Why Set-Aside Pro exists
By law, federal agencies must steer at least 23% of their contracting dollars to small businesses — with whole categories reserved for women-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned, HUBZone, 8(a), and other disadvantaged firms. That's hundreds of billions of dollars a year, set aside on purpose for companies like yours.
But the system that hands out that money — SAM.gov, the government's official opportunity database — wasn't built for you. Every notice is a wall of acronyms, clause numbers, and boilerplate, and dozens are posted in your industry every day. Reading them is a full-time job. So the firms that win are too often the ones who can afford a full-time capture team — not the ones who could do the work best.
We think that's backwards. Set-asides were created to give small businesses a fair shot, and sheer complexity quietly takes it back. Our mission is to give it back — to make the set-aside system actually usable by the people it was built for.
What we're working toward
Four goals we hold ourselves to:
- Miss nothing. Surface every active federal set-aside, refreshed every day, so a winnable contract never slips by just because you didn't see it.
- Readable in a minute. Turn every dense notice into plain English — what they want, the deal-breakers, the deadline — so sizing up an opportunity takes a minute, not an afternoon.
- No wasted bids. Tell you plainly whether you actually qualify, so your time goes to the contracts you can win instead of the ones you can't.
- Keep the door open. Keep the core — the board and your filtered daily digest — free, forever, so cost is never the reason a small business can't compete.
How it works
- Every night, after West Coast procurement offices close, we pull the full set of active set-aside notices straight from SAM.gov's public data.
- We rewrite each one in plain English — what they actually want, who should apply, the deal-breakers, the easy-to-miss gotchas, and the next steps.
- You browse the whole board for free, with a daily digest filtered to your set-asides, NAICS codes, agencies, and keywords — plus an assistant that checks your company profile against any opportunity and tells you whether you qualify.
What we won't do
- We're not a contracting officer, a lawyer, or a proposal shop. We can't promise you'll win or write your bid for you — our summaries are a fast first read, not legal or contracting advice.
- We're not the government. Set-Aside Pro is an independent publication, not affiliated with or endorsed by SAM.gov or any federal agency. Every opportunity links back to its official SAM.gov record, which is always the authoritative source.
- We don't sell your data, and we don't run ads. The only email we send is the one you asked for.
How we keep the lights on
The board, your filtered daily digest, and five assistant questions a day are free — and they'll stay free. We make money one honest way: a Pro plan ($299/year, with a 7-day free trial) that adds your company profile and a rule-checked "Do I qualify?" on every opportunity, 200 assistant questions a day, and up to 10 team seats. That's the whole business model — no data sales, no ads, no upsell maze.
Say hello
Questions, bugs, a feature you wish existed, an opportunity we missed, or a summary we got wrong? Email hello@setasidepro.com — a real person reads it.