How to get on NASPO ValuePoint

NASPO ValuePoint operates through lead states. One state's central procurement office, supported by a multistate sourcing team, develops and issues the RFP for a category, evaluates proposals, and recommends awards to the NASPO ValuePoint Executive Council. The resulting master agreements are then available to all fifty states, the District of Columbia and the territories, and, through them, to local governments and other public entities where state law permits.

Real examples, from NASPO ValuePoint's own portfolio pages, give a sense of the scale and the cadence:

Note the supplier counts. These are multiple-award vehicles, and in the largest categories the field is very crowded. The facilities MRO portfolio with six suppliers is the exception, not the rule.

NASPO ValuePoint's master agreements carry standard fee language. Section 6 of the standard agreement reads: the contractor "shall pay to NASPO ValuePoint... a NASPO ValuePoint Administrative Fee of one-quarter of one percent (0.25% or 0.0025) no later than sixty (60) days following the end of each calendar quarter," based on all sales under the master agreement less any charges for taxes or shipping. It adds, unambiguously: "The NASPO ValuePoint Administrative Fee is not negotiable. This fee is to be included as part of the pricing submitted with proposal."

NASPO ValuePoint's own FAQ confirms that "standard administrative fees are between 0 and one quarter of one percent (0.25%)." That is the lowest headline rate among the major cooperatives by a wide margin. Sourcewell describes 1%-2% as typical and BuyBoard charges 2%.

The second layer

The same clause continues: "Additionally, some states may require an additional fee be paid directly to the state only on purchases made by Purchasing Entities within that state. For all such requests, the fee level, payment method and schedule... will be incorporated into the Participating Addendum. The Contractor may adjust the Master Agreement pricing accordingly... All such agreements shall not affect the NASPO ValuePoint Administrative Fee percentage."

So your effective fee is 0.25% plus whatever the state adds, and it differs by state. Some states impose nothing. Others do, and states have required in their addenda that the state fee not be shown as a separate line item in billing.

The practical consequence is that you cannot price a single national number and be done. Either you price for the worst case and are uncompetitive where no state fee applies, or you use the master agreement's provision allowing you to adjust pricing in a participating addendum to reflect the state's fee. Plan for that before you sign the first addendum, because the pattern you set will be referenced by every state that follows.

This is the single most important thing to understand about NASPO ValuePoint, and it is not prominent in the marketing material.

The master agreement defines a participating addendum as "a bilateral agreement executed by a Contractor and a Participating Entity incorporating this Master Agreement and any other additional Participating Entity specific language or other requirements." Section 5 states: "Contractor may not deliver Services under this Master Agreement until a Participating Addendum acceptable to the Participating Entity and Contractor is executed."

Three consequences follow, and each of them costs money.

States can decline, and can compete you again

Section 5 provides that "obligations under this Master Agreement are limited to those Participating Entities who have signed a Participating Addendum," and that states "may use an informal competitive process to determine which Master Agreements to participate in." You can win the national award and lose a state to another supplier who also won it. Nothing about the award obliges any state to use you.

States can change your terms

The master agreement's own list of what a participating addendum may alter is long and consequential: "unique delivery and invoicing requirements, confidentiality requirements, defaults on Requests for Service, governing law and venue... indemnification, and insurance requirements." Each one of those is a negotiation, in a different state, under different law.

A short list of things states cannot change

Section 5 protects certain provisions from alteration by an addendum: the term of the master agreement, amendments, participants and scope, the administrative fee, usage reports, marketing and performance review, right to publish, price and rate guarantee period, and individual customers. Everything else is on the table.

You must also send a fully executed copy of each participating addendum to NASPO ValuePoint's central database for it to be recognized.

Budget accordingly. Winning the master agreement is stage one of three: the award, then up to fifty addendum negotiations, then agency-level selling within each state that signed. Most of the revenue risk sits in the second and third stages, and most vendor planning stops at the first.

NASPO ValuePoint's reporting requirements are more detailed than most cooperatives', and the agreement calls them "a material requirement."

• Summary sales data, submitted through the NASPO ValuePoint quarterly sales and administrative fee reporting tool, reported as cumulative totals by state. A report is required even in a quarter with zero sales. Due 30 days after quarter end.
• Detailed sales data, broken down by state, entity or customer type, purchasing entity name, bill-to and ship-to, request-for-services identifier, order type, dates and line item description. Due to both the lead state and NASPO ValuePoint's cooperative development team 30 days after quarter end.
• An executive summary, also due 30 days after quarter end, listing which states have active addenda and which are in negotiation.

The fee itself is due at 60 days, a separate and longer deadline than the reports.

The enforcement provision is specific and worth quoting: the lead state "may exercise its right to not renew the Master Agreement if vendor fails to record or report revenue for three consecutive quarters, upon 60-calendar day written notice." Cancellation for non-use cannot occur sooner than two years after award.

Read that clause as a diagnostic. The existence of a standard, pre-drafted mechanism for handling suppliers with zero revenue over three quarters tells you how common that outcome is. It is written into the template because the sponsors expect to use it.

NASPO ValuePoint states that solicitations are published in two places simultaneously: "through the Lead State's eProcurement system and advertised on the www.naspovaluepoint.org Solicitation page." The solicitations page lists open, in-progress and upcoming categories, which gives you visibility of the pipeline well ahead of an RFP release.

Practical steps:

1. Check the solicitations page for your category. If nothing is open or upcoming, the only routes in are as a fulfillment or distribution partner, an authorized dealer, or a third-party reseller under an existing contract holder's master agreement. That is a legitimate path and often the right one for a smaller firm.
2. When a category is upcoming, identify the lead state and register in that state's eProcurement system. The lead state's rules govern the solicitation.
3. Read the RFP for minimum qualifications. NASPO ValuePoint does not publish organization-wide financial or footprint thresholds; those are set per solicitation, and the larger portfolios set them high.
4. Price with the 0.25% included, and with a defensible approach to state-added fees.
5. Plan the addendum campaign before you submit, not after you win. Which ten states are you realistically going to pursue first, and who is going to do it?

General RFP mechanics are in how to respond to an RFP, and how much does it cost to bid on a government contract? covers how to decide whether a solicitation of this size justifies the effort.

It is the right vehicle if you sell to state agencies at scale, have the corporate capacity to run fifty parallel contract negotiations, and operate in a category (IT, software, telecoms, large equipment, national supply) where states buy centrally. Look at the supplier lists on the major portfolios: they are national brands and large resellers, and that is not an accident.

It is the wrong vehicle if you are a regional service business. The addendum process alone will cost you more in legal and business development time than a regional cooperative award would cost in fees, and the 0.25% saving on a contract you cannot activate is worth nothing. A 2% fee on realized revenue beats 0.25% on zero.

On scale, the public data is thinner than you would expect. NASPO ValuePoint does not publish a current aggregate sales figure on its site; a widely repeated $10.5 billion figure dates from FY2014 and should not be presented as current. Treat any headline volume number you see with caution and focus instead on the portfolio-level supplier counts, which are published and which tell you what you are actually competing against.

For a side-by-side with how to get a Sourcewell contract, how to get an OMNIA Partners contract and the Texas cooperatives on fees, reporting and term, see cooperative purchasing for vendors: what a co-op contract actually costs you. Live state agency solicitations are at open opportunities.