Guide
How to research a public buyer before you bid
A bid costs days. The decision about whether it is worth writing takes twenty minutes — out of what the buyer has already published about itself.
The most expensive decision in public-sector sales is not a lost bid. It is a bid that should never have been written. Whether a procedure is realistic is decided by the buyer: how it has awarded before, who holds the work now, and how many suppliers turn up at all.
Five questions, in this order
- What has this buyer awarded in your category? A buyer that has tendered three times in five years will tender a fourth. One that never has is probably buying through somebody else’s framework — and that framework is your real target.
- Who is the incumbent, and since when? A supplier in its third extension year is a different proposition from one in its first contract year.
- How many bids does this buyer usually attract? The bid count is published on many notices. Two bidders is an opening; fourteen is a price war.
- How big are the lots? A total value beyond your capacity often breaks into lots that are not. The headline figure is not what you bid on.
- When does the current contract end? That is the date everything else hangs off.
What the buyer type changes
- Municipalities and districts award small, often and locally. Repetition is the point: a supplier once listed gets asked again.
- State and federal agencies award larger, more formally, and for longer terms. More effort per procedure, more lock-in in return.
- Hospitals, universities and utilities are public buyers with private-sector purchasing habits — and frequently with purchasing consortia that are the real bottleneck.
- Utilities in energy, water and transport sit under separate rules, with higher thresholds and more procedural freedom.
The mistake almost everyone makes
Reading one large award as a permanently large budget. A new building appears once. A cleaning contract appears every four years, reliably. For a pipeline the second buyer is worth more, even though the first carries the bigger number.
On Adjudera every buyer page carries that buyer’s past awards, the incumbent per category, and the contracts of that buyer now running out. Every figure links to the notice it came from.
Frequently asked questions
- May I approach a contracting authority before the tender?
- Yes, outside a live procedure. Preliminary market consultation is expressly provided for. Once a procedure is running, equal treatment applies and any information given must be made available to every bidder.
- How do I tell whether a buyer tenders regularly?
- From its own publication history. Three awards in the same category across five years is a pattern; one is an incident.
- Why do some buyers publish no value?
- Because the figure may be withheld in certain circumstances and many authorities use that latitude. In Germany the value is missing on a substantial share of awards; the buyer, the term and the lot structure still tell you a great deal.
- How far back should the research go?
- At least one full contract generation, so five to six years. Any shorter and you see a re-award without seeing that it was a repeat.
- Does any of this apply below the EU thresholds?
- Only partly. Below-threshold awards appear on national and regional platforms with uneven coverage, sometimes not at all. Above the thresholds — where most of the money is — the record is complete.
Published: 23 Sept 2026