How to Register on Ionwave: Supplier Guide (2026)

What Ionwave is

Ionwave is the electronic bidding system from Ion Wave Technologies (IWT). Public agencies use it to register suppliers, issue bid events, answer questions, and receive bid responses. Registration does not carry over from one buyer to the next. Each agency runs its own site, and agency purchasing pages link to addresses such as leegov.ionwave.net for Lee County, Florida, stillwater.ionwave.net for the City of Stillwater, Oklahoma, and wentzvillemo.ionwave.net for the City of Wentzville, Missouri. The ionwave.net website itself now redirects to Euna Solutions, whose procurement page states that Bonfire, IonWave, EqualLevel, and DemandStar have come together as Euna Procurement. The agency pages cited in this guide still link to ionwave.net addresses.

For suppliers, the first question is who pays. The City of Stillwater states that registration is free. The City of Wentzville tells potential suppliers that they must register, free of charge, and indicate the commodities they are interested in to receive and respond to solicitations. The Ion Wave supplier guides that agencies post for bidders do not mention a supplier fee. Each agency runs its own site, so confirm with the agency before you register.

The second question is who sets the rules. Ion Wave's supplier registration guide, which the City of Stillwater links from its bids page, states that registrations are managed by each organization and not by Ion Wave Technologies, and that questions about registration or the approval process go to the organization. The same guide states that registering with one organization does not allow you to respond to another organization's solicitations. Each agency also chooses which registration tabs to use, and each solicitation sets its own response rules. Lee County, for example, states that it still accepts non-electronic submissions as each solicitation instructs. For a broader view of where public construction work is posted, see our guide to finding government construction bids or browse all of our portal registration guides.

Registering on Ionwave sites? See matched public bids from thousands of portals free for 7 days so you can compare what each agency posts with the wider public feed.

Step 1 - Find the agency's Ionwave site

Start from the purchasing page of the agency you want to bid and follow its link to that agency's Ionwave site. Because registration is per agency, the site you open decides which buyer you are registering with.

Agency pages show what to look for. Lee County's eProcurement page links to its Ion Wave system, which the county calls Lee County Bids & Contracts. The City of Stillwater's Bids & Proposals page links to its IonWave portal, along with lists of current, closed, and awarded bids on that site. The City of Wentzville's Bid Opportunities page states that all of its solicitations will be distributed through its Ionwave link.

If your company bids across several cities, counties, districts, or utilities, keep an internal list of each agency's Ionwave site, the login your team uses there, and the person who owns it. Where a detail is not described here, verify current steps on the agency's Ionwave site.

Step 2 - Start Supplier Registration

On the agency's Ionwave login page, click Supplier Registration. Lee County tells vendors to click the Supplier Registration link, and the City of Stillwater says the Supplier Registration button sits next to the login, on the right side of the page.

The first screen asks for preliminary company information. Ion Wave's guide on Stillwater's site lists company name, telephone number, and DUNS number (if applicable), with a checkbox for international phone numbers. A 2024 edition of the guide, posted by the Lee County Port Authority in Florida, also lists a SAM.gov Unique Entity ID (if applicable). If you need a UEI for federal work, see our SAM.gov registration guide.

The system then checks for an existing account. Ion Wave's guide states that if a duplicate or similar supplier account is found, you should not create a duplicate. Instead, contact the account holder at your company and ask for a user profile on that account. The 2024 edition says this search runs across all Ion Wave sites and lists any similar supplier with the agency it is registered with and its status. If no match applies, acknowledge the Ion Wave Technologies Terms and Conditions with the checkbox and continue.

Step 3 - Enter company and user details, then verify your email

On the Company Info tab, complete every applicable field, and note that required items are marked with a red asterisk. Ion Wave's guide says companies with separate operating names may use both the Trade Name and Legal Name fields, while companies that use one name only need the Trade Name field. Organizations outside the U.S. select Foreign Entity as the organization type.

The 2024 edition adds a few details worth planning for. It asks for a company recovery email that is not the same address as your user email. It states that each new user needs a unique username, and that you cannot reuse an existing one. It also says to pay special attention to the time zone selection, including the options for states that do not observe daylight saving time.

Click Save and Next to trigger a verification email. Lee County states that you will receive an email from Lee County Bids & Contracts with a link to validate your email address. If the email does not arrive, Ion Wave's guide says to check trash and spam folders, then whitelist the email domain @customer.ionwave.net and ask the agency to send the verification email again.

Use a company email address that someone on your estimating team watches every day, because invitations and bid notices go there. Ion Wave's guide also strongly recommends adding a secondary user to vendor accounts once registration is complete.

Step 4 - Complete the agency's registration tabs

Work through the remaining registration tabs, which vary by agency. Ion Wave's guide describes an Addresses tab where you can edit the address you entered with the pencil icon or click Add Addresses.

Other tabs appear only when the agency turns them on. If the agency collects W-9 forms, the system prompts you to complete and electronically sign a W-9 before you continue. If the agency collects ACH payment information, the guide says it is not required, but once you begin filling it out you must complete all fields. An Other Info tab collects anything else the agency asks for. The 2024 edition states that if the ACH or Other Information tab is not visible, the agency has opted not to collect that information.

Answer each tab from your company's records. The guides do not list every field an agency may add, so verify anything unclear with the agency's purchasing office.

Step 5 - Select commodity codes and classifications

Select the commodity codes that match the work you bid, because Ion Wave's guide states that selecting commodities lets a supplier receive invitations to solicitations as they are issued. The guide says to review the commodities, mark those that apply, and use the search tool to find commodities by keyword.

The Ion Wave guides do not name a code set, so this guide could not verify whether a given agency uses NIGP codes or a list of its own. Review the list on each agency's site. Build your selections around the scopes you actually price, such as paving, utilities, roofing, or general building work, without checking every box. The City of Stillwater states that after registration, vendors automatically receive email notifications when new bid opportunities match the products, services, or criteria they selected.

If the agency lets suppliers self-elect special classifications, a Classifications tab appears. Ion Wave's guide says to check any classification that applies and notes that the system may ask you to upload supporting documentation.

Step 6 - Submit the registration and add other agencies

On the Review tab, check your entries, fix anything incorrect with the pencil icon, and select Register Now. The 2024 edition of Ion Wave's guide states that an email notification is sent once the supplier account has been activated. Approval belongs to the agency, and the guides do not publish an approval time, so register well before a bid date.

To bid for another agency, you need that agency's registration too. The 2024 edition says that if your company is already registered with an Ion Wave customer, the quickest way to add agencies is to log in to that agency and use the Find New Agency button, which requires Admin access. Ion Wave's response tutorial, posted by the City of Wentzville, notes that suppliers registered with several agencies who have merged their accounts see each agency's bids listed with the agency name.

Keep each profile current. Lee County asks vendors already registered on its Ion Wave system to make sure their profile is up to date.

How to find and submit a bid on Ionwave

After logging in, open the bid list. Ion Wave's response tutorial on Wentzville's site says to click Bid Events in the top navigation bar, or one of the Alerts, and that bids appear in two sections, My Invitations and Other Bid Opportunities. Click the bid number to open a bid. Lee County adds that the Alerts section on the home screen shows bids that are closing soon, invitations, and recent responses, and that the My Recent Responses tab shows the status of submitted bids. Some agencies also link bid lists directly from their own pages, as Stillwater does for current, closed, and awarded bids.

Inside a bid event, a series of tabs appears, and a tab that does not appear does not apply to that solicitation. The tutorial lists Event Details, Questions, Activities, Attachments, Attributes, Line Items, Response Attachments, and Response Submission. Depending on how the buyer set up the bid, you may first be asked whether you intend to respond. Download the solicitation files from the Attachments tab.

Questions go through the Questions tab. Click Ask Question before the cutoff date and time, and note that the tutorial says questions and answers are reviewed at the buyer's discretion. Lee County states that the contact email on your account is notified when a question is answered or an addendum is issued, and that Ion Wave sends notifications to registered users when updates or addenda are issued. Lee County also states that it is the bidder's responsibility to check the system regularly for changes. The City of Stillwater lists automated email notifications for addendums and as the due date approaches, and states that answers to questions are posted online for all bidders.

Build the response tab by tab. Required attributes and price fields carry a red asterisk and must be answered before you can submit. On Line Items, enter a price or percentage, and the extended price is calculated once you save. You can add alternates and notes where the buyer allows them, and use No Bid on a line. On Response Attachments, upload each requested file, where a red asterisk marks the required ones, and add other attachments if the buyer allows them. The tutorial sets a maximum of 250 megabytes per file and says a file that needs edits must be deleted and replaced with a corrected one. Lee County states that drafts can be saved before submission.

Sign and submit on the Response Submission tab. The tutorial describes an optional Supplier Note to Buyer and a Digital Signature section that requires your full name and email address. Run Error Check, fix any errors on the tabs it points to, and click Submit Response. A successful submission shows Response Submitted with a date and time stamp in the Response Status field, and an email confirms whether the submission succeeded or failed. Lee County tells bidders to leave enough time before the deadline to digitally sign and run the error review, and states that one business may not submit more than one bid to a single Lee County solicitation. The guides reviewed here do not describe a bid bond or surety process, so follow each solicitation's instructions for bid security.

Retraction is available at the buyer's discretion. Choose Retract from the Actions menu at the top right, confirm by typing the word Retract, edit, and submit again. The tutorial warns that a retracted response is no longer considered submitted and must be resubmitted to be considered. Lee County states that bidders may edit a bid or proposal up until the submission deadline this way.

If you bid on several portals, compare this workflow with our guides to BidNet Direct registration, Bonfire registration, OpenGov Procurement, and CivCast registration. Federal work runs through SAM.gov registration, and our list of the best construction bidding software for 2026 compares broader monitoring tools.

How ConstructionBids.ai helps

ConstructionBids.ai brings public construction bids from thousands of portals into one searchable feed with deadline alerts, which can sit alongside your Ionwave routine. Keep checking each agency's Ionwave site directly for the solicitations it posts there.

Registering on each agency's Ionwave site to receive invitations, ask questions, track addenda, and submit responses is still required; we don't replace it. Use Ionwave for agency registration, Q&A, addenda, and the response itself. Use ConstructionBids.ai to find the work across portals and keep bid dates in front of your team. ConstructionBids.ai plans are $59, $79, and $99 a month, with a 7-day trial of Command. Start your free trial to see matched bids from thousands of portals.