Federal Contract Opportunity Monitor

Federal contract opportunities post hourly on SAM.gov. Pulling them by hand stopped scaling at the 50th RFI.

This actor turns public SAM.gov opportunity search results and USAspending award records into a normalized feed for GovCon advisors, federal sales teams, MSPs, and lead generation services. It is built for teams that need an API first contract signal, not another browser tab.

The actor runs in Standby mode for low latency API calls and also supports batch runs through Apify input. It uses the public SAM.gov internal opportunity search endpoint and the public USAspending awards API. No SAM.gov API key is required.

Quick start

Fetch recent consulting opportunities:

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/USERNAME~federal-contract-opportunity-monitor/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode":"opportunities","keyword":"consulting","days":90,"limit":3}'

Fetch partnership leads from recent awarded contracts:

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/USERNAME~federal-contract-opportunity-monitor/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"mode":"leads","keyword":"consulting","awarded_amount_min":100000,"limit":3}'

Standby endpoints:

Endpoint	Purpose
GET /	Service metadata and pricing
GET /health	Service metadata and readiness
GET /opportunities?keyword=&psc=&days=&limit=&topic=	Recent SAM.gov opportunities
GET /opportunity?id=	One SAM.gov opportunity detail
GET /awards?recipient=&fiscal_year=&limit=	USAspending awarded contracts
GET /leads?keyword=&awarded_amount_min=&days=&limit=	Prime and subcontractor partnership leads
POST /opportunities/bulk	Up to 20 keyword searches in one request

Flow

flowchart LR
  A[Input keyword, PSC, topic, recipient, or fiscal year] --> B[SAM.gov opportunity search]
  A --> C[USAspending award search]
  B --> D[Normalize opportunity fields]
  C --> E[Normalize award rows]
  D --> F[Deterministic topic tagging]
  E --> G[Optional lead aggregation]
  F --> H[Dataset and JSON response]
  G --> H

Opportunity schema

Field	Type	Notes
opportunity_id	string	SAM solicitation number or fallback ID
title	string	Opportunity title
type	string	Solicitation, Sources Sought, Presolicitation, or source value
is_active	boolean	SAM.gov active flag
is_canceled	boolean	SAM.gov canceled flag
posted_date	ISO date	Publish date
response_deadline	ISO date or null	Response date when present
agency	string or null	Buying agency from SAM hierarchy
office	string or null	Contracting office from SAM hierarchy
naics_codes	string array	NAICS codes
psc_codes	object array	PSC code and label pairs
set_aside	string or null	Set aside value when available
place_of_performance	string or null	Place text when available
ceiling_amount_usd	number or null	Amount when present in source
description	string	First 1000 characters
topic_tags	string array	Deterministic keyword tags
matched_keywords	string array	User keyword matches
sam_url	string	SAM.gov opportunity URL or search URL
fetched_at	ISO date	Fetch timestamp

Lead schema

Field	Type	Notes
lead_id	string	Stable generated lead key
recipient_name	string	USAspending recipient
duns_uei	string or null	UEI when provided by source
primary_naics	string or null	Reserved for future recipient enrichment
recent_award_count_2y	number	Recent matching awards in the lookup window
recent_award_amount_total_usd	number	Total matching award amount
top_buying_agency	string or null	Most frequent agency among sample awards
matched_keyword	string	Keyword used for the lead search
topic_tags	string array	Deterministic topic tags
lead_band	string	warm, qualified, or priority
lead_rationale	string	Short deterministic rationale
sample_awards	object array	Up to 3 normalized award rows
fetched_at	ISO date	Fetch timestamp

Lead bands are deterministic. warm means one recent award and less than $500K total. qualified means 2 to 4 awards or $500K to $5M total. priority means 5 or more awards or more than $5M total.

Topic tagging

Default categories are keyword based and deterministic: it-services, professional-services, construction, medical, r-and-d, logistics, compliance-services, and training. Pass topic= to filter by one of those categories, or pass keyword= to search for a custom term.

Pricing

Event	Price	When charged
Actor start	$1.00	Once per paid Standby request or batch run
Opportunity	$0.10	Per opportunity or award row returned
Prime sub lead	$0.50	Per partnership lead returned

Health check payloads such as test, ping, and https://example.com return mock data and do not call upstream sources.

Comparison

Option	Fit	Tradeoff
SAM.gov directly	Raw opportunity search	No normalized schema, no topic tagging, no lead generation
GovCon enterprise SaaS such as Govini or Bloomberg Government	Enterprise research teams	High contract value, broad platform, not a simple builder API
This actor	Builders, advisors, and federal sales teams	API first feed with normalized records and deterministic lead aggregation

Use cases

1. GovCon advisor lead enrichment for firms that need new contract signals.
2. Federal sales team opportunity feed by topic, PSC, keyword, or NAICS.
3. Subcontract introduction outreach from recent award recipient data.
4. Recipient watch lists for consulting firms and MSPs tracking prime activity.
5. NAICS specific opportunity digests for newsletters and internal alerts.

FAQ

How fresh is coverage? SAM.gov opportunities are fetched live at request time. USAspending award data depends on agency reporting cadence.

Can I customize topics? Yes. Use keyword= for custom matching or topic= for the shipped deterministic topic set.

Does USAspending lag? Yes. Award reporting can lag behind contract activity, so leads are best treated as sales signals, not real time award alerts.

Are there rate limits? The actor keeps requests bounded with limit and upstream timeouts. For large monitoring jobs, run smaller scheduled batches.

Do health checks cost money? Mock health check payloads short circuit and return sample shaped data.

Who do I contact for support? Use the Apify actor issue tab or contact the actor owner through the Apify Store profile.