USAspending.gov: what it returns, and whether it works in Clay

USAspending.gov is partly covered in Clay. It is best for Buying signals, Diligence, Content demo. Pricing: Free. Access: Free API, no key, plus bulk downloads..

Data domains: Procurement, Government, Revenue, Spend.

What does USAspending.gov return?

Official fields: (spending_by_award for contracts) Award ID; Recipient Name; Recipient UEI; recipient_id; Recipient Location; Awarding Agency; Awarding Sub Agency; Funding Agency; Place of Performance State Code and Zip5; Primary Place of Performance; Description; Start Date; End Date; Award Amount; Total Outlays; Contract Award Type; NAICS; PSC; Base Obligation Date; Last Modified Date; def_codes; recipient profiles and parent/child recipients via the recipient endpoints.

What can you derive from it?

1. New win: a recent Base Obligation Date with a large Award Amount marks a contractor that must scale delivery. 2. Federal revenue share: total obligations per recipient over a year as a proxy for federal revenue. 3. Agency buying pattern: obligations by agency and PSC show who buys a category. 4. Contract end date: End Date shows when recompetes are coming. 5. Growth trend: year-over-year obligations per recipient.

How would a GTM team use it?

1. Revenue trigger: reach contractors within 30 days of a major award with hiring, compliance (CMMC) or delivery offers. 2. Market map: size federal spend by NAICS and PSC for a portco entering public sector. 3. PE screen: rank government services add-on targets by obligations and growth. 4. Competitive watch: track awards to a competitor and the agencies buying from them.

What are the caveats?

Partial overlap: GovSpend, which is in Clay, covers state and local (SLED) bids; this raw federal award data is not native in Clay as of 2026-10-17 (checked against Clay's integrations catalog). Can be called through Clay's HTTP API column. External observation: awards show money obligated, not what tools the recipient will buy. Obligations are not payments. Agency reporting lags, often by weeks, and sub-award data is incomplete.