GrantTrove and SAM.gov, side by side
How GrantTrove and SAM.gov differ on price, coverage and what each one shows about a record. Every SAM.gov figure was checked on 2026-09-07.
What SAM.gov is genuinely good at
This section is not a formality. SAM.gov is a real product with real advantages, and a reader deciding between the two is better served by knowing them than by a page that pretends they do not exist.
- It is the only place an entity registration can be made or renewed, and it is free.
- The assistance listings catalogue lives here, which is where a programme identifier resolves to the programme behind it.
- The exclusions list is public, so the check an agency runs before awarding is one an applicant can run on itself.
Where GrantTrove is different
Where the two products actually diverge, point by point.
- Every record shows when it was last checked, against which source domain, and by which method.
- Programme pool and per-award ceiling are separate fields that are never shown under one label.
- Core fields — amounts, deadlines, eligibility, source link, verification stamp — are free without an account, permanently.
- A field the source did not state reads Not stated rather than being filled with a plausible value.
And the honest cost of that. Coverage is early. The data sources page publishes exactly which feeds are connected and which are not. If your search depends on breadth today rather than on traceability, SAM.gov has more records than we do and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Price
What each side charges, and what the free tier holds back.
GrantTrove pricing checked 2026-09-02 against our own pricing page.
SAM.gov pricing checked 2026-09-07 against SAM.gov’s own pricing page.
Field by field
Field by field, with the ones neither side publishes marked as such.
| Field | GrantTrove | SAM.gov |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A grant database where every field is traceable to one official page and carries the date we last confirmed it. | The federal registration system every entity must be active in before it can receive an award, and the home of the assistance listings catalogue and the exclusions list. |
| Cheapest paid entry | $19/mo · read from the price config at render | $0 · checked 2026-09-07 |
| Readable without paying | Every field of every record, permanently | Not measured |
| Coverage the product publishes | Records linked 1,734 · Verified inside the freshness window 1,160 of 1,160 | Entity registrations Not measured |
| Shows when a record was last checked | Yes — date, source domain and method on every record | Not measured |
| Separates programme pool from award ceiling | Yes, always two fields under two labels | Not measured |
| What an empty field shows | Not stated, Not confirmed or Not linked yet — three different sentences | Not measured |
| Eligibility restrictions on who may subscribe | None stated | None stated |
“Not measured” means we have not audited that property of SAM.gov and will not guess at it. Every SAM.gov figure above comes from a page SAM.gov publishes about itself, checked 2026-09-07.
What this page does not claim
What this page does not claim, and how it was written.
We do not publish a record count of our own counting for another product, a freshness figure we have not sampled, or an accuracy rate for anyone. Doing so would require an audit with a stated method and a date, and we have not run one. Where a comparison would need such a number, the row above reads Not measured.
These are not alternatives to each other. SAM.gov is where your organisation registers, and there is no substitute for it: registration is free, mandatory before any federal award, and takes weeks the first time. GrantTrove does not register you and never will. Use both, and start the registration before you find the grant rather than after.