SAM.gov Contract Opportunities Monitor

Pulls U.S. federal contract opportunities from SAM.gov using the official, documented api.sam.gov endpoint — not SAM.gov's internal frontend API.

Why this exists

The two most-bookmarked SAM.gov actors on Apify Store currently sit at 1.0★ and 1.8★. The written reviews on the top one are literally "not existing" and "doesn't work." Both appear to depend on undocumented frontend endpoints that break whenever SAM.gov changes its site. This actor is built entirely on the documented public API instead, so there's nothing undocumented to break silently.

Setup

1. Get a free API key: sign in at sam.gov → Workspace → Profile → Account Details → Public API Key.
2. Paste it into the SAM.gov API key input field (stored encrypted).
3. Set your filters (title keyword, NAICS codes, set-aside, state, date window) and run.

Known platform limitations (stated up front, not discovered the hard way)

• No full-text search. SAM.gov's official API only searches the title field — there's no way to search the full opportunity description server-side. This is a platform limitation, not a bug here.
• One NAICS code per request. If you give multiple NAICS codes, this actor runs one request sequence per code and dedupes the results — it does not (and cannot) send them as a single comma-joined filter.
• One set-aside type per request. Same story — pick one per run, or run separate scheduled tasks for each.
• Daily API request quota. SAM.gov limits how many requests per day your key gets (varies by account type). Each request can return up to 100+ records, so a single scheduled daily run with a focused NAICS/date filter comfortably fits in quota — this is meant to be scheduled daily, not polled continuously.
• Date range required. SAM.gov requires a bounded postedFrom/postedTo window (max ~1 year). This actor computes it for you from postedFromDaysAgo.

Reliability behavior

• Retries transient errors (429, 5xx, timeouts) with exponential backoff.
• Treats an invalid/expired API key as a hard failure with an actionable message — never silently returns an empty dataset when the real cause is an auth problem.
• Logs a warning (not a silent drop) if SAM.gov ever returns a record that doesn't match a NAICS filter — defensive in case the filter parameter behavior changes upstream.

Output fields

Each dataset item includes: noticeId, title, solicitationNumber, noticeType, active, postedDate, responseDeadline, department, subTier, office, naicsCode, setAsideDescription, placeOfPerformanceState/City/Zip, contactName/Email/Phone, awardAmount/Date/AwardeeName (for award notices), and a direct samGovUrl link to view the notice on sam.gov.