US Federal Contracts & Grants Scraper: USAspending & Grants.gov

Scrape US federal contract awards (USAspending.gov) and federal grant opportunities (Grants.gov) with award amounts, recipients, NAICS, agencies, and contacts.

What it does

Searches and extracts official US federal contract awards from USAspending.gov (FPDS feed) and open/forecasted federal grant opportunities from Grants.gov with award values, recipient entities, NAICS/CFDA codes, awarding agencies, funding ceilings, and grantor contact details. Export clean, deduplicated data as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS, or connect directly via the Apify REST API, Python/JavaScript SDKs, CLI, MCP Server, Clay, n8n, Make, or Zapier — with no login, cookies, or browser overhead.

Use cases

• B2B Outbound to Recent Federal Contract Winners: Identify companies that just won $50K–$100M+ DoD, DHS, HHS, or NASA contracts (recipientOrEligibility, amountUsd, naicsOrAssistanceCode) and have immediate budget for software, cloud, cybersecurity, and staffing.
• GovCon Capture & Competitive Intelligence: Track competitor contract vehicles, awarding sub-agencies (subAgencyName), performance timelines (openOrStartDate to closeOrEndDate), and contract descriptions across NAICS codes.
• Non-Dilutive R&D Grant Scouting (SBIR/STTR, NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA): Monitor forecasted and posted federal grants on Grants.gov with enriched awardCeilingUsd, awardFloorUsd, amountUsd (estimated program funding), and direct grantor contactEmail.
• Automated Procurement Alerts in Slack, Clay, or CRM: Schedule daily runs with onlyNew: true to stream new federal awards and grant postings into HubSpot, Salesforce, Clay, or n8n.

Why use this scraper?

Feature	This Actor	Generic Browser / HTML Scrapers
Architecture	Direct structured API / JSON / SSR requests (curl_cffi)	Heavy headless browser automation
Speed & reliability	2–25 seconds for 50–200 items	Minutes of high compute burn
Pricing model	Pay per result ($0.00 actor-start fee)	Monthly rental or high CU overhead
Error handling	Failed inputs logged in ERRORS key-value record and never charged	Bills compute time even on failures

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	"both"	Extract US federal contract awards from USAspending.gov ('contracts'), active/forecasted federal grant opportunities from Grants.gov ('grants'), or both in one unified dataset ('both').
keywords	array	["artificial intelligence", "cybersecurity"]	Keywords matched against federal contract award descriptions (USAspending.gov) and grant titles/synopses (Grants.gov).
awardStartDate	string	"2025-01-01"	Start date filter (YYYY-MM-DD) for USAspending.gov federal contract awards.
awardEndDate	string	"2026-10-25"	End date filter (YYYY-MM-DD) for USAspending.gov federal contract awards.
minAwardAmount	integer	50000	Minimum obligated federal contract award amount in USD.
grantStatuses	string	`"forecasted	posted"`
includeGrantDetails	boolean	true	Fetch full opportunity details from Grants.gov to attach awardCeilingUsd, awardFloorUsd, estimatedFunding, and grantor contact email/name.
onlyNew	boolean	false	Deduplicate across runs via Apify Key-Value Store and emit only newly seen contract awards or grant opportunities.
maxItemsPerSource	integer	35	Maximum number of records to extract per enabled source (default 35 contracts + 35 grants = 70 records).
delaySeconds	number	0.25	Polite pause between upstream HTTP requests (seconds).

Parameter details

• Extraction mode (mode, string): Extract US federal contract awards from USAspending.gov ('contracts'), active/forecasted federal grant opportunities from Grants.gov ('grants'), or both in one unified dataset ('both').
• Search keywords (keywords, array): Keywords matched against federal contract award descriptions (USAspending.gov) and grant titles/synopses (Grants.gov).
• Contract award start date (YYYY-MM-DD) (awardStartDate, string): Start date filter (YYYY-MM-DD) for USAspending.gov federal contract awards.
• Contract award end date (YYYY-MM-DD) (awardEndDate, string): End date filter (YYYY-MM-DD) for USAspending.gov federal contract awards.
• Minimum contract award amount (USD) (minAwardAmount, integer): Minimum obligated federal contract award amount in USD.
• Grants.gov opportunity status filter (grantStatuses, string): Filter Grants.gov opportunities by status ('forecasted|posted' for open and upcoming grants).
• Enrich Grants.gov funding ceilings & contacts (includeGrantDetails, boolean): Fetch full opportunity details from Grants.gov to attach awardCeilingUsd, awardFloorUsd, estimatedFunding, and grantor contact email/name.
• Only new records (onlyNew, boolean): Deduplicate across runs via Apify Key-Value Store and emit only newly seen contract awards or grant opportunities.
• Max items per source (maxItemsPerSource, integer): Maximum number of records to extract per enabled source (default 35 contracts + 35 grants = 70 records).
• Delay between requests (delaySeconds, number): Polite pause between requests (default 0.25).

Example input

{
  "mode": "both",
  "keywords": [
    "artificial intelligence",
    "cybersecurity"
  ],
  "awardStartDate": "2025-01-01",
  "awardEndDate": "2026-10-25",
  "minAwardAmount": 50000,
  "grantStatuses": "forecasted|posted",
  "includeGrantDetails": true,
  "onlyNew": false,
  "maxItemsPerSource": 35
}

Quickstart: API, Python & Automation (Clay / n8n / Make)

Run directly via the Apify REST API (POST /v2/acts/informed_almandine_vzb~us-federal-contracts-grants-scraper/runs) or Python SDK:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("informed_almandine_vzb/us-federal-contracts-grants-scraper").call(run_input={"mode": "both", "keywords": ["artificial intelligence", "cybersecurity"], "awardStartDate": "2025-01-01", "awardEndDate": "2026-10-25", "minAwardAmount": 50000, "grantStatuses": "forecasted|posted", "includeGrantDetails": true, "onlyNew": false, "maxItemsPerSource": 35})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Output & example output

One dataset row per result. Default table view columns: recordType, recordId, agencyName, recipientOrEligibility, amountUsd, status, openOrStartDate, closeOrEndDate, titleOrDescription, url. Full structured JSON is stored in the run's default dataset.

Example output item

{
  "recordType": "federal_contract",
  "source": "usaspending.gov",
  "recordId": "W911QX20C0023",
  "internalId": "CONT_AWD_W911QX20C0023_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-",
  "titleOrDescription": "RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT EFFORT TO DESIGN AND DEVELOP PROTOTYPES TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE/MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHMS.",
  "recipientOrEligibility": "ECS FEDERAL, LLC",
  "agencyName": "Department of Defense",
  "subAgencyName": "Defense Contract Management Agency",
  "amountUsd": 120492195.74,
  "awardCeilingUsd": 120492195.74,
  "awardFloorUsd": 50000.0,
  "status": "DEFINITIVE CONTRACT",
  "openOrStartDate": "2020-04-23",
  "closeOrEndDate": "2027-03-11",
  "naicsOrAssistanceCode": "541715 - RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHYSICAL, ENGINEERING, AND LIFE SCIENCES (EXCEPT NANOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY)",
  "contactEmail": "procurement@usaspending.gov",
  "contactName": "Defense Contract Management Agency Contracting Office",
  "queryMatched": "artificial intelligence",
  "url": "https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_W911QX20C0023_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-25T16:19:48+00:00"
}

Pricing (Pay-Per-Result)

This Actor uses transparent Pay-Per-Event pricing with a $0.00 actor-start fee:

Event	What is charged	Price
award-result	Federal contract award scraped (One US federal contract or IDV award record from USAspending.gov)	$0.002 / result ($2.00 / 1,000 results)
grant-result	Federal grant opportunity scraped (One US federal grant opportunity record from Grants.gov)	$0.0025 / result ($2.50 / 1,000 results)
apify-actor-start	Actor start fee	$0.00

Concrete pricing math

• award-result (Federal contract award scraped): 1,000 results = $2.00 (50 results = $0.10, 10,000 results = $20.00). Apify's $5.00/month Free Tier covers up to 2,500 results/month at $0.00 out-of-pocket.
• grant-result (Federal grant opportunity scraped): 1,000 results = $2.50 (50 results = $0.12, 10,000 results = $25.00). Apify's $5.00/month Free Tier covers up to 2,000 results/month at $0.00 out-of-pocket.
• Empty runs (0 results) & skipped duplicates (onlyNew / onlyChanged): $0.00.

Data and compliance

100% public-domain U.S. federal government data accessed via official USAspending.gov (DATA Act) and Grants.gov REST APIs (robots.txt Allow: /). Contains strictly public procurement and grant opportunity data with zero consumer PII. Requests are rate-limited and routed through Apify Proxy. Per-input errors are recorded in the run's ERRORS key-value record and are never charged.

FAQ

Do I need an account, login, or API key?
No. This Actor queries public endpoints directly and requires zero credentials.

What happens if I start a run with empty {} input via API or CLI?
Every input defines identical prefill and default values in .actor/input_schema.json, so an empty {} run automatically returns 50+ live records out of the box.

How does incremental deduplication (onlyNew) work?
When onlyNew: true is enabled, the Actor stores seen record IDs in a named Apify Key-Value Store (us-federal-contracts-grants-state) and emits only newly discovered records on subsequent scheduled runs.

Can I export to CSV, Excel, Google Sheets, Clay, or n8n?
Yes. Every dataset item uses flat, normalized top-level keys (recordType, recordId, agencyName, recipientOrEligibility, amountUsd, status, etc.) for one-click CSV/Excel download or native webhook delivery.