Complete Tenders runs two products under one roof. A UK tender directory and email alerts service with a dedicated FM feed (cleaning, security, maintenance). And a done-for-you bid management and tender writing service for the contracts you decide to bid on.
The dual model is the differentiator. Most paid platforms sell either alerts or bid writing. Complete Tenders sells both. The convenience is real. So is the lock-in.
- Complete Tenders bundles FM-vertical tender alerts with paid bid-writing services. One provider for both layers.
- Hourly tender feed updates, the most aggressive cadence in the UK alerts market. Useful for time-sensitive notices.
- Bid-writing service costs £500 to £2,000+ per submission, on top of the alerts subscription. Bundled but not free.
- Annual subscription pricing on the alerts platform. Not published in full publicly. Mid-market tier.
- Doesn't qualify your fit before drafting. You either commission a bid writer (£500-£2,000 per bid) or don't bid.
- CleanTender Pro at £99/mo bundles UK Soft FM discovery + qualification scoring + unlimited drafts. Cheaper than Complete Tenders' alerts subscription plus one bid-writing engagement.
What's in this comparison¶
- What Complete Tenders offers
- The bundled-services trade-off
- Where it falls short
- The CleanTender alternative
- Side by side
- Verdict
What Complete Tenders offers¶
Two products.
- Tender alerts platform. UK directory pulled from Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, and the devolved-nation portals. Hourly updates. FM-vertical filter for cleaning, security, and maintenance contracts. Email alerts configurable by sector and value band.
- Bid management and tender writing service. Per-engagement pricing. The Complete Tenders team writes a Selection Questionnaire response or full ITT submission against the contract pack. Typical engagement runs £500 to £2,000+ depending on complexity.
The bundled-services trade-off¶
One provider. One invoice. The pitch is convenience. You see a tender, decide to bid, hand the contract pack to the same team that surfaced it, get a draft back. No coordination across vendors. No briefing twice.
The trade-off is lock-in and economics. Complete Tenders has an interest in selling you bid-writing services on every alert it surfaces. Independent providers don't. The independent path (free portals plus per-bid AI tool, or free portals plus subscription AI tool) costs less per submission for SMEs running 4 to 12 bids a year.
Where Complete Tenders falls short¶
- No qualification scoring. The platform doesn't read your insurance levels, accreditations, sector experience, regions, and tell you whether the alerted contract is a fit before you commission the bid-writing team.
- Per-submission bid-writing fees stack fast. £1,000 per bid times 8 bids a year is £8,000 on top of the alerts subscription. CleanTender Pro is £990 a year for unlimited drafts.
- Pricing not transparent. Both the alerts subscription and the bid-writing engagements are quoted on request. SMEs without negotiating power often pay close to the published-rate ceiling.
- Hourly update cadence is real. Standard live notices on the official portals also fire saved-search alerts within hours. The hourly differentiator matters less than Complete Tenders' marketing suggests.
The CleanTender alternative¶
- Curated UK Soft FM feed (cleaning, security, grounds, waste, catering, pest, FM bundles) pulled from the same official sources. Free tier to browse.
- Qualification scan reads the contract pack and scores your stored 30+ field profile in 30 seconds. Goes/no-goes the bid before you commit to a writing engagement.
- Selection Questionnaire drafts in the standard sections (Company Overview, Relevant Experience, Quality Assurance, Staff Training, Vetting, Social Value, COSHH or BS 7858 by sector). Unlimited on Pro. No per-bid fees.
- Daily matched-tender email alerts at the threshold you set. One-click unsubscribe. No hourly noise; matched only.
- Pricing public. £99/mo or £990/yr Pro.
Side by side¶
| Feature | Complete Tenders | CleanTender Pro |
|---|---|---|
| FM-vertical tender feed | Yes | Yes (Soft FM) |
| Update cadence | Hourly | Daily matched alerts |
| Qualification fit scoring | No | Yes (30-sec scan) |
| Bid drafting | Per-engagement service (£500-£2,000+) | Unlimited (subscription) |
| Pricing model | Subscription + per-bid fees | Single subscription, no per-bid fees |
| Total cost at 8 bids/year | Subscription + £4,000-£16,000+ | £990/yr |
| Best for | Suppliers wanting one provider, willing to pay per-bid fees | SMEs at 4-12 bids/year wanting flat-rate everything |
Complete Tenders vs CleanTender. Complete Tenders alerts subscription scope-tiered; bid-writing per-engagement.
Verdict¶
- Want one provider for alerts and bid writing, willing to pay £500-£2,000 per submission, expecting low bid volume. Complete Tenders is convenient.
- 4 to 12 bids a year, want flat-rate predictability. CleanTender Pro at £990/yr beats Complete Tenders' subscription plus two bid-writing engagements.
- Bid 12+ times a year and have a bid manager in-house. Pair the free official portals with mytender.io or AutogenAI for drafting. Drop both Complete Tenders products.
Our wider best UK tender alert services comparison covers Supply2Gov, Tenders Direct, TenderLedger, Tracker Intelligence, myTenders, and Complete Tenders side by side with pricing and verdicts. For the bid-writing economics, bid writer vs AI bid tool has the per-submission maths.
Sources
- Find a Tender Service · The free portal Complete Tenders pulls FM notices from
- Contracts Finder · English central + local-authority lower-threshold notices
- Procurement Act 2023 · Award notices and pipeline notices now published transparently on Find a Tender
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
- Two costs. Annual subscription on the alerts platform, mid-market tier, not published publicly. Per-engagement fees on the bid-writing service, typically £500 to £2,000+ depending on contract complexity. Total annual spend depends on how many bids you commission. Six commissions in a year plus the subscription often runs £5,000 to £15,000.
- Bundling is convenient but locks you into per-engagement pricing on every bid. SMEs running 4 to 12 bids a year usually pay less by separating the layers: free saved-search alerts on the official portals, plus a flat-rate subscription tool like CleanTender Pro at £990/yr for unlimited drafts. The crossover is at bid two: from your second submission onwards, the unbundled stack is cheaper.
- For most SMEs, no. The official portals fire saved-search email alerts within hours of publication. The hourly differentiator on Complete Tenders is real but rarely the deciding factor on a bid you would have submitted anyway. Time-sensitive niche tenders (large frameworks closing in 5-7 days) are the use case where hourly cadence matters.
- TenderLedger is alerts-only, FM-vertical, with buyer profile and award intelligence on top. Complete Tenders is alerts plus a paid bid-writing service. TenderLedger doesn't write bids for you. Complete Tenders does, at per-engagement fees. If you want pricing intelligence on competitor wins, pick TenderLedger. If you want one provider to write the bid for you, pick Complete Tenders. Most cost-conscious SMEs pick neither and pair free portals with CleanTender at £99/mo.
- Yes, CleanTender drafts a Selection Questionnaire response in the standard sections against the contract pack and your stored profile. Unlimited on Pro at £99/mo. The output is editable inline and exportable to Word, PDF, or Markdown. Difference from Complete Tenders' bid-writing service: no per-engagement fee, no waiting for a writer's availability, and the draft reflects your stored profile data so it's tied to your real compliance position from the first version.