NASA SBIR vs STTR: which non-dilutive door do you walk through?

Updated July 29, 2026 · Free educational guide · verify details at the official sources below

Founders often treat SBIR and STTR as the same program with different letters. They are close, both are US-only, small-business R&D programs, both fund at roughly the same levels, and both are non-dilutive, but the difference decides who does the work and, often, whether you win.

The one difference that matters

STTR requires a partner research institution, a university or a federal lab, that performs at least 30% of the project. Your company must do at least 40%. SBIR has no such requirement: the small business must perform at least two-thirds of Phase I itself, and any research institution is an optional subcontractor.

So the question is simple. Does your technology lean on a specific lab, a professor's instrument, or university IP you want to license? STTR formalizes that partnership and pays for it. Is your team self-contained with the expertise in-house? SBIR keeps more of the work, and the money, under your roof.

The money is basically the same

At NASA, both run through the same rolling Broad Agency Announcement and land in the same neighborhood: Phase I around $150,000 (up to roughly $225K-$275K by appendix) for a feasibility study, and Phase II up to roughly $850,000 for development. Neither requires cost share. Neither takes equity. Both can graduate into a Phase III that has no dollar cap and can be sole-sourced into a real NASA contract.

Where founders trip

The classic STTR mistake is bolting on a university partner just to check the box, then discovering the institution's tech-transfer office needs months to sign an allocation-of-rights agreement. If you go STTR, lock the partnership and the IP terms before you write the proposal. The classic SBIR mistake is the opposite, subcontracting so much work that you fall below the two-thirds threshold and get bounced on compliance.

How to choose in one minute

• Pick STTR if the core innovation lives in a lab, if you need university IP, or if a named academic PI strengthens your credibility.
• Pick SBIR if your team can do the work, if you want maximum funding inside your own company, and if speed and control matter more than academic firepower.

Both are the friendliest entry point in NASA's funding stack: full funding, no match, no dilution, and a direct line to Phase III. Choose based on where the work actually happens, not on which acronym sounds bigger. Then register in SAM.gov early, because an inactive registration will sink either one.

Read the official program definitions before you commit at nasa.gov/sbir_sttr.