Size the pursuit before the bid decision.
A proposal is the most expensive artifact a capture team produces and the only one with no buyer attached. The inputs that decide whether it is worth writing — the incumbent’s real footprint, the vehicles that can actually reach the work, the security obligations the contract will push onto you and onto your partners — are public. Most bid/no-bid meetings happen without them.
Bid or no-bid, on a clock, with half the inputs missing.
Every item here is knowable before the meeting. None of it is in the solicitation, which is why it tends to be settled by whoever speaks with most confidence.
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The incumbent is a name, not a footprint
Everyone in the room knows who holds the work. Far fewer know how much of that company’s public engagement sits with this agency, how recent it is, or whether it has drifted between industry codes — which is what separates displacing a franchise from displacing a side line.
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Vehicle access gets treated as a formality
Whether the work can be bought at all through a vehicle you hold, or one a partner holds, settles the pursuit before the technical approach is written. A multiple-award ceiling is permission to compete rather than money in play, and it is routinely quoted as though it were the second thing.
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The compliance ask surfaces after the go decision
The clause setting your security obligations is in the solicitation, and passing it down to your subcontractors is your problem, not the customer’s. Discovering that in week three of a proposal is how a bid quietly becomes a withdrawal.
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Partner credibility is assessed from the pitch deck
Teaming calls get made off capability slides. The partner’s public record — registration, engagement history, whether their compliance claims are backed by a government-published one — sits in the same free search and is almost never run.
Read the field before you price the proposal.
Twelve categories, 62 lenses, 100 points, all of it from data the government already publishes — and for capture the most useful direction to point it is outward. The same page exists for the incumbent, for the prime you would sub to, and for the partner whose logo is about to go on your volume.
What the categories give you before a bid/no-bid is a comparison you can put on one slide: where the other side is strong on the public record, where you are, and which of those differences a proposal can realistically close inside the response window.
Then run it on your own company, because the evaluator can. Every input is published, so a weak registration, a missing vehicle or a thin compliance posture is already visible to the customer reading your submission — and they have no obligation to mention it.
The full category list, what each one reads, and what the score never claims are on the methodology page.
- The incumbent, by agency and industry code
- Public prime obligations with the standard reporting lag stated: how large the engagement is, which agency it sits with, and whether it is current or tailing off into its option years.
- Which vehicles actually reach the work
- Vehicle access is rendered as access — the programs a company can compete under. Ceilings are never added together into a total, because a ceiling is not a figure about anybody’s footprint.
- A partner check that takes one search
- Registration status, engagement footprint and compliance posture for any company you would put on a teaming agreement, available before their name appears in your management volume.
- Your own page, as the customer sees it
- The same read on your company, which is the version an evaluator can pull without telling you they did. Better to have read it first than to be told about it at debrief.
A teaming claim you can cite, and one you cannot.
Compliance is the line most likely to change a teaming decision late and expensively. The overlay is the fastest read on whether a partner’s claim will survive the customer asking for the evidence behind it.
- FedRAMP
Backed by a government-published listing and dated. If a partner’s posture is load-bearing in your technical volume, this is the state you want behind it and the one you can reference by name.
- SOC 2
The partner says so, and the badge says that is who said it. Fine as a starting point; worth a document request before the claim appears anywhere in a proposal as a capability of the team.
- CMMC
No public signal. With mandatory third-party certification suspended since 13 July 2026, the requirement now reaches you through the solicitation or through a prime’s flowdown — so the contract in front of you, and not this badge, is what sets what your partner has to hold.
Nothing here certifies anyone. It tells you which claims the customer could confirm without your help, which is the only part of it that changes your risk on the bid.
One published number, and a free search under it.
The incumbent read, the partner check and your own page all sit on the free side of the line: searching any vendor takes no login and no procurement conversation.
A team carrying four pursuits at once will want the subscription: Team runs $499 a month, or $4,990 if you take the year, and you arrange it by email at hello@govexpress.ai rather than through a sales process. Watchlists follow the incumbents and partners you are tracking; the export drops into the pipeline review.
Neither number is negotiated and neither is hidden — the pricing page lists them and the terms restate them. Nothing here reads a government-only system, so no subscription can tell you how an evaluator scored your last submission.
Run the incumbent before the next meeting.
Take the name everyone in the room assumes is unbeatable, read the public footprint actually behind it, and bring that to the bid/no-bid instead of the assumption. It is free, and it takes one search.
The flowdown question, in six pages
The requirement capture teams meet through a prime rather than through a solicitation: what the 13 July 2026 suspension paused, what DFARS 252.204-7012 and its flowdown still oblige, and which level the data in a contract puts your team in.
Want it without the email step? The free explainer covers the change →