BidStats is a UK tender search site operated by Oxygen Finance Limited, per the footer of its own site (checked 2026-08-10). If you are looking for a BidStats alternative, the honest starting point is that BidStats does something most of this market does not: it publishes its complete price list, in pounds, with no sales call.
This page compares BidStats and RFP Quest on published facts only. Every claim about BidStats comes from a page BidStats controls, and carries the date it was checked.
What BidStats publishes about itself
BidStats' pricing page sets out four tiers (all checked 2026-08-10):
- Free — £0. Five tender views each day, three tender portals searched, historic tenders published within the last 90 days.
- Standard — £350 a year. Unlimited tender views, top three tender portals, two years of historic tender data, expiring-contracts pipeline over two years, awarded contracts with awardee and value, tailored daily email alerts, one alert notifier.
- Pro — £800 a year, three seats included. Unlimited views, sourced from 3,000+ buyers, five years of historic data and pipeline, unlimited alert notifiers, data export, Knowledge Hub library.
- Insights — from £5,000 a year. Live procurement spend data, frameworks data, pre-procurement intelligence leads, CRM connectivity via API, ten years of historic data and pipeline, decision-maker contact details.
The same page states that extra users on a plan cost £150 + VAT each, and describes BidStats as having 80,000+ users.
What RFP Quest publishes about itself
RFP Quest ingests Find a Tender and Contracts Finder via OCDS, under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Our category taxonomy covers CPV divisions 48 and 72 only — software and IT services.
RFP Quest is in early access and does not publish a price list. That is a real disadvantage in a comparison like this one, and it is worth saying plainly rather than burying: you cannot budget for a tool whose price you cannot see, and BidStats can be budgeted for in about thirty seconds.
The comparison
When BidStats is the better choice
Three situations where BidStats is the right answer and RFP Quest is not.
You need to know the cost before you commit. BidStats publishes £350 a year for Standard and £800 a year for Pro, seats included, with a stated £150 + VAT per extra user. RFP Quest publishes nothing. If you are putting a tool through a budget approval, or you simply do not want a sales conversation to find out a number, BidStats has already answered the question and we have not.
You need a stated depth of history. BidStats publishes history depth explicitly per tier — 90 days on Free, two years on Standard, five on Pro, ten on Insights. RFP Quest does not publish a history-depth figure, so if your work depends on knowing how far back the award record goes before you buy, BidStats gives you that and we do not.
You need the data out of the tool. BidStats publishes data export at Pro and CRM connectivity via API at Insights. RFP Quest publishes neither. If your intention is to pull tender and award data into your own warehouse or CRM, that is a documented path on their side and an undocumented one on ours.
Where the two genuinely differ
BidStats is, on its own description, a tender search and data product — find notices, see awards, get alerts, export. Its higher tiers add spend and framework intelligence.
RFP Quest is built around what happens after you have the notice: categorisation, extraction of the requirements stated in the notice text, forward windows derived from how often a buyer has re-tendered, and drafting a response section by section.
The overlap between the two is narrower than the category name suggests. A team that already has BidStats and is happy with discovery may still have an unmet problem in qualification and writing — and a team struggling to see enough notices is not going to have that fixed by better drafting.
What we could not verify
- Which three portals the Free and Standard tiers search. The pricing page says "3 Tender portals searched" and "Top 3 tender portals searched" without naming them (checked 2026-08-10).
- Whether the 3,000+ buyers figure applies below the Pro tier. It is stated against Pro and Insights only.
- Contract terms, notice period, or whether the annual price is charged up front. Not published on the pricing page as at 2026-08-10.
How to choose between them
- Write down which of the two jobs you are buying for — seeing more opportunities, or converting the ones you see. BidStats is explicitly the first. Buying discovery to fix a conversion problem is the most common mis-purchase in this category.
- Check the history depth you actually need. If you are doing incumbency research, five or ten years matters and is priced accordingly. If you are looking for live opportunities, it does not matter at all and you should not pay for it.
- Price the seats, not the plan. BidStats Pro includes three seats at £800; extra seats are £150 + VAT. A five-person bid team is a materially different number from the headline.
For the wider field, see our comparison of UK RFP software and the ranked best RFP software guide.