Do I need a website to bid on a city or government contract?

No bid form requires one. What you need is to be registered where the buyer looks (your city or county purchasing office's vendor list, and SAM.gov for federal work), proof of insurance, and whatever licenses the work calls for. But the person reading your bid will almost always search your business name before awarding a contract, and a real website with your services, service area, insurance and photos of past work is what makes a small outfit look like a safe pick next to bigger bidders.

How do I get on my town's bid list for mowing, snow removal or cleaning?

Find your city or county's purchasing or procurement page and look for vendor registration or a bidder list. Most ask you to pick the categories you want notices for, such as mowing, snow plowing, janitorial or building repair, and then email you when a matching bid opens. Some towns also keep separate call lists for small jobs. School districts, housing authorities and park districts often run their own lists, so register with each one you would want to work for.

Does SAM.gov registration cost money?

No. The General Services Administration says registration in SAM.gov is always free. Third-party companies send official-looking emails and letters offering to register or renew you for a fee, and some ask for bank details. Register and renew only at SAM.gov itself, and get free help from the Federal Service Desk or your local APEX Accelerator.

What is a capability statement?

A short, usually one-page summary of your business written for government and commercial buyers: what you do, your past work, what sets you apart, and your company data such as your Unique Entity ID, industry codes and any certifications. You send it to buyers and attach it to vendor profiles. It works best when it points to a website that backs up everything on the page.

How much does a RunCabin website cost?

Starting at $499 one time to build the site, then $39.99 a month for hosting (or $479.88 a year). It is built with AI from your answers to our questionnaire and finished by a web developer, and you see a first version within 24 hours of sending your answers and photos. There is no long contract, you can cancel the hosting anytime, and leads from the site land in your inbox with no lead fees.

RunCabin Blog · For working contractors

Do I need a website to bid on city or government contracts?

October 29, 2026 · 8 min read

Short answer: no bid form requires a website, but the person deciding whether to award you the contract will look you up, and what they find is part of your bid. City mowing routes, school snow removal, housing authority repairs, janitorial at the county building - this is steady, pays on a schedule, and comes back every year. Most small outfits never go after it because the paperwork looks like it was written for someone else. It mostly was not. Here is how it actually works, and where a website fits.

Whether you paint, plow, mow, clean or fix things, the steps below are the same. The local ones matter far more than the federal ones for most of you, so we start there.

Why public work is worth a look

Homeowner work is a stream of one-off jobs you have to keep winning. Public work is often a single award that fills a season: a route of park mowing from April to October, a set of lots to plow every time it snows, nightly cleaning of a few buildings, or a standing list of small repair calls. The buyer pays on a published schedule, the work repeats, and once you have done one contract well, the next bid has a reference attached to it.

It is also less crowded than people think at the small end. Big contractors chase big contracts. A two-mile mowing route or a library's snow removal often draws a handful of bids, and many towns go out of their way to invite small local businesses to bid on exactly that kind of work.

The trade-off is paperwork, slower payment than a homeowner's check, and rules you have to follow to the letter. If that fits how you run, keep reading.

Step one: get on your local bidder list

There is no national system for local work. Every city, county, school district, park district and housing authority buys on its own, usually through a purchasing or procurement office. Here is how to get in front of them:

Search "[your city] vendor registration" or "[your county] bid opportunities". Most have a page, and many now use an online bidding portal.
Register and pick your categories. The form will ask what you sell, often from a list of category codes. Pick every one that fits - mowing, landscaping, snow plowing, janitorial, painting, building repair - so the notices actually reach you.
Repeat for every buyer you would want. The school district and the city are usually separate lists. So is the housing authority. Ten minutes each.
Ask about small-job lists. Many towns hire small jobs (a single repair, a one-time cleanup) without a formal bid, by calling down a list of registered vendors. Getting on that list is often the easiest first contract.
Watch the timing. Many towns put next year's mowing and grounds contracts out over the winter, and snow contracts out in late summer and fall. If you register now, you are on the list for the next round instead of finding out after it closed.

Expect to be asked for a certificate of insurance, often naming the city as an additional insured, your business license, a W-9, and sometimes your vehicle and equipment list. Get those together once in a folder and every bid after the first one gets faster.

Step two (only if you want federal work): SAM.gov

Federal agencies - a post office, a VA clinic, a national park, a military base near you - buy through the federal system. To be paid by the federal government you register in SAM.gov, which gives your business a Unique Entity ID. A few things to know before you start:

It is free. The General Services Administration says it plainly: registration in SAM.gov is always free. You will still get official-looking emails and letters offering to register or "renew" you for a fee, sometimes asking for bank details. Ignore them. Register and renew only at SAM.gov.
It is a listing, not a salesperson. Being in SAM.gov means you can be paid. It does not mean anyone will call. Your SAM details also feed the SBA's small business search tool, which buyers and larger contractors use to find subcontractors, but you still have to go find the work.
It renews every year. Put the date on your calendar. A lapsed registration can hold up payment on a contract you already won.
Free help exists. APEX Accelerators (they used to be called PTACs) help small businesses with government bidding at no cost, and your local Small Business Development Center can help too. You do not need to pay a consultant to fill in a federal form.

For a lot of trades, federal work is a later step. Start where your trucks already drive.

The capability statement, in plain terms

Sooner or later a buyer or a bigger contractor will ask for your "capability statement". It sounds like something only consultants make. It is a one-page sheet - two at most, front and back - that says:

What you do, in a few short lines. "Commercial snow plowing and salting for lots up to five acres", not "full-service solutions".
Past work, with names if the customer said you can use them: a church lot, an apartment complex, an HOA's common areas.
What makes you a safe pick: years in business, licensed and insured, equipment you own, how fast you respond.
Company data: business name, Unique Entity ID if you have one, industry codes, and any certifications such as veteran-owned or woman-owned.
How to reach you: name, phone, a business email address, and your website.

That last line is where the question in the title comes in. The sheet makes the claims. The website is where a buyer goes to check them.

What a buyer does with your bid

Picture the person on the other end: a facilities manager or purchasing clerk with three or four bids for a mowing route. The prices are close. They have never heard of two of the companies. Their job is to pick someone who will not leave them explaining to a council member why the park was not mowed for three weeks.

So they search the names. One bidder has a website with the services listed, the towns they cover, photos of lots they have plowed and lawns they maintain, their insurance and license spelled out, and a real phone number. Another has a Facebook page last updated two summers ago. Another has nothing, and a Gmail address on the bid.

None of that is in the scoring rules. All of it lands in the decision, especially on smaller awards where the buyer has room to choose, and on the call lists where nobody scores anything at all - the clerk just calls who they trust.

The same goes for the bigger contractors. If a general contractor or a facilities company wins a large public contract, it often has to bring on local and small businesses as subcontractors. When they search the list of registered vendors and find you, the next thing they do is look at your website.

What belongs on your site if you want public work

You do not need a separate "government" website. You need your normal website to answer a buyer's questions as fast as it answers a homeowner's:

A commercial or "for property managers and municipalities" section that names the work you take on at that scale: routes, lots, buildings, recurring schedules.
Your service area, by town or county, so a buyer can see you are actually local.
Licensed and insured, specifically: license number where your state wants it, and a line saying you can provide a certificate of insurance naming the customer on request.
Photos of real work at commercial scale, if you have any. A plowed lot at 5am says more than a paragraph.
Equipment you own, briefly. Buyers worry about capacity: what happens if it snows eight inches overnight?
Certifications, if you hold them, with a link to where they can be verified.
A contact form and a phone number that reach you, not a call center.

Keep the company name on your website the same as the name on your bid, your insurance certificate and your registration. If the bid says "Smith Grounds LLC" and the website says "Smitty's Lawn & Snow", the buyer has to wonder whether they are the same company. One line in the footer fixes it.

What not to do

Do not pay someone to register you in SAM.gov. It is free, and handing a stranger your account means handing them the bank details your payments go to.
Do not claim certifications you do not hold yet. Buyers check, and on set-aside work a false claim is a serious problem, not a marketing slip.
Do not put a buyer's name on your site without asking. "City of" anything on your past-work list should be cleared with the person who hired you.
Do not bid a price you cannot live with for the whole term. A two-year mowing contract at a number that only works if fuel stays cheap is a two-year problem.
Do not let the website go stale. A buyer who finds last year's phone number or a page that says "coming soon" will go with the next bidder.

Where RunCabin fits

We build done-for-you websites for local service businesses, built with AI from your answers to our questionnaire and finished by a web developer. Tell us you want commercial and public work, and the site gets a section written for buyers: the work you take on at scale, the towns you cover, your license and insurance, your equipment, and photos of real jobs. You see a first version within 24 hours of sending your answers and photos.

It starts at $499 to build, then $39.99 a month - your own domain and hosting included, with no long contract, and you can cancel the hosting anytime. Every inquiry from the site lands straight in your inbox with no lead fees. Put the address on your capability statement and your bid, and the buyer who looks you up finds a business that looks like it will show up.

Tell us about your business. We build the site.

Answer our questionnaire and we build your site with your name, your trade, and the towns you cover. It's built with AI and finished by a web developer. Starting at $499 to build, then $39.99 a month.

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