Methodology · Transparency · No fluff
How we read SICOP — and the limits we self-impose
This page explains where the numbers in the public hub come from, how the aggregates are calculated, what the cut-off date means, and what we choose not to publish. It also documents the product's anti-hype discipline: how Plica handles probability, legal context, and the decision to bid.
§1
The source: SICOP
All data comes from the Integrated Public Procurement System (SICOP), administered by the Dirección General de Bienes y Contratación Administrativa of Costa Rica's Ministry of Finance. It is the public registry of the State's administrative procurement. Plica reads, consolidates, and aggregates that public information; it does not replace or modify it. In case of any discrepancy, the official record prevails.
§2
The cut-off date
Every figure in the hub carries a visible cut-off date (green badge next to the data). It is the day up to which we have consolidated SICOP information for that page — not today's date, but the last successful read closure of the registry. A data point without a cut-off date is not published.
§3
What is aggregated and what is not
These pages publish totals: how much each institution, each sector and each year bought, the ten-year series, lists capped at five, counts and trends. They do not publish the price of each awarded line, nor each company’s individual bid, nor the full history of a competitor by company ID. That detail is in the Plica account, because it answers different questions: who you are up against, what price to bid and what to do.
§4
The predictor calibration gate
Plica's predictor is an in-house statistical model, trained on 351,929 unique awarded lines and 1,290,656 bid lines that SICOP itself published. Its probability is only published if it passes the calibration gate: when the model says 70%, it must verify that winning ~70 out of 100 comparable cases holds in the verified cut-off. Until the gate is approved, the system does not publish probability — the card appears marked as 'coming soon'. We do not publish 'success rate' or uncalibrated probabilities.
§5
Legal verbatim or no_answer
The legal specialist returns the textual fragment cited from SICOP, Law 9986/LGCP, CGR pronouncements, or current regulations — with its hierarchy and effective date. If the source is insufficient to support a claim, the specialist responds no_answer. Plica does not issue automatic legal opinions: the final word on contracting, bidding, or filing an appeal is human.
§6
GO/NO-GO is a human decision
Plica investigates the public web, crosses the buyer's history, runs the specialists, and composes a view with evidence. Registering a GO/NO-GO, submitting a bid, paying, or contacting a third party remain an explicit human decision. 'Agentic intelligence, human decisions' is not a slogan: it is the product's design.
§7
About the current sample data
While we connect the live read of SICOP, some pages show sample data clearly marked (amber 'sample' badge). The sample figures follow the real structure of the SICOP universe but are synthetic and are never presented as live data. Once the database is connected, each sample figure is replaced by its real value with a cut-off date.
Editorial limits we self-impose
- Top-N capped at five: no public ranking exposes more than five items, to prevent reconstructing a buyer's full market.
- No profile by ID: we do not publish the full history of a competitor identified by their corporate ID.
- No line-level prices: amounts are aggregated by category or institution, never the unit price of an awarded item.
- No bulk export: the public layer does not offer data downloads; the product does, inside an account and under your responsibility.
- Validated links: every link to SICOP points to the correct public portal; if we cannot verify it, we do not publish it.
Want to see live data against your profile?
The Plica product works on the live SICOP read crossed with your profile by ID, personal or corporate. Create your account and see how the real data behind each aggregate of this hub looks.