TL;DR: MERX is dead — CanadaBuys replaced it but manual searching is painful. The best alternatives in 2026 are Biddingo (provincial coverage), GovBid (free AI-matched alerts for Canada and US), and CanadaBuys itself. GovBid is the only free option covering both countries.

See the full GovBid vs MERX vs Biddingo comparison.

If you used to rely on MERX to find government contracts in Canada, you already know it's gone. The Government of Canada replaced MERX and BuyAndSell with CanadaBuys in 2023.

CanadaBuys is free (MERX charged for access), but it's harder to use. The search is clunky, the notifications are noisy, and tender descriptions are written in procurement jargon that takes time to decode.

Here's what's actually available in 2026 and how they compare.

What happened to MERX?

MERX was a paid service that aggregated Canadian government tenders. It charged businesses a subscription fee to access and bid on federal contracts. When the government launched CanadaBuys, MERX lost its exclusive access to federal tender data.

CanadaBuys is now the single official source for all federal procurement in Canada. It's free and publicly accessible.

The problem with CanadaBuys

CanadaBuys works, but it's built for procurement officers, not for small businesses trying to find work. Common complaints:

Search is keyword-based — Miss a synonym and you miss the tender. Government descriptions don't use the same words businesses use.
Too many irrelevant results — No way to filter by relevance to your specific business.
Email notifications are all-or-nothing — You either get flooded with alerts or miss things.
No summaries — You have to open each tender and read through pages of procurement language to figure out what they actually want.
No value estimates on many listings — Hard to tell if a contract is worth pursuing.

MERX alternatives in 2026

CanadaBuys (free)

The official source. Use it as your baseline — it has every federal tender. Set up saved searches with your GSIN codes and check it daily. It's workable but time-consuming.

Best for: Businesses that only bid on a few contracts per year and don't mind the manual effort.

Biddingo

An aggregator that pulls tenders from multiple Canadian sources including municipal and provincial governments. Offers email alerts and saved searches.

Best for: Businesses that bid on municipal and provincial contracts in addition to federal.

GovBid

GovBid takes a different approach. Instead of giving you a search engine, it sends you a daily email digest with only the government contracts relevant to your business. AI classifies every tender by industry and matches them to your profile.

Each email includes:

The contract title in plain English (not government jargon)
What the work actually involves
Who's buying and where
The deadline and estimated value
A direct link to bid on CanadaBuys

You can also reply to your digest email to refine your matches — say "stop sending IT stuff" or "only show me Ontario" and the system adjusts.

Best for: Small businesses that want contracts delivered to their inbox instead of spending time searching.

Pricing: Free — no subscription, no credit card required.

BidSync / Periscope

Primarily focused on the US market but covers some Canadian opportunities. More expensive and geared toward larger businesses with dedicated bid teams.

Best for: Businesses already active in US government procurement who also want Canadian coverage.

Quick comparison

Feature	CanadaBuys	Biddingo	GovBid	BidSync
Price	Free	Paid	Free	Paid
Federal tenders	Yes	Yes	Yes	Some
Provincial tenders	No	Yes	Quebec, Sask	Some
US contracts	No	No	Yes (SAM.gov)	Yes
AI matching	No	No	Yes	No
Plain-English summaries	No	No	Yes	No
Email alerts	Basic keyword	Keyword	AI-matched daily digest	Keyword

What to look for in a MERX alternative

When evaluating a replacement, focus on four criteria:

Coverage. Does it include all the sources you need — federal, provincial, municipal? If you also bid in the US, you need cross-border coverage.
Matching quality. Keyword search misses contracts that use different terminology. AI-powered matching catches opportunities that manual searches miss — a landscaping company searching "landscaping" won't find "Grounds Maintenance Services" on CanadaBuys.
Price. MERX charged $1,000+/year. CanadaBuys is free but limited. GovBid is free with AI matching across both countries.
Alerts. Daily alerts with relevance scoring beat weekly summaries or noisy keyword notifications. You need to see new tenders before their 14-day average deadline passes.

How to switch from MERX to GovBid

If you previously used MERX, you can set up equivalent monitoring in three steps:

Sign up on GovBid — enter your business name, industry, and location. No credit card, no subscription.
Check your first matches. Within 24 hours you'll receive a digest email with tenders matched to your profile. Reply to refine — say "add Ontario municipal" or "only show construction."
Bookmark the Canadian tenders page. Browse open opportunities any time, filtered by industry and province.

Your MERX saved searches and classification codes map directly to GovBid's NAICS-based matching. If you know your GSIN codes, the corresponding NAICS codes will catch the same contracts.

How to choose

Ask yourself:

How many hours per week do you spend searching for contracts? If it's more than two, a monitoring tool will pay for itself.
Do you bid federally, provincially, or both? CanadaBuys and GovBid cover federal. Biddingo covers provincial too.
Do you know your GSIN and NAICS codes? If not, an AI-powered tool like GovBid will catch contracts that keyword searches miss.
Do you also want US contracts? GovBid covers both CanadaBuys and SAM.gov. Most other Canadian tools don't.

The bottom line

MERX is gone. CanadaBuys is the official replacement, but it's a search engine — it requires you to know what to search for and to check it regularly. If you want a service that finds contracts for you and explains what they are in plain language, an AI-powered monitoring tool saves hours of manual searching every week.

Best MERX Alternative in 2026: Simpler Ways to Find Government Tenders