NAICS market language & positioning

The keywords contracting officers actually use when they search this market, plus its set-aside makeup and who solicits it. Federal buyers find vendors by keyword-searching SAM.gov and the SBA Small Business Search (SBS, formerly the Dynamic Small Business Search) during market research, before a solicitation is ever posted, and a profile that does not use their words does not surface. This endpoint gives you those words, drawn from the last 24 months of SAM.gov solicitations in the code, so you can fill your SAM and SBS keyword fields, your capability narrative, and your one-page capability statement with the language buyers search on. It is the demand side of a market; pair it with /api/v1/naics/{code}, the award side (who won, how much, how concentrated). Factual, never scored. Free with any key.

Path parameter

• code (path): a NAICS code, 2 to 6 digits (e.g. 561720). A malformed code returns 400; a code with no SAM contract-opportunity activity in the last 24 months returns 404.

This endpoint takes no query parameters; any query string returns 400.

Response

{
  "naics_code": "561720",
  "notices": 3234,
  "vocabulary": [
    { "phrase": "janitorial services", "notices": 1386 },
    { "phrase": "custodial services", "notices": 460 },
    { "phrase": "ranger district", "notices": 208 },
    { "phrase": "cleaning services", "notices": 144 },
    { "phrase": "office janitorial", "notices": 96 },
    { "phrase": "national forest", "notices": 72 }
  ],
  "set_asides": [
    { "set_aside": "Total Small Business Set-Aside (FAR 19.5)", "notices": 1708, "share_pct": 52.8 },
    { "set_aside": "(none / full & open)", "notices": 679, "share_pct": 21.0 },
    { "set_aside": "Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Set Aside", "notices": 236, "share_pct": 7.3 },
    { "set_aside": "8a Competed", "notices": 102, "share_pct": 3.2 }
  ],
  "top_buyers": [
    { "agency": "DEPT OF DEFENSE", "notices": 189 },
    { "agency": "DEPT OF DEFENSE.DEPT OF THE ARMY.AMC.ACC.MISSION INSTALLATION CONTRACTING COMMAND.419TH CSB.W6QM MICC FT MCCOY (RC)", "notices": 125 },
    { "agency": "TRANSPORTATION, DEPARTMENT OF.FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION.697DCK REGIONAL ACQUISITIONS SVCS", "notices": 72 }
  ],
  "market_profile": "/api/v1/naics/561720",
  "opportunities": "/api/v1/opportunities/search?naics=561720",
  "window": { "since": "2024-08-11", "months": 24, "basis": "SAM.gov contract opportunities (posted date)" },
  "_sources": ["sam_opportunities"]
}

notices is the number of solicitations in this NAICS over the trailing 24 months (see the window block). vocabulary is the recurring phrases those solicitations use, each with the count of notices it appears in, ranked most common first: the terms to put in your SAM.gov and SBS keyword fields, your capability narrative, and your one-page capability statement, since contracting officers search those fields by keyword (if your words are not their words, you do not come up). set_asides is the makeup of the market by notice count, share_pct being the share of notices under each program (a blank set-aside is reported as (none / full & open)); it tells you which certification (small business, SDVOSB, 8(a), HUBZone, WOSB) thins the field in this market. top_buyers names the offices posting the work, as SAM records them, the agencies to name in your capability narrative and to reach out to directly. market_profile links to the award side of the same code (spending, competition, incumbents); opportunities links to its current solicitations, where responding to a sources-sought or RFI notice puts you in front of the contracting team before the competition is set.

Errors

• 400: code is not a 2-to-6-digit NAICS, or a query string was sent.
• 404: no SAM contract-opportunity activity for that NAICS in the last 24 months.

Example

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  "https://govconapi.com/api/v1/naics/561720/positioning"

GET /api/v1/naics/561720/positioning (Janitorial Services) shows, as of 2026-08-11, that buyers phrase this work as "janitorial services" and "custodial services" (so a profile that only says one misses the other), that 52.8% of notices are set aside for small business with a further 7.3% reserved for SDVOSB, and that the Army's MICC and the Forest Service are among the most active buyers. Contrast a full-and-open market like Computer Systems Design, where most work is competed openly rather than set aside.