Find a Tender email alerts: set up free, and when to pay

If you want Find a Tender email alerts, you can set them up free: run a search on Find a Tender, save it, and choose how often you are emailed. That may be enough if you bid occasionally. A paid service helps if you want one combined list from both government services, or a check of notices that fit your trade against your insurance and certifications. This page shows the setup, the limits, and when paying is worth it.

The short answer

Free alerts are enough if you bid occasionally, work in one narrow area, and have the time to read every notice that arrives.

A paid service helps if you bid regularly, you are in several sectors or areas, or you are tired of opening tenders only to find a requirement you cannot meet. Our own data shows why that happens: in the week to 10 Oct 2026, only about 6% of live notices (29 of 470) stated insurance requirements in the notice itself. For the rest, check the tender pack.

What changed in 2025: Find a Tender is now the main source

Find a Tender is the central digital platform, at find-tender.service.gov.uk, as gov.uk’s central digital platform guidance describes it. Under PPN 019, Contracts Finder rules now apply only to procurements started under the old Public Contracts Regulations, and no new procurements will be run under those regulations after 24 February 2025. New below-threshold opportunities “must be advertised on Find a Tender”.

For small suppliers the key number is the below-threshold notice limit. If a buyer advertises a notifiable below-threshold contract (£12,000 or more including VAT for central government, £30,000 for others; paras 10 and 23), the tender notice must go on the central digital platform first (para 12). That is from gov.uk’s below-threshold contracts guidance, updated 13 July 2026.

Contracts Finder has not been switched off. It still carries procurements started under the old rules, so a Contracts Finder-only alert will miss new-regime notices.

How to set up free Find a Tender email alerts

These steps follow gov.uk’s short guide. Screens change, so check them against the live service.

Register your organisation

Registering puts your business on the central digital platform, and it is what buyers ask you to share when you bid. gov.uk’s three-step guide says to agree who will be the first Administrator, create a GOV.UK One Login with a work email, and have your Companies House number and registered address ready. Registration is free, according to the official e-learning. The short guide on saved searches does not say what sign-in you need to save one, so check on the service.

Build your search

Select Search on the Find a Tender homepage, then apply filters. gov.uk’s guide mentions three: notice type (for example Tender Notice), suitability (choose Small and medium-sized enterprises to see opportunities marked as suitable for SMEs) and contract location (select one or more regions). Click Update results. The guide does not mention keyword or CPV filters, so look for them on the live page.

Save it and choose how often you are emailed

Select save search, give it a name and choose how often you want to be emailed. You then receive an email when a notice matching your criteria is posted. The guide does not list the frequency options.

Tips

• Make one saved search per trade or region, so each email is easy to scan.
• If the search accepts CPV codes, use the CPV code finder to pick them.
• Read the Find a Tender versus Contracts Finder guide to see why you want both.

Contracts Finder alerts: still worth keeping?

For now, yes. Contracts Finder says you can create an account to get email updates and save your searches, and that you can still search and apply without an account. It lists contracts worth over £12,000 (including VAT).

Its role is narrower than it was. PPN 019 says the Contracts Finder publishing rules apply only to procurements started under the old Public Contracts Regulations, and that no new procurements will be conducted under those regulations after 24 February 2025. So it carries procurements started under the old rules, including below-threshold ones that were never required on Find a Tender (PPN 019). Those can still be open, and some may never appear on Find a Tender.

PPN 019 also says below-threshold award information for contracts awarded under the old regulations still goes on Contracts Finder: at least £12,000 including VAT for central government, and at least £30,000 including VAT for sub-central authorities and NHS trusts. So Contracts Finder remains the place to look for who won those contracts.

In practice: treat Find a Tender as your main alert, and set up the same trade and region searches on Contracts Finder while the old-rules procurements run off.

What free alerts don’t do

• They don’t check fit. Neither service compares a notice with your insurance levels, certifications, travel radius or turnover. You do that by reading each notice, then the tender pack.
• Two services, two sets of alerts. You manage and read both, and the same opportunity can appear on each.
• Devolved portals are separate. Scottish devolved authorities are generally excluded from the Procurement Act 2023 (gov.uk devolved authorities guidance, para 24), so many Scottish opportunities sit on Public Contracts Scotland. See the devolved portals gov.uk names.

Free versus paid at a glance

Prices checked 11 Oct 2026. Our prices are on the pricing page. TenderWorthy Team is coming soon.

Who should stick with the free alerts

Stay with the free alerts if:

• You bid a few times a year.
• Your work fits one narrow CPV area and one region, so the email stays short.
• You have time to read every notice and the tender pack behind it.

They cost nothing, and they are the official source. A paid service is an addition to them, not a replacement for understanding them. If you want to see how a checked alert differs, read how it works or compare paid tender alert services.

A note on fairness: we run TenderWorthy, which is one of the options on this page. We compare like with like and keep to what a reader can check, in line with the rules on comparative advertising (Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008, regulation 4). If you spot an error, tell us.