Terms of service

These terms are the agreement between you and GovRoute ("GovRoute", "we", "us"), for using GovRoute. GovRoute is a trade name. Until VARNADOECLARK, LLC takes over, GovRoute is run by Andrew Varnadoe-Clark, doing business as GovRoute, who sells you everything you buy from GovRoute and is your seller and contracting party (see "When VARNADOECLARK, LLC takes over" below). Your card is charged through Stripe, and the charge shows as GOVROUTE on your statement.

They are written to be read. If anything here is unclear, ask us at hello@govroute.co or through the contact page before you pay for anything.

Refunds are also set out on our Refund policy page. How we handle your information is in our Privacy policy.

What GovRoute is

GovRoute finds public contracts that may fit your business, tells you about them, and, when you pay for it, prepares your bid for you to review, approve and sign. With a bid package you also get bid consulting: we explain how that one bid works. See "Bid consulting" below.

GovRoute has a section for each state we cover: Georgia (govroute.co/ga) and Tennessee (govroute.co/tn). In each state:

• Contracts: open bids from public agencies in that state, with what we know about each one and the agency's own documents.

Free, with no account: bid pages, the agency documents we host, maps, agency pages, coming-up projects and guides (some also in Spanish).

Free, with a Bronze account (no card): the same, plus saving bids and a calendar of their deadlines in your account.

What GovRoute is not

• We are not the agency or the funder. We don't issue bids or award contracts or grants. The agency or funder decides who wins, who qualifies and what its rules mean.
• We are not a law firm, an accountant, an insurance or bond agent, an engineer or an estimator. We don't give legal, tax, accounting, insurance, bonding, engineering or estimating advice. We don't tell you what a bid's or grant's contract terms mean for your rights or duties, how a law applies to you, whether you qualify or comply, or whether to bid or apply. For that, talk to a lawyer or other licensed adviser.
• We don't sell bonds.
• We never call you eligible or qualified. Our checks and scores show how a bid compares with the facts you gave us. Only the agency or funder decides who is eligible.
• We don't guarantee outcomes. We cannot promise that you will find a particular contract or grant, that you will qualify for it, that the agency will accept your bid, or that you will win it.
• Our information comes from public sources. Every fact on a bid page comes from the agency's own documents or public posting, and the page shows which one and when. Agencies and funders change, amend and cancel what they post. Always confirm deadlines and requirements with the agency or funder before you rely on them.

We act for you only in these narrow ways

Outside this list we never contact an agency, funder, partner or anyone else in your name.

• We prepare. From the facts you give us, we give you written answers to the fact questions on the agency's bid forms; you copy them onto the forms yourself. The bid form (your offer), any price form and any sworn, notarized or certification form are always yours to complete and sign. We never set, suggest or estimate a price: every number is yours, and you are responsible for it.
• You review, approve and sign. You are the bidder or the applicant. Deciding whether to bid or apply, the final price, every answer, every signature, every certification, any bond and any notarized page are always yours. We never sign, certify, attest or notarize anything for you.
• We never sign for you, and we never hold your password. We never ask for or use your login to an agency, registry, funder or portal.
• We deliver only what you approved, unchanged, and only through the channels in "How your bid or application is submitted" below.

What we don't do. We prepare factual business writing from the facts you confirm, and write those facts out for you to copy onto the agency's forms, at your direction. We don't choose legal answers, add contract terms or commitments, or prepare offer terms, exceptions to contract terms, compliance determinations, certifications, assurances or sworn statements, or answers to them; those are yours. We compare a bid's stated numeric requirements with your facts, but we don't decide whether you comply. A form or question that is unclear or mixed is yours to complete; we point it out and never supply its legal answers. Our summaries and our bid consulting point to the source pages and don't interpret your legal duties. We don't give legal advice.

Plans

One plan covers your area: one state, or the Chattanooga border option below. Money is up front: the price on the page is the price charged, there are no promotions or "$0 today" offers, and nothing is priced on whether you win. Our plans have new names. Silver was called Starter, Gold was Pro, and Platinum was MAX. Same features, same prices.

Bronze — free: an account with no card. Save bids and see their deadlines on a calendar in your account. We don't email you bids or alerts, and Bronze has no matched bids, fit notes, drafts or packages. You can still buy a $199 bid package.

Silver — $49 a month:

• A morning email of new bids in your trades and counties, only on mornings with a match, and a calendar feed of their deadlines.
• An alert when an agency changes a bid you're watching.
• A fit note on each bid: how far it is from the counties you picked.
• A weekly shortlist email, if you turn it on: up to 8 open bids that match your trades and counties.

Gold — $149 a month: everything in Silver, plus:

• For each bid you open that we can prepare (see "Which bids we prepare"): a one-page requirements sheet, a draft proposal, a cover letter and a forms checklist, ready to work from. No monthly limit.
• Exactly what each addendum changed.
• Draft questions to send the agency before its question deadline (you send them).

Platinum — $499 a month: everything in Gold, plus:

• 3 complete bid packages a month, prepared by us and approved by an expert before delivery. Each extra one is $149. See "Bid packages" below.

Not in any plan: we never set your price or sign for you; we don't prepare Department of Defense or U.S. Coast Guard bids; we only prepare a bid that passes our checks (readable agency documents, enough time, priced work, and not already taken by another customer); and drafts and packages need your company facts.

No free trial. Silver, Gold and Platinum are paid from the first day. Bronze is free and isn't a trial: it never turns into a paid plan unless you choose one. To try our bid preparation, buy one bid package for $199. A free week that began before this version of our terms took effect, or that we promised before then to an account not yet confirmed, runs as promised.

The Chattanooga border option

Instead of one state, you can choose a border area, at the same price as a one-state plan:

• The Chattanooga border region: Hamilton, Bradley, Marion, Sequatchie and Polk counties in Tennessee, and Catoosa, Dade, Walker, Whitfield, Murray and Chattooga counties in Georgia. We may add counties to the region.
• Or a radius from your shop that crosses the state line.

One plan covers that area's bids on both sides, with one set of alerts and one account. Each bid and order is handled under its own state's rules, including who can see it (see "Georgia and Tennessee").

No fee depends on winning

Every price of ours is flat and shown before you pay. You owe it whether you win or lose. We never take a percentage, a commission, a bonus or any other fee that depends on you winning a contract, or on its size. We don't refund because a bid was not won.

Things you can buy one at a time

You don't need a plan for these. Each is charged once, at checkout, before we start.

• One bid package — $199: we prepare a bid package for one bid you choose, and answer your questions about that bid by email, plus one 20-minute call on request, until the bid is due. Those answers and that call are our bid consulting. See "Bid packages" below.

The price is shown before you pay and is the price charged.

Which bids we prepare: the offer rule

The offer rule. We offer a $199 package, a Gold draft or a Platinum package only on a bid that passes every one of these checks: a labeled solicitation; readable documents from the agency itself (not only through BidNet or another sign-in site); no mandatory pre-bid meeting already missed or about to be; one clear deadline; priced work (not a qualifications-only selection); and, for a bid, no other customer already on it. If two deadlines conflict, we don't offer it.

Whether your company qualifies is yours to judge. We check the bid's dates and documents before you buy (the offer rule above); whether your company qualifies is yours to judge. Only the agency decides who is eligible.

One bid, one firm

We prepare a bid for only one customer.

• $199 and Platinum packages: the first completed payment (or confirmed Platinum package) for a bid wins it, and holds it until that order ends. If a second payment for the same bid goes through, we refund it in full, automatically.
• Gold drafts: a Gold draft holds the bid for 7 days. Mark "I'm bidding this" and it holds until the bid is due (or for 30 days, if the bid has no due date); otherwise it lapses after 7 days. A bid due within those 7 days stays held until it's due.
• Once a bid is taken, its page says "Someone is already having this bid prepared." and doesn't offer a package or a draft. It never names the firm.

Bid packages ($199, and Platinum)

What a package is. For a bid you choose that passes the offer rule (except Department of Defense and U.S. Coast Guard bids), we prepare:

• a requirements sheet: what the bid asks for, in our words, with page references and only short quotes from its documents;
• a draft proposal and cover letter, filled from your company facts, with blanks for anything they lack and for your signature;
• a checklist of the forms and attachments the bid names, marking what you must complete, sign, notarize or attach, and anything we couldn't find;
• deadline reminders.

From the facts you give us, we give you written answers to the fact questions on the agency's forms; you copy them onto the forms yourself. You complete the agency's forms, using our answers; the bid form (your offer), any price form, and any sworn, notarized or certification form are always yours to complete and sign; we never write a price. We don't sign or notarize any form, including any affidavit, certification or sworn statement; you sign those yourself, and your forms checklist marks each signature and notary blank we find as yours.

Anything we couldn't find or confirm is clearly marked as missing, with what's needed. We never guess it.

We prepare a package only from the agency's current documents. If the agency's source is stale or offline, or we can't confirm we have the latest copy, we tell you and wait until we can. A package is prepared in English, because the agency requires it, even if you ordered from a Spanish page.

What it is not. We don't obtain your bond or insurance, or handle protests. You review every page, set your price, and sign the forms. You are the bidder, and you are responsible for everything in your bid, including checking it against the solicitation and any addenda.

Timing. In these terms, a business day is Monday to Friday, except U.S. federal holidays. We need at least 8 business days before the bid's deadline to take a bid. Your sign-off deadline is 5:00 PM Eastern time (4:00 PM Central for Tennessee bids) two business days before the bid's due date; it shows before you pay and on your order. Your package is ready for your review within 5 business days, counted from the later of: your payment (or, for a Platinum package, your confirmation), and the day we have the bid's documents and the company facts we need. If we're waiting for your company facts, the clock starts when we have them; that wait is not a late delivery. You get one round of changes per package.

If we're late, you're refunded automatically. If your package isn't ready within those 5 business days, we refund what you paid for it, in full, without you asking. For a late Platinum package within your 3 a month, we still finish and deliver it if there's still time before your sign-off deadline, and it doesn't count against your month.

Bid consulting, with a $199 package.

Bid consulting means we explain one bid to you: the bid you bought a package for. It covers four things.

• What the bid asks for. What the agency's documents list and require, in plain words, with the page.
• Which forms and deadlines apply. The forms, attachments, meetings, question dates and due date the documents name.
• How the agency's process works. How it takes questions, posts addenda, and receives and opens bids, as its own documents and public pages say.
• How to assemble and submit. The order of the pages, the copies, the labels, the envelope or file type, and where it goes, as the agency's instructions say.

How you get it.

• By email. From your order until the bid's due date, email hello@govroute.co with questions about that bid and your package. We answer by email within one business day. Write early: a question sent less than one business day before the due date may not be answered in time.
• One call. You can ask for one 20-minute phone call per package by emailing hello@govroute.co. Andrew calls you at the phone number you give us, at a time we agree by email before the bid's due date. We don't give out a phone number. Afterwards we email you a short note of what we covered.

What it is not. In plain words:

• Not legal advice. We are not lawyers. We don't tell you what a contract term, a law or a rule means for you, what your rights or duties are, whether you qualify or comply, or whether to protest.
• Not accounting, tax, bonding or insurance advice. We are not accountants, bond agents or insurance agents. We tell you what the bid asks for. We don't tell you which bond or policy to buy, what it should cost, or how to treat anything on your books.
• Not engineering or estimating. We don't read drawings or specifications to tell you quantities, methods, or what the job will cost you.
• Never your price. We never set, suggest, check or comment on your price, and we never tell you what others bid.
• Never "bid" or "don't bid". Whether to bid is your decision.
• Never a promise that you win. We don't promise an award, or that the agency will accept your bid.
• Never your signature or your oath. We don't sign, swear, certify or notarize anything for you.

For any of those, ask a lawyer, accountant, licensed agent, engineer or estimator.

You check, and you decide. Our answers point you to the agency's own documents, with the page. Those documents govern, and the agency can change them. Before you rely on an answer, read the page it points to and check for a newer addendum. You are the bidder. What goes in your bid, and whether you send it, is your decision.

Written answers are the record. On a call we answer questions; we don't take any step for you. If an answer matters to your bid, ask us to put it in an email.

When it ends. On the bid's due date, or sooner if your order is refunded or cancelled. Bid consulting comes with the $199 package and has no separate price; our refund rules cover the whole $199.

Approving a bid we submit for you. When it's ready, your package is in your account. To have us submit your bid to the agency, you approve it on its sign-off page: you upload your signed files, tick the box and type your name and title. Your typed name authorizes us to submit these exact files, unchanged, as your agent for that one bid, and signs the letter that names us as your agent. It is not your signature on the bid's own forms: you sign those yourself, the way the agency requires. You can withdraw your authorization in your account until we have submitted the bid. We keep a record of your approval: your typed name and title, the time, the files' names and fingerprints, the letter, and your IP address.

Platinum packages.

• A package counts against your month when you confirm "Prepare this for me".
• Your 3 packages reset each billing month. Unused packages don't carry over.
• If the agency cancels the bid before we deliver, or we can't take it (too little time, a taken bid, or a Defense Department or Coast Guard bid), the package goes back to your month and nothing is charged.
• After your 3, each extra package is $149, paid at checkout when you confirm it. Nothing is charged without your payment step.
• We take a limited number of Platinum customers at a time so every package gets the time it needs. If Platinum is full, you can join the waiting list.

Your documents and your package. The package is yours to use for your bids. We keep your documents and packages private, behind your sign-in, and use them only to prepare and, when you ask, deliver your packages. The only others who receive any of it are the ones our Privacy policy names for that job: Anthropic, whose service our staff may use to review a package, and the agency that receives the bid you approved.

How your bid or application is submitted

One rule, by the channel the agency or funder uses.

Bids:

• Paper: you print, sign and deliver it.
• Email: after you have approved and signed it and authorized us, we email it to the agency from GovRoute, for your business, with your signed letter naming us as your agent. We do it only when the agency's published instructions accept email, and we say we're sending it for you wherever the instructions require. We keep any confirmation the agency sends. If the instructions say the bidder must send it personally, you send it and we give you the files.
• The agency's online portal: you press Submit, from your own account. We give you the files and the steps.

Always, when we send it for you:

• We submit only after you have approved the final version and signed every page that needs a signature. Your approval is recorded in your account.
• We send the exact files you approved, unchanged.
• Before sending, we check the address and that the due date hasn't passed.
• We send it only to the agency or funder you approved. They may have to release submissions under public-records laws or their own rules; what stays confidential varies, and we can't promise it stays private.
• We don't knowingly include a false or unsupported statement, and we don't email a bid that still has anything marked as missing.
• We never sign for you, and never hold your password.
• The submission record (when we sent it to the agency) shows on your order; we copy you on the email we send and email you any confirmation the agency sends.
• If we miss a deadline through our fault after you approved and signed by the submission cut-off shown in your account, we refund the full price of that item. For a Platinum package within your 3 a month, it doesn't count against your month, and we tell you right away.

Agency documents we host

On a bid page you may find the agency's documents and addenda hosted on GovRoute.

• Each one is an unchanged copy of a public document, with the date we copied it, a fingerprint of the file, and a link to the official source.
• The official source governs. If our copy and the agency's differ, or the agency posts something new, the agency's version is the one that counts.
• We check for new addenda daily and alert people watching the bid, but a check can miss something or arrive late. If a source goes stale or offline, the page says so. Confirm with the agency before you rely on a document.
• We are not the agency. Hosting a copy doesn't make us its author or its contact.
• Documents an agency offers only through BidNet, DemandStar or another sign-in portal or plan room are shown as links to the official source only, and we don't download them. Architects' and engineers' drawings and construction spec books (always), and any other document that carries someone else's copyright or a "do not reproduce" notice, are also shown as links to the official source only. For those, we keep a private copy to spot changes and send addendum alerts, to write our own summary of the bid's requirements (in our words, with page references and only short quotes, never tables, drawings or whole sections), and, when you order a package for that bid, to read it and write out the answers for the agency's forms for you. That copy is never published and never delivered to you or anyone else as a copy; get the document itself from the official source. We never bypass a sign-in to get a document, and our systems collect documents only from public pages.
• Lists that name people. Plan-holder lists, sign-in sheets, attendee lists and similar documents that list people's names or contact details are shown only as links to the official source. We don't post a copy of them.
• Plan-holder registration. Where an agency requires bidders to download from its own portal to be an official plan holder, the bid page says so. Downloading from GovRoute does not register you.
• Taking a copy down. Anyone can ask us to remove a hosted copy, using the Request removal link next to the document or by writing to hello@govroute.co. We take it down within one business day and keep the bid page and the link to the official source.

Information tools

These tools help you decide. None of them makes a decision for you or speaks for an agency or funder.

• Fit score ("Is this bid for me?") and the weekly shortlist: how a bid compares with the facts you gave us, with the reasons shown. A fit score never means you are eligible or qualified.
• Coming-up projects: projects funded in public records (for example SPLOST lists or bond issues) before they go to bid. A planned project may change or never be bid.
• What changed: what an addendum changed in the documents. The addendum itself is the official text.
• Question builder: draft questions for the agency before its question deadline. You review your questions and send them yourself. We never send them.
• Maps: we place a bid only where its location is verified. A bid with no county listed is listed as "No county listed" instead.

Bond requirements

Bid pages show a bid's bond requirement and amount when the agency's documents state them. Always confirm the requirement in the agency's documents.

Georgia and Tennessee

• Your account, plan, alerts, orders, files and payments each carry their state. A border customer's orders each carry the state of the bid or grant.
• Our Tennessee team sees only Tennessee records. They never see Georgia customers, orders or payments. For a border customer, they see the customer record and the Tennessee orders only.
• Each state's pages use that state's agencies, funders and sources. Rules differ between states; we don't tell you how a state's law applies to you.

Spanish pages

Some of our site's pages are also available in Spanish. The Spanish is a translation provided for convenience; it may contain mistakes, and the English pages govern. These terms, our privacy policy and our refund policy are in English only, and what you agree to is the English text. Bid packages are prepared in English, because agencies require it. Agency documents stay in the language they were published in.

Your account

You need a working email address to sign up, and you confirm it before anything is sent. One account covers the whole site: both states, both sides. You sign in with a link we email you.

Keep the links in our emails private: opening one signs that browser in to your account, so anyone you forward one to can open your account. Tell us at hello@govroute.co if you think a link has been shared. Your files (packages, drafts, uploads) are reachable only when you're signed in.

Your company facts

When you sign up, you tell us about your business. To save you typing, we may fill in what public sources show: Tennessee's contractor license records and TDOT's prequalified list, and your business's own website. Each filled-in fact shows where we found it and the date we checked. In Georgia you enter your license and prequalification yourself.

• Nothing we fill in counts until you confirm it. Once you confirm a fact, it's yours, as if you had typed it.
• Bonding, insurance limits, crew and equipment are marked "you told us".
• You are responsible for your facts and documents being true, current and yours to give, including having your key people's permission to share their resumes and licenses. Tell us when something changes.
• Before we approve an order we may review public information about your business, including public reviews and complaint records. We may decline an order after that review; if we do, we refund it in full.

What information we collect and how we use it is set out in our Privacy policy.

Payment

• Paying. Your card is taken by our payment processor, Stripe, in its own secure payment form, which on some purchases appears inside our page. We do not see or store your full card number.
• Plans renew automatically. By choosing a plan, you agree that we charge your card the plan's price at the start of each month, in advance, until you cancel. Your receipt shows the next charge date.
• One-time items (a $199 package or a Platinum extra package) are charged once, at checkout, before we start.
• Taxes. Checkout shows any sales tax we charge before you pay.
• Receipts. Every charge gets a receipt from GovRoute, and it matches your account page.
• Changing plans. You can move between Silver and Gold in your account. Moving up to Gold starts at once: we charge the difference for the rest of your current month right away, shown before you confirm, and your billing date stays the same. Moving down to Silver starts at the end of the period you've paid for; you keep Gold until then, and nothing is refunded. To move to or from Platinum, write to hello@govroute.co.
• Price changes. If we change a price, we email you at least 30 days before it applies to you, and you can cancel before then.

Cancelling and refunds

You cancel inside your account, at govroute.co/account/plan: choose Cancel plan. You never have to go anywhere else to cancel. Your plan stays active until the end of the month you have already paid for, and you will not be charged again. We do not refund the unused part of a month you have paid for. When it ends, your account stays open as a free Bronze account, with your saved bids.

If you ask within 7 days of your first plan charge, we refund that first charge in full; this applies to Platinum too. If you were charged in error or charged twice, for anything, contact us at hello@govroute.co within 30 days and we refund that charge in full.

The full rules for every product, including packages, and failed renewals, are on our Refund policy page.

Acceptable use

Please do not resell GovRoute's alerts or information as your own service, copy our listings in bulk (by hand, by script), try to access other customers' information, or use the service in a way that interferes with it. We may suspend an account that does, and will tell you why.

When VARNADOECLARK, LLC takes over

GovRoute will move to VARNADOECLARK, LLC, a Georgia company with the same owner. We'll email you at least 14 days before the date. From then on, VARNADOECLARK, LLC is your seller, and your receipts name it. Your plan, your prices, any order in progress and these terms carry over unchanged. You agree that we can transfer this agreement to VARNADOECLARK, LLC. If you don't want that, you can cancel before the date, as usual.

Changes to these terms

If we change these terms in a way that matters to you, we email you before the change takes effect. Changes apply to purchases and renewals after that date; an order you've already paid for keeps the terms you accepted when you bought it, unless you agree otherwise. Where a change needs your consent, we ask before we charge you.

If our mistake gets your bid rejected

If the agency rejects your bid, or refuses to take it, because of a mistake we made, you choose one:

• Redo: we prepare your next bid package, for a bid you pick within 12 months, at no charge; or
• Refund: we refund the full price you paid for that package.

A mistake we made means one of these:

• our forms checklist left out a form or attachment that the bid's documents named;
• a written answer of ours gave a date, a place or an instruction different from the agency's documents as they stood when we answered;
• on a bid we send for you, we sent a file different from the one you approved, or sent it to the wrong place.

It doesn't cover a rejection for your price, your facts, your signature, a bond, insurance, a licence, your qualifications, anything we marked as missing, anything changed after we delivered, or a change the agency made after we answered.

To claim it, email hello@govroute.co within 30 days of the agency's notice, and send us the notice. For a package inside your Platinum month, the redo is that package back in your month.

This is what we owe for that mistake, and our limit below still applies. It isn't a promise that the agency will accept your bid or that you will win.

Limits of our responsibility

GovRoute is provided as it is. We are not responsible for a bid's or application's outcome, an agency's or funder's decision, a missed deadline, what you decide after our answers or a call (check them against the agency's documents, which govern), or an item you submit or approve without checking, including anything we marked as missing, except the refunds and the redo described in these terms and on our Refund policy page. For any package (including the answers and call that come with it) (bid consulting is part of the package, not a separate item), application or packet, our total responsibility is the price you paid for that item. To the extent the law allows, our total responsibility to you for any other claim about the service is limited to what you paid us in the three months before the claim. These limits don't apply to fraud, gross negligence, willful misconduct, or anything else the law doesn't allow us to limit, and they never reduce the refunds we promise. For an item included in Platinum, the limit is the Platinum fee for that billing period. Your approval doesn't excuse anything unlawful we do.

The law that applies

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Georgia. This doesn't remove any protection your own state's law gives you that can't be given up by agreement.

Contact

GovRoute · hello@govroute.co · or use the contact page.