SamHooks vs SAM.gov saved searches
Honest take first: if you are a human who wants email alerts, use SAM.gov's free saved searches and pay no one. They're built in, they're free, and email is the right delivery for eyeballs.
| SAM.gov saved searches | SamHooks | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $19/mo |
| Consumer | Humans reading email | Code parsing JSON/XML |
| Structured payload | No — email prose | JSON with published schema + stable IDs |
| Authenticity | — | HMAC-SHA256 signature per delivery |
| Change semantics | New-result notifications | Field-level diffs: new / changed / cancelled / awarded |
| Failure visibility | — | Delivery log, retries, status page |
The test: who reads the notification? A person → SAM.gov, free. A parser, CRM, queue, or spreadsheet-loader → SamHooks quickstart. Building the machine path yourself instead? Read the DIY comparison.