Barbour ABI alternative

Barbour’s daily feed, without the account manager.

SiteLens delivers the same UK planning feed Barbour ABI is built on, classified, mapped and daily, self-serve from £29/mo billed annually. No account manager, no contract.

No credit card, no call. Every new account includes a one-time 7-day Pro trial.

Same daily feed

Every UK planning application, across 380+ UK councils, every day. The core project intelligence you need to stay ahead is the same. We just don’t charge enterprise prices for it.

A fraction of the price

Barbour ABI pricing starts in the low-four-figures-per-year bracket and climbs. SiteLens Pro is £29/mo billed annually (£39 monthly) and covers most construction supply chain use cases without the account-manager overhead.

No account manager

Sign up, log in, start searching. There is no account manager and no scheduled check-in. If managed service is what you want, Barbour is the right choice. Most teams just want the data.

SiteLens vs Barbour ABI

Feature-for-feature, based on publicly available information.

FeatureSiteLensBarbour ABI
Starting price£29/mo billed annuallyFour-figure annual
Free tier availableIncludedNot included
Self-serve sign-upIncludedNot included
Sales call requiredNot includedIncluded
Contract lengthMonthlyAnnual
Daily UK planning feedIncludedIncluded
Automatic project classificationIncludedNot included
Works tags (classified by trade)IncludedNot included
Constraint flags (flood, green belt, conservation…)IncludedNot included
Reads planning documents (verified figures, named project team)IncludedNot included
ContactsSource-labelled, from the public recordResearched
Companies House on applications (directors, filing health, charges)Yes (profile on Pro)Included
Named project team from planning documentsYes (major schemes)Researched
Public-sector tenders & awards (Contracts Finder / Find a Tender)IncludedIncluded
Researcher-sourced tender & bidder intelligence (incl. private schemes)Public-sector onlyIncluded
Interactive map searchIncludedIncluded
Daily email alertsIncludedIncluded
CSV exportIncludedIncluded
Phone-researched project detailsNot includedIncluded
Named account managerNot includedIncluded
Council analyticsIncludedIncluded

New to planning data? Start with the basics. Every way to find UK planning applications, free and paid, and how to choose.

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What does Barbour ABI actually cost?

Barbour ABI doesn’t publish pricing. You book a demo and get a quote. From industry guides and buyer reports, subscriptions typically run into the four and five figures a year, varying with the regions and modules you take, on 12-month contracts arranged through the sales team with a named account manager.

SiteLens publishes its pricing: a free-forever Explorer tier, Pro from £29/mo billed annually (£39 monthly), Team from £79/mo billed annually (£99 monthly). Monthly plans cancel from the dashboard, any time, with no minimum term. For a wider view of what each tool in the market is built for, read Best planning data tool 2026: what each really costs

Frequently asked

How much does Barbour ABI cost?

There’s no public price list. Quotes come via a demo. Reported subscriptions typically land in the four-to-five figures a year on 12-month contracts, depending on regions and modules. SiteLens publishes its price: free Explorer, Pro from £29/mo billed annually (£39 monthly), Team from £79/mo billed annually (£99 monthly).

Does Barbour ABI need a contract?

Barbour ABI is sold on annual subscriptions through its sales team. Its published terms run an initial 12-month period after which the agreement continues on a rolling basis unless cancelled with 90 days’ written notice, so read the renewal clause before you sign. SiteLens is monthly or annual, with a cancellation button in the dashboard and no minimum term.

Is there a cheaper alternative to Barbour ABI?

Yes. SiteLens covers applications across 380+ UK councils, classifies them by trade and project type, and sends daily alerts. Pro is £29 a month billed annually (£39 monthly), and the free-forever tier includes one daily alert so you can test it on your patch first.

What does Barbour ABI offer that SiteLens doesn’t?

On the largest schemes, Barbour ABI runs phone researchers who confirm scope, timelines and decision-makers ahead of the public record and build a bidder history that reaches private tenders never posted to a government portal, plus a named account manager. If your business bids on the biggest projects, that earns its price. For everything else SiteLens is a comparable product at a fraction of the cost: every application classified, valued and constraint-flagged, agent and firm contacts labelled by source, matched Companies House records, and public-sector tenders and awards from Contracts Finder and Find a Tender matched to the schemes and companies you track. What SiteLens does not do is research private tender packs or contact private individuals.

When you should still pick Barbour ABI

Barbour ABI runs an in-house team of UK researchers who phone ahead of the public planning record to confirm project scope, timelines, budgets and decision-makers, and builds a bidder history of who is pricing and winning work. That coverage reaches private-sector schemes that never appear on a government procurement portal. That’s a real service, and it matters when you’re bidding on the largest schemes where being weeks earlier than the competition is worth six figures.

For everything else, SiteLens is a comparable product at a fraction of the price. You get the daily feed of every UK planning application, contact details for the agent and the firms behind each scheme drawn from the planning record, the documents and Companies House, each one labelled with where it came from and how reliable it is, and the named project team lifted from the planning documents on major schemes. On the procurement side SiteLens covers the public sector directly: live tenders and contract awards from Contracts Finder and Find a Tender, matched to the schemes and companies you are tracking. It does not research private tender packs. If you’re a supplier, subcontractor or specialist trade whose decision to quote isn’t gated on a confirmed private tender pack, that is the part you actually pay Barbour for, and SiteLens gives it to you self-serve, from £29/mo billed annually (£39 monthly).

See it before you pay a penny.

Free forever tier. No credit card. No sales call.

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