How to Set Up SAM.gov Saved Searches (So Opportunities Find You)

Updated July 18, 2026 3 min read

Checking SAM.gov by hand every morning is a habit, not a strategy. The site has a built-in way to do the checking for you: save a search once, and it will email you when something new matches. Here is how to actually set it up, and what the emails do and don't tell you.

Step 1: Run the search you want to repeat

Go to Contract Opportunities and build the search you'd otherwise run manually. The filters worth setting:

Keyword: your product or service, plainly stated
NAICS code: the codes you're actually registered under
Set-aside type: if you qualify for 8(a), WOSB, HUBZone, SDVOSB, or similar
Notice type: at minimum, Solicitation and Combined Synopsis/Solicitation; add Sources Sought if you want to see early signals too
Place of performance: if you only work certain states or regions

You have to be logged into your SAM.gov account for this to work. Search without logging in and the save option won't show up at all.

Step 2: Save it

Once your results look right, look above the results list for the Save Search button. Click it, give the search a name you'll recognize later ("Janitorial 561720 Southeast" beats "Search 1"), and confirm.

Step 3: Turn on the email

Saving the search alone does nothing by itself. You have to switch on notifications separately:

Open the menu (the hamburger icon) and go to Workspace
Click Saved Searches
Find your search, open its Actions dropdown, and select Notify

From here SAM.gov emails you when the results for that search change. That's it. No separate app, no extra login.

What the email actually tells you (and doesn't)

The notification tells you that something changed. It doesn't tell you what changed or how many results moved. You get a subject line and a link back into SAM.gov, login required, to go see for yourself. For one or two saved searches that's a minor click. For someone running eight or ten searches across NAICS codes, set-asides, and regions, it turns into eight or ten logins a day just to find out most of them were noise.

That gap, an alert that tells you something happened but not what, is the exact reason we built our own daily pull instead of relying on saved-search emails alone. Our pipeline runs the pull every morning, scores what it finds against your actual NAICS and capability profile, and puts the ones worth a look on your board, read and ranked, before you've opened your inbox. A saved search tells you to go check. Ours shows you what it found.

Keep the list short and specific

Ten broad saved searches generate ten notifications you'll eventually start ignoring. A handful of narrow ones, tied to the NAICS codes and set-asides you actually qualify under, generate a small number of emails you'll actually open. Rebuild them when your capability changes, not before.

Saved searches will not read the solicitation for you, price it, or tell you whether it's worth fifteen minutes or ten hours. They just tell you it exists. That's still worth having.