says you qualify, we mark eligibility green. The final eligibility determination is always made by the contracting officer based on your submitted certifications, not by us. We catch the obvious disqualifiers early; we cannot pre-approve your bid.
• Funding pathway suggestions reflect public program terms. SBA 7(a), EXIM working capital, EDC export financing, World Bank guarantees — these are real programs with real eligibility criteria. We map your profile against those criteria as documented. The actual loan or guarantee approval is made by the lender or program office, not by us. We surface what you may qualify for; we do not guarantee what you will receive.
• Scoring is a decision aid, not a decision. A 92/100 capability fit means our model says you should look closely. It does not mean you will win. Win probability Coming soon will work the same way: a low number will not mean that you should not bid. The numbers exist to make the bid/no-bid conversation faster and more evidence-grounded — not to make it for you.

Data freshness, source health, and deduplication

The intelligence in your report is only as reliable as the data pipeline behind it. Three operational details matter for serious buyers evaluating BidClarity against manual monitoring.

Scan frequency

Major portals are scanned every 24 hours via their public APIs. Regional sources (provincial and state-level portals) are scanned every 48–72 hours depending on the source's update cadence. BidClarity does not queue batch scans for a single weekly sweep — the engine runs continuously, and your report assembles from the most current available data at the time of generation.

Source health monitoring

Every portal in the coverage list has a health monitor running alongside the primary scraper. When a portal returns errors, changes its schema, or goes offline, the health monitor flags that source within the same scan cycle. Affected portals are automatically excluded from that report cycle — you will not receive a report that presents data from a broken source as if it were complete. When the portal recovers, a catch-up scan runs and any missed opportunities within your match window are surfaced in the following report.

Deduplication

The same contract opportunity can appear on multiple portals simultaneously. A Canadian federal contract may appear on both CanadaBuys and MERX. Before scoring runs, BidClarity deduplicates all opportunities by matching on contract reference number, issuing authority, and notice type. You receive one scored entry per unique opportunity regardless of how many sources carried it. For Command plan subscribers monitoring 37+ sources in a single report, this deduplication pass runs across all sources before any scoring begins.