Pro ($49/mo or $490/yr) — User Guide

Pro is for contractors actively chasing awards: everything in Scout, with no tracking limits. Every Pro feature below assumes you know the basics — if you're new, skim the Scout guide first.

Starting your trial

1. Go to Pricing and click Start 14-day trial under Pro (sign in first if prompted).
2. Checkout is handled by Stripe — card required, but $0 is charged today. Your first charge — $49 monthly, or $490 if you chose Annual (2 months free) — lands when the 14-day trial ends, and the checkout page shows the exact date.
3. After payment setup you land back on the Dashboard with a PRO badge next to the page title. That's how you know it worked.
4. Promotion code? There's an Add promotion code link right on the checkout page.

What Pro unlocks

• Unlimited saved opportunities — star everything worth watching; no 5-item cap.
• The capture CRM (Pipeline in the nav) — every starred opportunity becomes a card on a visual pipeline board: Watching → Pursuing → Submitted → Won / Lost. Drag cards between stages. Cards show days-to-deadline (amber within a week, red when overdue), estimated value, win probability, and your next action.
• Pursuit details — click any card to record the bid/no-bid decision, estimated value, win probability, next action and due date, the contracting officer's contact info, teaming partner, and free-form notes (Q&A answers, incumbent intel, pricing thoughts).
• Activity log & quick notes — every stage move and edit is recorded on the card; use Add a log entry for call notes and decisions. It's your pursuit's history in one place.
• Add pursuits from anywhere — + Add pursuit on the Pipeline for RFIs that arrived by email, GSA eBuy, agency portals, state/local bids, or teaming referrals. Manually added cards show a small "manual" tag.
• Board or list — switch to List for a sortable table (deadline, value, stage), and use the search box and stage filter on either view. Archive won/lost pursuits to keep the board clean; the Archived toggle brings them back.
• Daily digest & deadline reminders — each morning: new notices matching your profile since yesterday, plus active pursuits with a deadline or next action coming due. Choose 1/3/7/14 days' notice under Settings.
• Pipeline stats & CSV export — active pursuits, deadlines within 7 days, total and probability-weighted pipeline value, win rate; export the whole board to CSV anytime.
• Search filters — after results load, type in the keyword box to narrow them instantly, or pick a state to re-run the search by SAM.gov place of performance.
• SAM registration expiry alerts — once your CAGE is saved, the dashboard shows your registration status and expiry date (green > 60 days, amber ≤ 60, red ≤ 10 or lapsed). You'll get an email at 60, 30, and 10 days before expiry, and again if it lapses, each with a renewal checklist. Renewing resets the cycle automatically. Turn it off in Settings if you must.
• Incumbent intel — on any search result or pursuit, click Incumbent intel. GovScout pulls FPDS award records and shows the likely incumbent, dollars obligated and ceiling, expiry (red inside 6 months, amber inside 18), set-aside type, the holder's size and 8(a)/WOSB/SDVOSB/HUBZone status, offers received, and how many prior awards sit in the lineage. Every match carries a high / medium / low confidence rating with the reason it matched — high means same contracting office and a matching description; treat low as a lead, not an answer. Best matches come from solicitation numbers that start with the contracting-office code (most DoD and many civilian buys). Every row has a Verify the award record link to the official FPDS data (served via USAspending — FPDS.gov's own search now requires a SAM.gov sign-in) — check it before you bid.
• AI response drafter — open any pursuit and click ✨ Draft response (AI). Pick the document type (sources-sought/RFI response, tailored capability statement, past-performance write-up, or cover letter), paste the notice's description text from SAM.gov, and generate. The draft streams in, is saved to the pursuit, and exports to Word. It uses only your saved profile, capability statement, pursuit fields, and real award history — missing facts appear as [FILL IN] markers, never inventions. You get 5 drafts a month (failed generations don't count). Tip: the more notice text you paste, the sharper the draft.
• Capability Statement Builder (Cap Statement in the nav) — the standard one-page GovCon document, pre-filled from your SAM.gov profile. Fill in overview, competencies, differentiators, past performance, certifications, and POC; the preview updates live; Download PDF gives you a Letter-size PDF. Saved to your account so you can refresh it before every submission. Tip: keep competencies to 4–6 specific bullets and lead differentiators with your certifications and vehicles.
• Priority support — email support@usegovscout.com and Pro accounts go to the front.

Managing your subscription

• On the Dashboard, click Manage billing (top right). That opens your secure Stripe billing portal.
• In the portal you can update your card, download invoices/receipts, or cancel — no emails required, effective immediately.
• Cancel during the trial and you pay nothing. Cancel later and Pro runs through the end of the period you've paid for, then your account drops to Scout (your saved items are kept, you just can't add beyond 5).
• Receipts come from Stripe to your account email automatically.

Pro workflow tips

• Walk the board weekly. Open the Pipeline, go column by column left to right, and update each card's next action — that's a capture meeting in 15 minutes.
• Make the bid/no-bid call early and record it. Move no-bids off the board (the Lost / No-bid column) so Pursuing only holds real commitments — your win rate stat then means something.
• Run your search daily. Response windows on set-aside notices can be under two weeks; the feed sorts by deadline so the top of the list is always the most urgent.
• Track sources sought aggressively. They cost nothing to respond to and are the single highest-leverage document in small-business contracting.
• Search beyond your primary NAICS. Add adjacent codes (e.g., a 541519 IT firm also watching 541512/541611) — agencies are inconsistent about classification.