> **Updated October 13, 15 and 25, 2026.** This post used to describe a free first bid: one tender on > the Business plan, unlocked by adding a card. That offer has been replaced by what this page now > describes: a free account that opens with a 14-day trial of every Business feature for > opportunities, and bids you buy one at a time, with no subscription. The first bid is no longer > free. From October 13 to 25 the trial was a 30-day "first month" covering the go/no-go only. The > old post's address is kept so existing links still work. Most bid software asks you to judge it from a demo. A demo shows a tender someone else picked, already analysed, with nothing at stake. What you need to know is different: does the tool hold up on the tenders you actually see, and on one you are actually going to bid? So Offra lets you find out in two steps, and you can stop after either one. > **Key takeaway:** create a free account. For its first 14 days, you get every Business feature for > opportunities, so you can see which tenders are worth your time. When one is worth answering, buy > that one bid: it gets everything the Business plan does, until a week after its deadline, with no > subscription, and it costs less during the trial. If you bid every month, Business includes bids. ## Step one: the free account, and its 14-day trial The free account has no time limit and needs no credit card. It searches every open notice Offra carries, federal, state and city, in one list. Each notice opens with its contracting officer, its attachments, whether you are small under its code, and a bid/no-bid checklist. You get daily alerts on up to ten saved searches, reminders before deadlines, and an email when a notice you watch changes. Your team can join at no cost. [What the free account does, next to SAM.gov](/blog/offra-vs-sam-gov). For its **first 14 days**, the account is a trial of every Business feature for opportunities: the part of the plan that judges notices rather than lists them. No card is needed, and nothing turns into a charge when it ends: - **The go/no-go on every notice.** Go, Worth a look or No-go, for your firm, with the reasons behind it and what would change it. - **Win chance and the buyer's record.** Who has been winning the buyer's work, and what comparable contracts went for, on notices where the award record has it. - **The Opportunity Radar.** New tenders that fit your firm, ranked, with only strong or good matches reported, rebuilt every day. - **Assess a notice** and **Describe a search.** Score any tender you type in, or describe what you want in a sentence and let Offra set the filters. - **Export and Business's limits.** Export the list you filtered, and keep more saved searches and watched notices than the free account allows. Bids are not part of the trial, but a bid you buy during it costs less than one bought after it. The top bar shows the date the trial ends, and Offra emails you three days before. After it, the account stays free and keeps everything in the paragraph above. The go/no-go, the buyer's record and the radar move to the Intelligence plan, which keeps exactly them on, and the locks say so. ## Step two: one bid, when one is worth answering When a tender is worth answering, choose **Start a bid** on it and buy that one bid. There is no subscription. The bid gets exactly what the Business plan does to a single tender, and it reads the Business plan's own settings, so it cannot fall behind what Business sells: - **The whole package, read.** Offra reads every document you upload and turns each requirement into a checklist item, with the passage it came from. [How that works, and why one prompt in a chatbot is not the same thing](/blog/how-offra-builds-a-compliance-matrix). - **The go/no-go.** Win Intelligence weighs whether the bid is worth chasing. On a bid linked to a public notice, it shows who has been winning the buyer's work and what comparable contracts went for. - **The documents written for you.** Offra writes the documents the bid asks for — one CV per person, one sheet per past project, each document to write — from the tender and your knowledge base, and lists the value to copy into each field of the buyer's forms. It leaves blanks for what only you can decide, and it never writes your price. [Why it stops at the price](/blog/why-offra-drafts-your-answers-but-never-your-price). - **Steps for your team.** The bid is laid out as steps, one document at a time. Every step and document can be assigned to someone with a due date, and each person is reminded before the tender's deadlines. [How a bid looks since October](/blog/whats-new-in-offra-2026-10-25). - **Tracking until it closes.** A bid started from a public notice stays bound to it. When the deadline moves, an amendment is posted, new attachments go up or the notice is cancelled, the bid is told. - **The check before you submit.** Offra compares what you have prepared with what the tender requires, and flags what is still missing. You still submit the bid yourself. Offra prepares the bid and checks it. It never sends anything to the buyer on your behalf. The price of one bid is on the [pricing page](/pricing): it is lower during the trial and on Intelligence than on the free account after the trial, and the price is fixed when you buy. The owner or an admin of the workspace pays, once, by card; Offra then starts the bid on the notice you were reading. You can buy several at once, and a bid you have not used yet stays valid for twelve months. ## How long a bid lasts, and what happens after A bid runs on the Business plan until **seven days after the tender's deadline**. Until Offra knows the deadline, it runs for 60 days from the start. A banner on the bid shows the end date. After that, nothing is taken away. The report, the steps and the documents written for you stay in your account, and you can still read all of them. What stops is new work: nothing is regenerated, and nothing is tracked in the background. ## Keeping the go/no-go after the trial, and when Business makes more sense A bid bought on its own covers one tender. Two plans cover the account: - **Intelligence** keeps the trial's features on: the go/no-go on every notice, win chance, the buyer's record, the radar and export, for your whole team. You still buy each bid when one is worth answering, at the lower price. - **Business** is everything in Intelligence, plus bids included every month and extra bids past the allowance. If you answer two tenders a month or fewer, Intelligence and single bids usually cost less. From the third bid in a month, Business does. Compare them on the [pricing page](/pricing). Both can be bought month to month and cancelled at any time, and your account then stays free, with everything in it. ## Choosing the tender for your bid - **One you mean to submit.** A bid is worth the most on a live tender with a real deadline. There, the go/no-go answers a question you actually have, and the tasks go to real people. - **One with time left.** The bid runs until a week after the deadline, so a tender that closes in two days gives you two days of the workflow. If you can, pick one with a few weeks to go. - **One with its full package posted.** Offra reads what you upload. If the drawings, the wage determination or the pricing schedule are not posted yet, you can still start. Upload them when they arrive: a bid started from a public notice is told when new attachments are posted. - **One from a public notice, if you have the choice.** A bid started from a notice is linked to it, so deadline changes and amendments reach it. The go/no-go can then show the buyer's record and comparable work. A tender you upload on its own gets the full reading, the checklist and the documents written for you, but not the parts that come from the public record. - **Some of your own material.** Offra writes from your knowledge base as well as the tender. Put your past projects, your people's CVs and a capability statement in your knowledge base first; the free account has room for it. The documents then have something of yours to work from. If you are not sure where to start, [create the free account](/tenders) and browse what is open now. Every open notice shows its closing date and how many documents it has. ## Questions **Is the first bid free?** No, not any more. The free account and its 14-day trial are free; each bid is bought, or included in Business. Until October 13, 2026 the first bid was free once a card was added; that offer was replaced by the trial. **Do I need a credit card to sign up?** No. A card is asked for only when you buy a bid or subscribe. **Is there a free trial?** Yes: every free account starts with 14 days of every Business feature for opportunities, with no card. Bids are bought separately, at the lower price while the trial runs. Business itself can be bought month to month and cancelled at any time. **Can my team work on a bid?** Yes. There is no seat limit on any plan, the free account included, and any member can work on the bid. **What if my tender is not on Offra's list?** Choose **New bid** and upload it. Preparing a bid works on any tender you upload, public or private, in any sector. **What happens to my bid if I never subscribe?** It stays in your account, and you can still read all of it. Only new work on it stops after the deadline.