How SpendQuery answers

From question to number

The question becomes a plan. An AI model reads the question and writes a structured plan: the measure, filters (agency, company, place, industry, years), grouping and sort. It never writes the numbers or the database query.
Names are matched to codes. "DoD" becomes the Department of Defense, a company name its registered entities. Each match is shown under the answer.
The plan becomes a query. A fixed semantic layer compiles the plan into SQL over the warehouse; the query is checked and run read-only with a time limit.
The answer is written from the rows. The sentence, the headline and "What stands out" are computed from the result, in each measure's own unit, with no AI.

Questions in the library skip step 1: each keeps the plan that was checked, and every night all of them are re-run and any that fail, come back empty or change for a closed year are flagged for review.

Definitions

Obligations are money committed (a signed contract, an awarded grant), not cash paid (outlays). Multi-year contracts are obligated up front.
Place is where the work is performed, not where the company is based.
Fiscal years: federal years run October to September (FY2025 = Oct 2024 – Sep 2025); most states run July to June. The year in progress is marked "so far".
Companies roll up subsidiaries to their parent (as SAM.gov reports it), except where eligibility or registration matters, which is judged at the entity that bids.
Federal obligations ÷ revenue (listed companies) pools the loaded years, because one year's obligations can exceed that year's revenue.
Countdowns run from today in US Eastern time.

Caveats shown beside the number

Medicare payments are published where Medicare's claims contractors are (North Dakota, Minnesota, Indiana and others), not where patients live, so those states look larger than their population suggests.
State books differ. Each state carries a badge for what its published data covers (all payments, no payroll, vendor payments only, or with transfers between its own funds); only states with all their payments are ranked against each other on totals.
Broader matches are said aloud: a question about "border wall" is counted under the topic Border security, and the answer says so.
Stale sources say where their data ends. Recent defense contracts arrive about 90 days late.

How big a contract is

The size filters ("Under $350K", "$1M–$10M") mean a different thing on each list, because each source says size differently:

Open now: most notices state no value. We use what the notice's own text says (a construction "magnitude between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000", an "estimated value", a "price range"), read by fixed rules, not AI. Without that, we use the whole value of the expiring contract the notice most likely replaces (only when the notice names that contract, or it is one of at most three expiring contracts of the same office with the same industry and product codes, and never a contract vehicle, whose value is a ceiling). That is a guide to size, not the new contract's value. Only a small share of open notices have a size either way; the page says how many in your search do, and can include the rest.
Recently awarded: the amount the award notice states. Ceilings are left out: indefinite-delivery contracts, BPAs and ordering agreements (their notices state the most that may be ordered over years), shared ceilings (one amount on three or more awards of one solicitation) and amounts over $10 billion.
Coming up for re-bid: the larger of the contract's current value and its value with every option. The list starts at $250,000.
Planned buys: agencies give a range ("$500K – $999K"); a forecast matches when its range overlaps the one you pick.
Ranges overlap: a $1M–$5M magnitude counts as "Under $2M" and as "$1M–$10M".
$350,000 is the simplified acquisition threshold since October 1, 2025: below it agencies buy with simpler procedures, and usually set the work aside for small businesses when two or more can do it.

Checks

The latest results are on Data accuracy and freshness.

Federal totals are compared with USAspending.gov's own figures every day, and a monthly test suite compares hundreds of answers with the live site.
State totals are reconciled with each state's published reports where they exist.

Sources, coverage and refresh schedules: Where the numbers come from · About SpendQuery · Terms of Use