About GovCon API
The federal contracts API that developers actually want to use. Built by contractors, for contractors.
Our Mission
Federal contracting generates over $597 billion annually (FY2019), but accessing contract data shouldn't require a PhD in government bureaucracy. GovCon API eliminates the barriers between developers and federal contract opportunities.
We believe that better access to government contracting data leads to more competition, better prices for taxpayers, and opportunities for businesses of all sizes to participate in federal procurement.
We handle the complexity of data collection, normalization, and maintenance so you can focus on building your application.
The Problem We Solve
SAM.gov is the official source for federal contract notices, but accessing their data programmatically can be unnecessarily complex.
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Entity Registration for Higher Limits Public access gives only 10 requests/day. Higher limits (1,000/day) require UEI registration - a process that takes ~10 business days.
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Restrictive Rate Limits Public access gives 10 requests/day. Entity registration raises this to 1,000/day, but production applications often need more.
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Descriptions Require Extra Steps SAM.gov returns description URLs that require separate authenticated downloads - adding complexity to your integration.
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Archived Data Complexity Older notices are archived and require bulk data downloads from data.gov rather than API access.
How It Works
We've built a comprehensive data pipeline that collects, normalizes, and serves federal contract data through a modern REST API.
Daily Data Collection: Our automated system collects and deduplicates all new opportunities daily at 2:00 AM UTC.
Complete Descriptions: Unlike SAM.gov's API, we extract and provide full contract requirement descriptions by extracting and indexing the full text from publicly available contract pages.
Complete Lifecycle Tracking: We track the complete lifecycle from opportunity posting to contract award, including winner names, award amounts, dates, and locations.
Technical Architecture
- FastAPI Backend: High-performance Python API with automatic documentation.
- PostgreSQL Database: Reliable data storage with full-text search capabilities.
- Railway Deployment: Cloud hosting with automatic scaling.
- Data Collection: Comprehensive SAM.gov opportunities and award data.
Built by Contractors
We built this because we wanted simpler access to federal contract data. Our goal is simple: make federal contracting data as accessible as Stripe or Twilio.