GSA's Federal Acquisition Service told industry this week that Multiple Award Schedule contractors can now bid special item numbers held by other vendors' contracts, and that "value" under the Schedule's IT reseller category means services rendered, not markup on hardware, according to a summary of results GSA posted on its Interact platform. The changes, discussed at an FAS industry day reported July 2, 2026, mark the most concrete rewrite yet of how value-added resellers price hardware sold through the Schedule and how contractors can pull work across each other's contract vehicles.
Background
The Multiple Award Schedule program, GSA's largest procurement vehicle, has faced years of criticism over how IT value-added resellers price hardware bundled with services. Agencies buying computers, networking gear, and related equipment through Special Item Number 33411 have struggled to tell whether a quoted price reflects genuine added value or is simply a markup on commodity hardware routed through a reseller's contract.
GSA opened a request for information on January 22, 2026, asking industry, agencies, and other stakeholders how it should define and evaluate "value" in VAR transactions. The RFI drew 136 responses, an unusually large response rate for a Schedule-related information request, reflecting how much revenue flows through SIN 33411 across the federal reseller ecosystem. GSA released its summary of results on June 2, 2026, and followed up with a broader FAS industry day, where officials Larry Allen and Laura Stanton framed the changes as part of a larger push to make FAS "the operational center for a more centralized, data-driven federal buying model," according to Federal News Network's account of the session.
The RFI results and the industry day landed alongside two other consolidation moves already underway at GSA: the wind-down of NITAAC contract vehicles and the migration of NASA's SEWP program toward GSA-managed offerings. Together, the moves signal that FAS wants a larger share of governmentwide IT buying routed through schedules it directly manages and prices. GSA's own framing of the industry day, as reported by Federal News Network, tied the pricing overhaul directly to that broader reorganization rather than treating it as a standalone VAR policy tweak, suggesting contracting officers governmentwide should expect the same value-based pricing lens applied to hardware resales moving through NITAAC- and SEWP-successor vehicles as they get folded into FAS.
Key Details
The RFI summary states plainly that "value is in the service, not product markup," and recommends a pricing and evaluation framework built around that principle. The Coalition for Government Procurement, which tracked the RFI response, reported that GSA voiced support for line-item pricing on complex requirements, so agencies can see product resale costs separated from the value-added services layered on top, rather than a single bundled figure that obscures markup.
Separately, GSA is rolling out a new MAS ordering procedure that lets a contractor holding one MAS contract propose and sell against a special item number that sits on a different vendor's Schedule contract. Under the procedure, the selling contractor is the one that reports the sale and remits the Industrial Funding Fee to GSA. GSA's guidance is explicit that neither party may double-report the transaction or double-charge the Industrial Funding Fee on the same order, a change aimed at closing a gap that previously discouraged teaming arrangements built around cross-contract ordering.
GSA said it plans to update solicitation language to reflect the new value-based pricing approach, train its own contracting workforce on how to evaluate VAR proposals under the new framework, and publish additional buyer-facing resources so contracting officers can apply the standard consistently across FAS. Federal News Network reported that contractors should expect heavier scrutiny going forward on pricing, Trade Agreements Act and Buy American Act compliance status, and supply-chain provenance and contract compliance documentation.
The cross-contract ordering procedure is a structural change to how MAS transactions get booked, not just a pricing clarification. By assigning IFF reporting and remittance duties solely to the selling contractor, GSA closes off a scenario where two contractors on the same order each claim, or each skip, responsibility for the fee that funds FAS's own administration of the Schedule program. That single-point-of-remittance rule is the mechanism GSA is relying on to make cross-contract bids workable without creating new fee-collection disputes between contract holders.
What It Means for Contractors
Schedule holders that resell IT hardware should expect contracting officers to ask for a clearer accounting of what portion of a quoted price reflects services rendered versus product cost passed through from a manufacturer or distributor. Contractors that have historically bundled hardware and services into a single line item should prepare to unbundle pricing for complex requirements, since GSA has signaled support for line-item breakdowns that separate resale cost from value-added work.
The new cross-contract ordering procedure opens a door for MAS holders to bid special item numbers they do not hold directly, provided they team with or route the transaction through a contractor that does hold the relevant SIN. Firms that have been locked out of certain SIN categories because they never pursued a Schedule modification to add them may now find a path to compete for that work through a teaming or resale arrangement, so long as Industrial Funding Fee reporting responsibilities are assigned to the selling contractor and are not duplicated.
Contractors should also anticipate more rigorous document requests tied to Trade Agreements Act and Buy American Act compliance and to supply-chain provenance for hardware sold under SIN 33411. Firms that cannot readily produce country-of-origin documentation, component-level traceability, or clear evidence of where value is added in a resale transaction risk delays or disqualification once GSA's enhanced solicitation language and contracting officer training take effect.
Finally, resellers and systems integrators that rely on NITAAC or SEWP vehicles for IT acquisition work should track how those programs' consolidation into GSA-managed offerings affects existing task orders and future recompetes, since FAS officials have tied the VAR pricing overhaul to the same centralization push driving those transitions. Contractors positioned on multiple schedules, or able to demonstrate genuine value-added services rather than pass-through hardware sales, stand to benefit most as GSA tightens its pricing and evaluation standards across the Schedule program.
