The best time to call a prime is the week after they win
A large award is a buying decision that has not been made yet. The prime has the contract and now has to staff it, source it and deliver it. Every one of those awards is published within days, with the winner, the amount, the period of performance and the place of work. This is that list, in your codes, in your state, sorted by how recent it is.
What the record tells you about a prime
What they just won
The award, the agency and office behind it, the amount, and the period of performance, usually within days of the action.
Everything else they hold
Their full award history across codes and agencies, resolved to one company record by UEI, CAGE and name.
Where the work happens
Place of performance by state, city and county, so you can tell a job near you from a job three time zones away.
When it ends
End dates and option periods, so you know whether to call about this award or position for the recompete.
Watch the primes, not just the notices
Add the primes you want to work with to your watchlist as vendors. Today shows what they won in the last ninety days, what they have ending within a year, and which notices they took. A prime that just won a five-year award in your code, in your state, is a call worth making this week.
The same list run the other way finds the primes you did not know about: filter recent awards by code, size and state, and the names that come back are the firms currently being paid to do work you supply into.
- Watch a vendor and get their new awards in your digest
- Filter awards by code, state, size and date to find fresh winners
- Set-aside on the award tells you whether they need a small business partner
Who the primes actually paid, and what town they are in
USASpending publishes subaward reporting: what a prime told the government it paid a subcontractor, the work it was for, and the subcontractor's own address. That record is loaded here. Filter it to your code and your state and you get the firms already inside a prime's supply chain, and the primes doing the paying.
Run the other way, it tells you what a prime buys out rather than builds. A prime that reported paying four machine shops last year has a habit you can sell into. A prime that reported nothing may do the work in house, which is a different conversation.
- Every reported subaward by code, state, prime, subcontractor, size and date
- The subcontractor's city, county and ZIP, as the prime filed it
- On every award page: the subcontractors reported under it
- On every vendor page: what they were paid as a sub, and what they paid out
What subaward reporting is, and is not
It is filed by the prime, so the description and the amount are theirs. It lands months behind the prime award, thresholds mean small buys are not reported at all, and plenty of contracts have no reporting against them. Treat it as a strong signal about who a prime works with, not a complete ledger of what they bought.
Small business goals work in your favour
Large prime contracts carry small business subcontracting plans. A prime holding a set-aside-heavy portfolio, or one that just took a large unrestricted award at an agency with aggressive small business goals, has a reason to take your call that has nothing to do with goodwill. The set-aside field on every award, and the set-aside mix on every buying office page, is where you find those situations.
What the record does not contain is a contact. There are no purchased contact lists here and there never will be. The company name, the UEI, the CAGE code and the place of performance are public; who to call is your work, and SAM.gov registration records are the usual starting point.
Read next
- VendorsEvery company on record, with what they hold.
- Set-asidesEvery set-aside type and who wins under it.
- Open noticesWhat is open on SAM.gov today.
- RoadmapWhat is being built next.
See who was last awarded in your NAICS
Every code, every buying office, every vendor and every recompete, organized from the public record and read nightly. Open it with a plan.