Trust
How Tenderline keeps bids clean.
Tenderline screens every tender that reaches a contractor's inbox. The three checks below cover license verification against state contractor-license databases, scope and budget thresholds that protect matched contractors from noise, and a direct line to the person who can actually sign the work.
01 — License verification
Every owner and general contractor is cross-checked against the relevant state database before the bid goes out.
The moment a mined record enters the Tenderline pipeline, the attached owner or general contractor is checked against the relevant state contractor-license database. If the license doesn't pull — expired, suspended, or never issued — the project moves to a watchlist rather than the matched inbox, because the GC on the record likely can't actually award the work a contractor would bid on.
License status (number and expiration) is re-verified after fourteen days, so a license that goes stale mid-cycle is pulled before a contractor replies. The license record ships on every lead card, which means any contractor can independently re-verify the same status through the relevant state database before signing anything.
02 — Scope and budget thresholds
A tender has to clear a minimum project size and a real bid envelope before any contractor sees it.
Tenderline rejects anything below a defined project-size floor — tenders that small don't justify the bid effort a contractor puts into responding, and the replies that do come back tend to be priced to win rather than priced to do the work. Tenders missing a confirmed budget or an open bid envelope are rejected for the same reason: there's no real decision to compete for.
The threshold works both ways. Matched contractors are protected from a feed of one-call-close leads they can't actually win, and project owners are protected from being shopped around to under-bid crews just to fill an inbox. What clears the floor is a tender with a real scope, a real budget, and a real decision on the other end.
03 — Decision-maker contact transparency
Every lead surfaces the GC or owner's direct line — the person who can actually sign a contract.
Lead cards carry the general contractor's or owner's direct line, not a gatekeeper, an agency desk, or an estimator who can't commit to anything. That matters for two reasons. Contractors waste cycles negotiating with non-decision-makers who have to “check back” on every change, and that wasted effort is bid-cycle time they don't get back.
Regulators and project owners want to know that the bid path goes straight to the responsible party. Tenderline's contact-transparency rule is the simplest version of that: the name on the lead card is the person who can sign the work, and the license attached to the tender is the license that authorizes them to do it.
For state regulators
Every Tenderline-matched bid originates from a licensed crew, independently re-verifiable through the relevant state database.
Tenderline's screening pipeline is built so the lead your jurisdiction sees is the same lead the contractor sees — same license number, same status, same expiration. If you'd like a copy of the current verification posture for a specific state or trade, or want to flag a state database integration that should move up the queue, send us a note.
Or read how the matching itself works on the homepage.