Periscope Holdingsvs
Euna Solutions
Euna Solutions: Portfolio covering procurement for agencies below statewide scale, including Bonfire
Periscope Holdings
Statewide e-procurement systems and supplier networks for large public agencies
As of 31 August 2026, Periscope Holdings's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. Runs the procurement platforms behind statewide purchasing programmes, including sealed bidding, contract catalogues and supplier registration at state scale. Softwr lists it under Government. Periscope Holdings is made by Periscope Holdings, part of mdf commerce, available on Web.
Overview
What Periscope Holdings does
Periscope Holdings, based in Austin, Texas, builds and operates e-procurement systems for large public agencies. Its BuySpeed platform covers the full public purchasing cycle: supplier registration, solicitation and sealed bid receipt, evaluation, contract award, catalogue based ordering against awarded contracts, and the reporting that state legislatures require of their purchasing programmes. It is best known for operating statewide procurement portals, including the Commonwealth of Virginia's eVA system, which puts it in a small group of vendors operating at that scale. That scale is the distinguishing fact and it cuts both ways. A statewide system serves thousands of buying entities and tens of thousands of registered suppliers, and the requirements at that level, cooperative contract usage across local entities, statutory reporting, supplier diversity tracking and spend visibility across agencies, are not the same requirements a single city has. Periscope is built for the former. A mid sized city evaluating it against Bonfire or a Tyler module is comparing a state scale platform against products designed for a single agency, and the implementation effort reflects that. The ownership history is the fact most likely to matter and least likely to be volunteered. mdf commerce, the Quebec based e-commerce and procurement group that also owns BidNet and Merx, acquired Periscope in 2021. mdf commerce was itself acquired by the private equity firm KKR in 2024. A buyer is therefore signing a multi year contract with a business that has changed hands twice in three years and whose sibling products cover overlapping ground, so continuity of product roadmap and support staffing deserves explicit contractual attention rather than assurance in a sales meeting. Contract values, as always in this category, are public.
What people use it for
- A state building a central procurement portal serving many agencies and local entities
- A large agency needing statutory sealed bidding with a public opening record
- A purchasing programme that must report spend and supplier diversity across entities
- A state wanting local governments to buy from its awarded cooperative contracts
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The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Periscope Holdings.
- It is scaled and priced for statewide programmes, so a single city or county typically finds both the implementation effort and the cost out of proportion to its needs.
- The interface reflects the age and regulatory weight of the platform, and suppliers routinely describe registration and bidding as harder than on newer portals, which can suppress bid response.
- Ownership has changed twice since 2021, from independent to mdf commerce to KKR, so roadmap and support continuity should be written into the contract rather than assumed.
- Sibling products inside mdf commerce cover adjacent procurement ground, which means an apparently competitive shortlist may contain two products with the same owner.
- Statewide implementations are multi year projects with heavy configuration and change management, and the professional services cost commonly exceeds the software over the contract term.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Periscope Holdings
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- Periscope HoldingsvsBidnet Direct
Bidnet Direct: Sibling product under the same owner, focused on solicitation distribution and supplier reach
- Periscope HoldingsvsOpenGov
OpenGov: Better fit for cities and counties wanting procurement alongside budgeting and permitting
Pricing
What Periscope Holdings costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
BuySpeed
On request
- Quoted per programme, scaled to entities served and transaction volume
- Multi year statewide contracts with implementation priced separately
- Supplier side registration fees form part of the commercial model on some programmes
- State contract awards are public records and disclose full multi year values
Capabilities
Features
Sealed bid solicitation
Statutory sealed bidding with time locked receipt and public opening records
Supplier registration network
Statewide vendor registration, commodity codes and notification
Contract catalogues
Ordering against awarded contracts with negotiated pricing enforced
Cooperative purchasing
Lets local entities buy from state awarded contracts under the same terms
Spend and compliance reporting
Cross agency spend visibility and statutory reporting for legislatures
Supplier diversity tracking
Records and reports certified vendor participation against targets
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Who owns Periscope Holdings?
mdf commerce acquired it in 2021, and mdf commerce was itself acquired by KKR in 2024.
Is it suitable for a single city?
Usually not. It is built and priced for statewide or very large agency programmes.
What is BuySpeed?
The e-procurement platform behind its statewide deployments, covering solicitation through catalogue ordering and reporting.
Can we see what a state paid?
Yes. State procurement awards are public records and typically disclose the full multi year contract value.
Keep looking
Where to go from Periscope Holdings
- Periscope Holdings alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Periscope Holdings pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Periscope Holdings badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Government softwareThe full category
- Best Government softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Government software for
Compare Periscope Holdings with
- Euna Solutions
- Bidnet Direct
- OpenGov
- Bonfire
- CivicPlus Asset Management
- NEOGOV
- ArchiveSocial
- Clariti
- GovPilot
- mySidewalk
- SAP for Government
- Axon Records
- CitizenLab
- ClearGov
- eCode360
- MyRec.com
- DemandStar
- DemandStar
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Periscope Holdings, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
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