How to use AusTender — the complete guide

AusTender is where the Commonwealth advertises almost everything it buys above the mandatory threshold — roughly A$80,000 for most purchases, and higher for consultancies. Every agency from the Department of Defence to Services Australia posts its Approaches to Market (ATMs) there, and every awarded contract eventually shows up too. For an SME, it is the single richest free source of sales intelligence in the country.

1. Search the right way

AusTender's default search is by keyword, and it's mediocre: buyers write titles like "Provision of Services" that tell you nothing. Two fixes:

• Search by UNSPSC code, not word. Every notice is classified. Cleaning sits under 91140000, security guarding under 92131700, construction under 72000000-series. Code search is consistent; word search isn't.
• Filter by status "Open" and sort by closing date. New tenders appear weekly; awards appear daily. The awarded contracts list is a goldmine — it shows you who wins what, for how much, from which agency.

2. Read an ATM properly

Each ATM has four things that matter: the closing date (late lodgements are rejected automatically), the UNSPSC category (confirms it's really your trade), the evaluation criteria in the attached documents (usually weighted: capability, experience, price), and the conditions for participation — licences, insurances, prequalification.

Download the Statement of Requirement before deciding anything. Many RFTs are smaller and more winnable than their titles suggest, and some are panel arrangements that can mean years of work from one application.

3. Set up alerts that actually work

AusTender's native email alerting is blunt — category-wide digests that bury matches. Options that work better: a saved RSS-style query you check daily, or a service that watches for you. TenderWin monitors every new ATM continuously and emails you only the ones matching your trade, state and profile.

4. Use the awards data

The most under-used page on AusTender is Contract Notices. Filter by your UNSPSC code and you can see every recent winner, the buyer, and often the value. That tells you: which agencies buy your trade regularly, which competitors are winning, and what price typically wins. This is exactly the "Who's winning this work?" module TenderWin shows on every trade page.

5. Avoid the common mistakes

• Lodging late — the portal locks at the exact closing minute, no grace.
• Skipping the "Conditions for Participation" — fail one mandatory condition and the response is set aside unread.
• Answering criteria in the wrong order — evaluators score against their template; mirror it exactly.
• Assuming the biggest contract is the best target — SMEs win small, specific, urgent work far more often than mega-RFTs.