Switch your tender alerts on in about two minutes
Nobody switches tender alerts on for you, and there is nothing to email us for. Industrial Hub starts matching once you answer the welcome questions in your own account — five of them, and only the first asks you to type anything. Your answers save as you go, so alerts are on from the moment you say you want tenders, whether or not you reach the end in one sitting.
14 days free, no card. When the trial ends without a plan your data stays readable — you just cannot create or edit until you pick one.
The whole procedure
~2 minutesstart to finish
This is every step, in order, with nothing left out. You will not be asked for a document, a registration number or anything you have to go and look up first.
Sign in, or start the trial
If the welcome questions have not been answered on your account yet, signing in takes you straight to them. If they have, you land on your dashboard instead — which is itself the answer to "did I finish?".
Type your company name
The one field you type, and it comes first. The name appears on the quotes and invoices your clients receive, so until you set it your account carries a placeholder taken from your email address. You can change it later under Settings.
Tick the work you do
Electrical, Plumbing, HVAC / Refrigeration, Data / Fibre, Civil, Mechanical / Welding, Project Management, General Contracting, Other. Tick as many as apply. This is what narrows thousands of live tenders down to the ones in your line of work.
Tick your provinces
Pick every province you would travel to. Your own is already ticked. Tenders published for national buyers are added to your search for you, so a national contract in your trade is not filtered out by a provincial choice.
Answer "Looking for tenders?" with Yes
This is the actual switch, and it is the point your alerts start. Answering Yes saves your trade and provinces and creates the search the daily run reads — you are in tomorrow morning’s 08:00 send from here, even if you go no further today. Answer No and the account is set up for private work only: no search, no digest.
Give your CIDB grade, or say you do not have one, and press Finish
"None" and "not sure" are both real answers and neither is held against you — a grade is never invented for you. What you say here does not change which tenders you are sent; it is used on each tender you open, in the Bid Readiness check.
That is the whole job. Your alerts are already running from the moment you answered Yes to tenders, so a phone call halfway through does not cost you the setup — sign back in and pick up where you stopped.
Already signed up and not sure whether you ever finished? Sign in and check
Watch it done once
The same questions, recorded end to end, so you know exactly what is coming before you start. Two minutes of watching saves you wondering whether you missed something.
Walkthrough video
The recording is being finished. The steps above are the complete procedure — nothing in them waits on the video.
There is no request to send
People write in asking to be added to the tender alerts, or to be included when subcontracting work comes up. Then they wait.
There is no list to be added to and no queue. Answering the welcome questions in your own account is what puts your business into the daily matching run — and if your alerts are already off for some other reason, Tenders → Discover carries a "Turn on tender alerts" button that does the same job in one click.
You cannot lose your place halfway
Setup screens that only save at the end punish an interruption. Answer four questions, take a phone call, come back to nothing — and no warning that the thing you were setting up never switched on.
Your answers are written as you go. From the moment you answer Yes to "Looking for tenders?", the search exists and the 08:00 digest will read it, whether or not you reach the end that day.
You can check it yourself in one click
An account with no saved search looks identical from the outside to one that simply had a quiet week. Both produce an empty inbox.
Open Tenders → Discover in your dashboard. The "Saved for review" strip at the top shows live tenders your filter is catching right now. If that strip is there, your search exists.
Why we would rather show you than do it for you
Most software answers "it is not working" with a support ticket. Here there is genuinely nothing to switch on from our side. The daily run reads a saved search, and a saved search only exists once someone has said which trades and which provinces — no operator can guess that for a business they have never met, and a guess would either flood you or send you nothing. So the fix is always two minutes in your own account. That is a worse story than "leave it with us" and a much better outcome, because it is the only version that keeps working after the conversation ends.
What the alerts match on
The trades you ticked and the provinces you ticked, plus tenders published for national buyers. CIDB grade plays no part in what you are sent — only a small share of tenders state a grade at all, so using it here would hide most of the feed from you.
When the email arrives
Once a day, at 08:00 SAST. It is a summary of the tenders that matched in the previous 24 hours, each with its closing date — not one message per tender, and not a live feed into your inbox.
The morning nothing arrives
Some mornings nothing new matched your trades and provinces. There is nothing to send, so no email goes out. A quiet day is not a broken account, and the Discover page will show you which it was.
WhatsApp is the faster channel
WhatsApp tender alerts run every 30 minutes, so a match reaches you the same morning rather than the next. They are a Pro and Enterprise feature and need a verified number and your consent, both set under Settings.
What changes when the trial ends
For the 14 days you get the full daily digest. After that, an account without a paid plan gets a shortened one — a live match plus a count of what is being held back — until a plan is picked. Pro is R599 a month and includes five users, extra seats R80 each; Enterprise is R1,199.
What Industrial Hub does not do
It does not write your bid, submit it, or promise you a win, and it is not an agency or a labour broker — it does not hand out work or place people on jobs. It finds the public tenders that fit your trade and shows you what each one requires.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to ask you to switch my tender alerts on?+
No. There is no request to send and no list to be added to. Answering the welcome questions in your account is what starts the alerts. If they are already off for some other reason, the "Turn on tender alerts" button on Tenders → Discover switches them back on in one click — either way it is your account that does it, not a person at our end.
I signed up a while ago and have never received anything. Why not?+
Almost always because the welcome questions never got as far as "Looking for tenders?" — that is the answer that creates the search the daily run reads, so an account that stopped before it has nothing to read. Answering No there does the same thing, deliberately. Sign in and look at Tenders → Discover: if your alerts are off it says so at the top of the page, with a button to switch them on.
How long does it actually take?+
About two minutes. Five questions: your company name, the work you do, your provinces, whether you want tenders, and your CIDB grade. Only the first one asks you to type anything, and your answers save as you go.
When does the first email arrive?+
The digest runs at 08:00 SAST every morning and lists the tenders that matched in the previous 24 hours. If nothing new matched your trades and provinces overnight, there is nothing to send and no email goes out that day.
Can I get the alerts on WhatsApp instead?+
WhatsApp tender alerts are a Pro and Enterprise feature. They also need a number you have verified and your consent, both set under Settings. On WhatsApp a match reaches you within about 30 minutes of it being picked up, which makes it the faster of the two channels.
Do I need a CIDB grade to get tender alerts?+
No. "None" and "not sure" are both valid answers and no grade is ever assumed for you. Your grade does not decide which tenders you are sent; it is used on each tender you open, in the Bid Readiness check, alongside CSD, tax and B-BBEE standing.
What does it cost?+
The first 14 days are free and no card is asked for. After that Industrial Hub is R599 a month on Pro, which includes five users with extra seats at R80 each, or R1,199 on Enterprise. There is no permanent no-cost tier: when the trial ends without a plan your data stays readable, but you cannot create or edit until you pick one.
Will Industrial Hub find me subcontracting work or place my people on jobs?+
No. Industrial Hub is software, not an agency or a labour broker. It shows you the public tenders that fit your trade and province and what each one requires. Approaching the buyer and putting the bid together is yours.
Where do the tenders come from?+
South African government tender publications, including the National Treasury eTenders portal at etenders.gov.za. Verify details against the original publication before you bid.
Two minutes now, and tomorrow morning’s tenders come to you.
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