SDVOSB & VOSB
SBA — VetCert
- Term
- 3 years
- Cost
- Free
- Typical
- ~12 days
- Self-cert
- No — ended 2024
Government-wide goal is now 5%, raised by the FY2024 NDAA. Sites still saying 3% are out of date.
Veteran owned
Federal + SLED
Open beta — 45 days free
You qualify for more than you think.
We'll help you get certified.
SDVOSB. 8(a). WOSB. HUBZone. Every one of them is worth real money and every one of them is a paperwork maze that stops small firms cold. We walk you through each step, generate the documents, sit with you through the SBA portal, and then make sure nothing ever lapses.
45 days free · No credit card to sign up · We explain every requirement in plain English and stay with you through the whole process · SAM.gov registration is always free and we will never charge you to file it
Why firms never get there
The certification is free. Figuring it out is what costs you.
Nobody charges you to become an SDVOSB. What stops people is a 90-day SBA clock, a narrative requirement that changed twice in eighteen months, and a renewal date that nobody tells you about until you have already lost it.
The rules moved under you
Self-certification died for SDVOSB set-asides in 2024. The 8(a) social-disadvantage standard was rewritten after a 2023 injunction and SBA pulled its own guide in January 2026. Advice from two years ago is now wrong.
Nobody tells you when you expire
SAM lapses at 365 days and an expired registration makes you ineligible for award. SBA removed the expiration field from DSBS, so veterans can no longer look up their own renewal date. Blanket extensions shifted thousands of dates without notice.
The paperwork is the whole job
The same tax return feeds 8(a), EDWOSB and DBE. The same ownership documents get retyped four times. Firms give up somewhere in the middle and stay uncertified for years.
How the walkthrough works
Five steps. We do four of them.
There is exactly one part we cannot do for you — SBA has no API, so the final submission happens in their portal with your hands on the keyboard. We sit next to you for those twenty minutes and do everything either side of it.
Answer about 25 questions
Ownership, veteran status and disability rating, where your office is, who your employees are, revenue and net worth. Twenty minutes. We tell you every program you qualify for, every one you nearly qualify for and what would close the gap, and the order to apply in.
Upload once, use everywhere
Your tax returns, operating agreement, DD-214, leases and payroll go into one vault. We read the dates off them, map each document to every requirement it satisfies across every program, and show you exactly what is still missing.
We build the package
Social-disadvantage narratives written from your actual documented history, economic worksheets, ownership and control matrices, HUBZone employee residency rosters with the 35% math shown. Drafts you review and edit — never filed without you reading them.
We walk you through the portal
Screen by screen through certifications.sba.gov and sam.gov. Which button, which field, which of your generated documents to attach at which step. You record the case number and the clock starts.
Then we never let it lapse
Renewal windows, material-change deadlines, 8(a) annual reviews, HUBZone residency drift, SAM's 365-day clock. We watch the Federal Register daily and tell you when a rule change affects your certifications, not everyone's.
Programs we walk you through
Six doors into federal work
Every one of these is free to apply for. Every one has a different certifier, a different clock and a different way to fail.
8(a) Business Development
SBA
- Term
- 9 years, once per life
- Cost
- Free
- Decision
- 90 days
- Net worth
- Under $850,000
The hardest one, the most valuable one, and the one changing right now. Read the detail before you apply.
WOSB / EDWOSB
SBA or approved third party
- Term
- 3 years
- Cost
- Free via SBA
- Decision
- 90 days
- Self-cert
- No — ended 2020
Third-party certifiers may charge. SBA does not. We will always route you to the free path first.
HUBZone
SBA
- Term
- 3 years
- Cost
- Free
- Decision
- 60 days
- Employees
- 35% must reside in zone
Comes with a 10% price evaluation preference in open competition — the most underrated benefit in federal contracting.
SAM.gov registration
GSA — not a certification
- Renews
- Every 365 days
- Cost
- Free — always
- Typical
- Up to 10 business days
- Gets you
- UEI + CAGE
The front door. Everything else is meaningless without it, and an expired SAM makes you ineligible for award.
Minority-owned & DBE
State UCP / private councils
- Federal MBE
- Does not exist
- Federal path
- 8(a) / SDB
- DBE
- Your state's UCP
- Corporate
- NMSDC (private)
Anyone telling you to "get MBE certified to win federal contracts" is giving you bad advice. We explain the real routes.
One thing we will not do: claim to file on your behalf. SBA's
certification portal has no partner API — anyone promising fully automatic
submission is either lying or logging into your account. We prepare, package,
guide, verify and track. You press submit.
And then the rest of the job
Certification gets you in the room. This wins the work.
Everyone else sells intelligence — here is an opportunity, good luck. We cover the whole path, in one product, at one price.
Certification Autopilot
Eligibility, documents, packages, guided submission, renewal tracking, regulatory watch.
Opportunity Hub
Federal and SLED search with AI fit scoring against your NAICS, size and set-aside status.
Proposal Writer
Shred the RFP, build the outline, draft, and generate the compliance matrix as you write — not after.
Capture CRM
Pipeline board with weighted forecast, built for pursuit stages rather than retail sales stages.
Contracting University
Short courses on FAR basics, pricing, past performance and the things that actually get bids thrown out.
Teaming
Rules-based partner matching on complementary NAICS, set-aside status and geography.
Cyber Readiness
SSP scaffolding and the CMMC-adjacent groundwork DoD work will demand of you.
Compliance Suite
Templates and generated documents for the policies a contracting officer will ask you to produce.
Ask G
The part where you get stuck, you don't do alone.
Everybody gives up in the same place: staring at a federal form with a field you do not understand and no idea what the right answer is. Ask G is the guide that sits with you while you fill it in — in your own browser, in your own account.
It reads the page you are on
Open SAM.gov or the SBA certification portal and Ask G recognizes the form and the field you are in. It tells you, in English, what that field is actually asking for and what the rule behind it says.
It answers from what you already gave us
Your UEI, CAGE, NAICS codes, ownership percentages, dates — you entered them once in your GCW intake. Ask G fills them in for you. Where it doesn't know, it asks you a plain question and puts your answer in the box.
You sign. Always you.
Ask G stops dead at every certification and attestation, shows you the actual regulatory text, and waits. It never clicks Submit. The last button is always yours, because the signature is yours.
Why it works this way. Everything you file with SAM and SBA is signed
under penalty of law — 18 U.S.C. § 1001 and the False Claims Act. So Ask G runs inside
your own logged-in session. We never hold your login.gov credentials, we never log in
as you, and we never submit on your behalf. It fills, explains and records. You read
and you sign. Every field it touched is written to your audit trail, so if anyone ever
asks how an answer got there, you have the receipt.
Contracting University
Free training. Because the government's version won't let you in.
There is a federal acquisition university. It is excellent and it is free — and getting in needs a CAC, a sponsor, and a seat that DoD personnel get first. Its own FAQ says courses are not open to the public. Ours needs an email address.
31 courses, 6 tracks
From "what is a NAICS code" through 8(a) social-disadvantage evidence to bid protests at GAO. Sequenced so each course ends with something done, not just watched.
Quizzes that explain
80% to pass, unlimited retakes, and every answer comes with the reasoning — including the ones you got right. Finish a track and you get a named certificate.
Dated and cited
Every regulatory claim carries a citation and a verified-on date. When a rule moves, affected lessons are flagged automatically. Nothing quietly goes stale.
Free means free. No card, no trial clock, and no requirement to
ever buy the platform. If the courses are all you use, that is a fine outcome —
and we will still tell you to go use your local APEX Accelerator too.
The price problem
The incumbent costs more than your first contract.
Deltek's GovWin IQ is the market leader. Its own reviewers describe it as prohibitive for smaller companies. That is not a gap in the market — that is the market.
$13k–119kGovWin IQ annual range, median deal around $29,000
2×What you pay if you need both federal and SLED — they are sold separately
$0What SBA charges for every certification we help you get
| Capability | GovWin IQ | HigherGov | Government Contract Wizards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal + SLED in one price | Sold separately | Yes | Yes |
| Guided certification walkthrough | No | No | Core product |
| Renewal & expiration tracking | No | No | Yes |
| Regulatory change alerts scoped to you | No | No | Yes |
| Bid protest tracking | No | Partial | Planned — GAO data is free |
| Proposal drafting + compliance matrix | Add-on tier | No | Included |
| API with webhooks | One-way, 24h | Yes | Planned, bidirectional |
| Priced for a company with no contracts yet | No | Yes | Yes |
Competitor pricing from published vendor materials and third-party review sites; none of these companies publish audited figures. Ranges as researched August 2026.
Open beta
Start today. Nothing to pay for 45 days.
No waiting list, no seat cap, no card. You get the whole platform and a real person walking through your eligibility with you — not a support queue.
- 45 days of full access, free. Not a demo, not a limited trial — the whole platform
- No credit card to sign up. None. You give us an email address and that is it
- Free eligibility assessment across all six programs
- Founding rate locked for as long as you stay a customer
- Direct line to us while we build — your gaps shape the roadmap
How the 45 days work — plainly
- Day 1. You are in. Full platform, all six certification tracks, the document vault, the opportunity search, the proposal tooling and Contracting University. We do not ask for a card.
- Day 38. One week out, we email you a reminder that the 45 days are nearly up, along with what you actually built inside the platform so far. You will get a second reminder at day 43.
- Day 45. The free period ends. If you have not added a payment method, your account locks at the end of that day — you can still sign in and export everything you put in, but the working tools stop.
- Any time before then, add a card and nothing changes. Billing starts the day after your 45 days end, at the founding rate, and you keep that rate for as long as you stay.
No auto-charge surprise: because we never took a card, we cannot bill you without you deciding to be billed. Locking is the worst that happens.
A promise: if the honest answer is "go to your local APEX
Accelerator, they will do this for free," we will tell you that. There are 95
of them and they are good. We are for the firms who need the tracking, the
documents and the speed.
Create your account
Your name and a work email. That is the whole form. No card, no sales call, and nobody has to let you in — the 45 days start the moment you confirm your email.
Start my 45 free daysAlready have an account? Log in. By signing up you agree to the Terms, Privacy Policy and Beta Agreement, and understand this is pre-release software provided without warranty.
Straight answers
Questions we get asked first
Do you file my certification for me?
No, and be suspicious of anyone who says they do. SBA's certification portal has no partner API, so the only way to "file for you" is to log into your account as you. We prepare every document, walk you through the portal screen by screen, and track everything afterward. The submit button is yours.
Isn't SAM.gov registration free?
Yes. Completely free, and GSA says so plainly on their own site. So are all the SBA certifications. There is an entire industry charging thousands of dollars for filings that cost nothing, and it preys on first-time contractors. We will never charge you a filing fee — you pay for the walkthrough, the documents and the tracking.
I'm a minority-owned business. Which certification do I need?
There is no federal MBE certification. No federal agency issues one and no federal set-aside is keyed to MBE status. The federal path is 8(a) or small disadvantaged business status through SBA. NMSDC certification is private and serves corporate supplier-diversity programs. State and city MBE programs only apply to that jurisdiction's own procurement. We map all three so you spend effort on the one that pays.
I heard 8(a) is in trouble. Should I still apply?
It is in flux, not gone. The race-based presumption of social disadvantage has been inoperative since a 2023 court injunction, SBA withdrew its narrative guide in January 2026, over a thousand firms were suspended for missing a document deadline, and a rule to formally strike the presumption was proposed in June 2026 with no final rule yet. What that means practically: your application has to be built on specific, documented, individual evidence. That is exactly the part we are good at — but go in with your eyes open, and check our regulatory feed before you start.
Can I self-certify instead?
Not for federal set-asides. SDVOSB self-certification ended for set-asides on 1 January 2024, WOSB in 2020, and 8(a) and HUBZone never allowed it. If you are relying on a self-certification in SAM to compete for set-aside work, you have a problem right now.
What if my local APEX Accelerator already helps me?
Then use them — there are 95 of them, they are federally funded, and they are free. They are the right answer for a lot of firms. Where we differ is that we are a system rather than an appointment: continuous tracking, generated documents, renewal alarms and rule-change alerts scoped to your specific certifications. Plenty of our users will do both.
When does the beta open?
We are inviting the first group now and onboarding them personally. Join the list and we will email you before invites go out — with a realistic date, not a countdown timer.
Find out what you qualify for.
Twenty minutes of questions. A real answer about every program, including the ones you have never heard of.