| Tool | Monthly | Annual | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| TopicScout | $29 | $290 (save $58) | All 11 agencies, cap-statement ranking, weekly digest |
| HigherGov Basic | $199 | $1,990 | SBIR + SLED procurement, BD-team features |
| HigherGov Enterprise | $799 | $7,990 | API, CRM hooks, multi-seat |
| GovTribe | $250+ | $2,500+ | Federal procurement + SBIR, contract intel |
| Instrumentl | $179+ | $1,790+ | Foundation grants only — NOT SBIR |
| SBIR.gov / Grants.gov | Free | Free | Manual search, no ranking, no digest |
| Tool | Monthly | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| ProposalAI | $50–500 | AI-assisted SBIR proposal drafting |
| Grantable | $99–399 | Grant-writing co-pilot, fed grants focused |
| OpenAI / Anthropic API direct | $1–30/proposal | BYO prompts, full control |
| Tool | Monthly (flat) | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| TopicScout Institutional | $500–2,000 | Full portfolio dashboard, per-cohort history, co-marketing |
| HigherGov Reseller | $5,000+ (enterprise only) | White-label for state programs |
| Custom SBIR portal | $10,000–100,000 (one-time) | Built-from-scratch by FedTech / Sopra Steria style integrators |
$0–$29/mo. Start with SBIR.gov and your state SBDC. Add TopicScout when your hourly time is worth more than the $29/mo and you want the weekly digest to do the scan for you.
$29–$199/mo. TopicScout for the matching layer; SBIR.gov for deep dives on shortlisted topics. Proposal-writing AI is optional; most firms still hand-write their first 2–3 proposals to learn the agency voice.
$200–$799/mo. HigherGov for SBIR + SLED procurement bundle; GovTribe if your BD team needs contract intel beyond SBIR.
$500–$2,000/mo flat. TopicScout's institutional plan covers your full cohort under one dashboard with co-hosted webinars. Per-counselor seat math (HigherGov-style) breaks down above ~15 counselors.
Yes. SBIR.gov is the official federal portal and is free to use. You can search open topics, browse past awards, and read solicitations at no cost. The tradeoff is time: filtering thousands of open topics across 11 agencies manually takes 4–8 hours per week to do well.
TopicScout is $29/month for the individual plan. It covers all 11 SBIR/STTR agencies plus Grants.gov and includes the weekly capability-statement-ranked digest. Institutional plans for SBDCs, TTOs, and accelerators are $500–$2,000/month flat regardless of seat count.
HigherGov starts at $199/month for the Basic plan and goes to $799/month for Enterprise. It bundles SBIR with 7,000+ state and local procurement sources, so it's priced for BD teams at gov contractors rather than single small businesses.
Yes — SBIR.gov, Grants.gov, and your state SBDC are all free and cover the same underlying federal topics. Paid tools sell you time savings, not exclusive data. If your hourly cost is below ~$15 and you have 4–8 hours per week, the free path is rational.
Yes. The homepage single-lookup tool is free and unlimited — paste your cap statement, get the top-5 matching topics across all 11 agencies. The $29/mo subscription unlocks the weekly digest and auto-rerank when new topics open.