Finding Tenders and Winning Them Are Different Problems
Summary answer: tender intelligence platforms aggregate opportunities from every UK portal, add buyer intelligence and contract expiry forecasting, and help you find bids earlier. That solves discovery. It does not solve response, which for a removals firm means assembling accreditations, insurance certificates, method statements, comparable contract examples, a Carbon Reduction Plan and a social value response, usually against a deadline. Most small operators do not lose tenders they never found. They lose because responding took a week they did not have, so they stopped bidding.
Disclosure: Moovi includes tender drafting and bid management in its platform. This article covers a market adjacent to one we compete in. Stotles pricing is from their published page.
The opportunity data is free
Find a Tender Service publishes above threshold opportunities UK wide. Contracts Finder publishes England public sector contracts. Both are public and cost nothing.
For a removals firm bidding occasionally, those two plus a saved search may be enough.
What a tender intelligence platform adds
Stotles aggregates from every UK and Ireland public sector portal including Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, the Digital Marketplace and Public Contracts Scotland, then adds award history, expiring contract forecasting, buyer and decision maker intelligence, framework insight and AI assisted bid qualification.
Its pricing is published, which is unusual in this category.
| Tier | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | £0 | Unlimited users, tender discovery, core workflow |
| Basic | £50/user/month | Expiring contracts, historical awards, live chat support |
| Growth | From £475/month | Buyer intelligence, framework insight, integrations |
| Expert | Custom | Decision maker contacts, advanced support, analyst reports |
The genuinely valuable part is expiry forecasting. Knowing a contract comes up in fourteen months is worth far more than seeing the notice when it publishes, by which point the incumbent has been talking to the buyer for a year.
Tracker Intelligence and Delta eSourcing, both from BiP Solutions, occupy similar ground. Neither publishes pricing.
Why finding is the easy half
Here is what a removals firm actually has to produce.
Insurance evidence at required levels: employers' liability, public liability and goods in transit. Health and safety accreditation, usually SSIP or SafeContractor, plus risk assessments and method statements specific to the work. Quality accreditation, commonly BS 8522 for commercial moving, often with ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001. Information security evidence where data bearing assets are involved, typically Cyber Essentials. A published Carbon Reduction Plan, a condition of participation for central government contracts above five million pounds a year under PPN 006. A social value response, minimum ten per cent weighting under PPN 002. Two or more comparable contract examples from the last three years. Staff vetting evidence for secure environments. And a written method statement covering how the move will run.
That is the work. It is why small operators bid once, find it takes a week, and never bid again.
Where the week actually goes
Most of that material is identical on every bid. The certificates do not change. The insurance levels do not change. The method statement is largely reusable. The comparable examples change slowly.
What changes is the specific answer to the specific question. Everything else is a hunt through a filing cabinet and three email inboxes for the current version of a document that expired last month.
A firm holding its accreditations, certificates, insurance renewals and reference jobs in one place, with expiry dates against them, assembles the standard part of a bid in an afternoon. A firm that does not, cannot.
That is the entire difference between bidding regularly and bidding once.
What bid capability inside the platform looks like
Three things, and they only work because the underlying records are already there.
AI written tender submissions. Drafting against the specific questions, drawing on the firm's own accreditations, insurance positions, completed jobs and compliance records rather than a blank page.
Bid manager and bid team roles. Multiple people working a submission with defined responsibilities, rather than a document emailed round and versioned by filename.
Evidence that already exists. Insurance renewals, driver and vehicle compliance records, completed job history and per job margin are all in the system because the business runs on it. A comparable contract example is a query, not a memory test. A chain of custody record for a corporate move is an export, not a reconstruction.
That last point is the one that matters. Bid capability bolted onto a business with no operational record produces a well written document with nothing behind it. Bid capability sitting on top of two years of job records, compliance evidence and signed sign offs produces a submission you can substantiate at audit.
How the two fit together
They are complementary. Use the free portals or a tender platform to find opportunities and, more usefully, to see what is coming up for renewal. Then have your own house in order so responding is a day rather than a week.
If you bid rarely, Find a Tender and Contracts Finder plus a saved search are enough, and the Stotles free tier costs nothing to add. If you bid regularly, the paid tiers earn their money. Either way, the constraint on most removals firms is response capacity, not opportunity discovery.
Frequently asked questions
How do removals companies find public sector contracts?
Through Find a Tender Service and Contracts Finder, which are free, or through commercial platforms such as Stotles, Tracker Intelligence or Delta eSourcing which aggregate those sources and add award history, expiry forecasting and buyer intelligence.
How much does Stotles cost?
Stotles publishes a free tier with unlimited users and tender discovery, Basic at £50 per user per month, Growth from £475 per month, and Expert at custom pricing.
What do you need to bid for a public sector removals contract?
Typically employers' liability, public liability and goods in transit insurance, SSIP or equivalent health and safety accreditation, BS 8522 for commercial moving, often ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001, Cyber Essentials where data is involved, a Carbon Reduction Plan for contracts above five million pounds a year, a social value response, and two or more comparable contract examples from the last three years.
Is tender software worth it for a small removals firm?
If you bid rarely, the free government portals are sufficient. Paid discovery tiers earn their money when expiry intelligence lets you build a relationship with a buyer before a notice publishes. The bigger constraint is usually response capacity.
Why do small firms stop bidding for tenders?
Almost always response effort rather than opportunity availability. Assembling accreditations, insurance evidence, method statements and social value responses takes days when the material is scattered, and hours when it is held in one system with expiry dates against it.
Sources
- Stotles pricing page, accessed 20 July 2026
- Find a Tender Service and Contracts Finder
- Cabinet Office PPN 006 and PPN 002
- BiP Solutions material for Tracker Intelligence and Delta eSourcing
A note on this piece. We write properly elsewhere. This one is written to be found, which means headings, structure and the answer near the top. If you want the version with an argument in it, that is what the Moovi Dispatch is for.
About the author. Sam Clark is the founder of Moovi. He started in the removals industry as a porter at Pickfords at fifteen, spent sixteen years in enterprise technology and regulated markets working with the NHS and Crown Commercial Service, and returned to the vans in 2025 before building anything. He is the author of the Moovi Regulatory Review, published free twice a year.