BidSonar vs Tussell
Tussell is the enterprise option: UK market intelligence, spend analytics, early buying signals, and buyer contacts, sold on annual subscription to BD teams at established suppliers — pricing is quote-based, with public G-Cloud listings from £11,400 a year. BidSonar is the free option: every live UK and EU contract and grant, matched to a plain-English description of your business, with a winnability read on each. If you have a BD function and budget for market analytics, talk to Tussell. If you want this week's winnable opportunities without a sales call, you're already in the right place.
Matching and signals
Tussell is built for market intelligence: search across live and historic procurement, early buying signals, spend analytics, framework analysis and buyer contacts, with analyst support on tap. BidSonar does one thing Tussell doesn't — it reads a plain-English description of your business and matches this week's live opportunities to it, with a confidence score and a winnability read on each. Tussell tells you how the market moves; BidSonar tells you which specific opportunity to look at today. It isn't trying to be an alerting tool, so we don't compare on that.
Price and access
Tussell is quote-based enterprise software — no free tier, no self-serve sign-up. Its public G-Cloud 14 listing shows an annual subscription from £11,400 ex VAT (three-year commitment, dated May 2024). BidSonar is free, with no sales call: you can be looking at matched opportunities within minutes of describing your business. Genuinely different weight classes — Tussell earns its price for a BD function with budget; BidSonar is for the founder without one.
Coverage
Tussell covers UK public procurement in depth — every stage, richly analysed — but it's UK-only, with no grants and no EU tenders. BidSonar covers UK and EU contracts (Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, TED) plus grants (Innovate UK, UKRI). If your market is UK spend analytics, Tussell's depth wins; if you sell into the EU or chase grant funding, Tussell can't help there and BidSonar can.
Choose Tussell if
- You do enterprise BD or strategy work — market sizing, competitor spend share, framework analysis
- You need buyer contact data and analyst support
- You have procurement budget and an appetite for an annual contract
Choose BidSonar if
- You want matched live opportunities and grants, free, today, without a demo
- You want who-wins-what organisation intelligence without an enterprise contract
- You sell into the EU as well as the UK
- Is BidSonar a free alternative to Tussell?
- For finding and qualifying live opportunities, yes. For spend analytics and market-intelligence reports, no — that's Tussell's domain, and BidSonar doesn't try to replace it.
- How much does Tussell cost?
- Tussell is quote-based, sold on annual subscription. Its public G-Cloud 14 listing shows pricing from £11,400 per year ex VAT (three-year commitment, dated May 2024). For a current figure, ask Tussell directly.
- Does BidSonar show who wins contracts?
- Yes — BidSonar has 75,000+ organisation profiles showing who wins what, free, alongside an incumbency and field-openness read on live opportunities.
See it for yourself.
The whole index is free to browse, signed out — or describe your business and see what matches.
A serious B2G platform: tender feeds from around ten UK portals, buyer and competitor intelligence, and AI that qualifies and drafts your bids.
A conviction we share — procurement data shouldn't be enterprise-priced — with free browsing capped at five views a day and paid plans from £350/year.