The Vendor's Guide To U.S. Cities Procurement

Every month, Starbridge processes millions of public documents—board meeting minutes, strategic plans, RFPs, and contracts—to help businesses identify their best-fit public sector customers.

Executive Summary

City procurement is messy, inconsistent, and often opaque.

To make it easier for vendors to navigate, we analyzed procurement and contracting data across 12,000+ U.S. municipalities.

We looked at transparency practices, vendor accessibility, and purchasing flexibility to score how difficult it is to sell into each city.

The result: a nationwide Procurement Hell Index that shows where friction is highest, and how to work around it.

Top Trends

• 9 in 10 cities show signs of procurement shortcuts - with some mix of sole-sourcing, informal bidding, or vendor-friendly exceptions
• ~4% of cities are stuck in paperwork, legal reviews, and outdated systems that make it nearly impossible to buy anything quickly
• ~32% of cities show strong transparency, digital portals and acceptable bidding cycles - mostly in Texas, California and Northern Carolina

What You’ll Learn

• Which cities are the easiest (or most painful) to sell into.
• Where procurement friction is highest, and how to navigate it.
• How to adapt your GTM strategy to city-level procurement realities.