Skip to content
CivicRecordsOnline

For city clerks and records specialists

Public records requests without the scramble.

One place for every records request. Who asked, what they need, when it is due, what has been sent, and a full history if anyone ever asks.

Launching Summer 2026. Free 14-day trial for every government agency — .gov approved instantly. From $99/mo. P-card friendly.

CivicRecordsOnline dashboard with open-request counts, a deadline funnel, and department workload.
Your dashboard — every open request, what is due today, and what is waiting on you.
Price on the page $99 to $499 a month. Not "request a demo." Not a custom quote.
P-card friendly Every tier is under $500/mo. Buy it on a department card. No council vote. No RFP.
Privacy scan included Automatic redaction that competitors charge thousands extra for is in every plan from $99/mo.
Set up this afternoon No vendor consultants. No implementation fee. The clerk signs up and uses it the same day.

Free trial at launch

Try it free. No demo, no discovery call, no sales rep.

Government software almost always means weeks of vendor calls before you can even see the product. CivicRecordsOnline does not work that way. When we launch this summer, every government agency can start a 14-day free trial of the real platform — the full product, not a sales sandbox. Join the waitlist and we will tell you the day trials open.

.gov agencies start the same day Sign up with your .gov email, confirm the verification link, and the trial begins immediately — no approval queue.
Other agencies approved within one business day Cities, counties, and special districts on a .us, .org, or other domain get the same 14-day trial. We confirm you are a genuine public agency first, usually within one business day.
No card and no contract to try it The trial never asks for payment details. If it fits your office, you pick a plan; if not, nothing happens.

What it does

Everything you need to manage records requests. Nothing you do not.

Instant Privacy Scan

Finds names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, license numbers, credit cards, and more automatically — flagged as draft redactions you review before anything is released. The same tools that enterprise vendors charge thousands extra for are included in every plan.

Find & Fix Everywhere

Type a name, address, or phrase once and erase it across every page of a 500-page document in one pass. No more page-by-page hunt with a highlighter.

Permanent Safety Lock

When the release copy is published, your redactions are locked permanently. No one can ever undo them. Your original file stays untouched in the audit trail.

Sensitive Health Catching

Flags health details — conditions, treatment, mental-health and addiction mentions — and the names of minors, in context, so the details your state's records law requires you to withhold don't slip past ordinary search.

Deadlines that track themselves

The system knows your state's response deadlines, counts business days, skips holidays, and tells you what is due this week. You get a reminder before anything is overdue. Your supervisor gets notified if something slips.

Requesters check their own status

A simple public page where people submit requests and check on them without calling your office. They click a link in their email. No account to create, no password to remember.

Stop fulfilling duplicates

When someone submits a request, the system checks if you have already released that record. If you have, the requester can download it immediately. Fewer new requests, less repeat work for your team.

Track fees, not card data

Assess copy fees, special service charges, or no charge per request. Mark each invoice paid, due, or waived. Your city collects payment through its existing process — CivicRecordsOnline records the result. We never store credit card or bank account information.

A complete paper trail

Every action on every request is logged: who did what, when, and why. If a request ever ends up in court, you can export the full history as a PDF. No reconstructing from memory.

Emails come from your city

When a requester gets an update, the email comes from your city's address, not some unknown software company. It looks official because it is official.

Support without a sales call

Open a support ticket from inside the app, attach the screenshot or document you are stuck on, and watch the status until it is resolved. No scheduling a call with an account manager. The agency keeps the full ticket history, so the next clerk who comes in can see what was already asked.

How it works

From the moment a request comes in to the moment it is closed.

Every request follows the same path. You always know where things stand, what is due, and what needs your attention today.

  1. 1

    Request comes in

    Through the public portal, a forwarded email, or entered by hand. The system starts the deadline clock automatically based on your state's rules.

    A resident submitting a public records request on the portal intake form.
  2. 2

    Route and track

    Assign requests to departments or staff. Color-coded deadlines and daily reminders make sure nothing slips.

    A request assigned to a department and lead clerk.
  3. 3

    Gather, redact, release

    Upload files, run Auto-PII or bulk pattern matching, tag redactions with exemption codes, and release through a secure download or your Released Records Portal.

    A document with redaction boxes covering personal information.
  4. 4

    Report when needed

    Annual compliance reports, response times, request volume by department. Ready when council or your state asks.

    An annual public records report with summary figures.
A request deadline panel showing the due date, days remaining, and the extension control.
Every request shows its state-law due date, days remaining, and whether an extension is allowed.
See the full product tour →

Switching from another system?

Bring your request history with you.

The CivicRecordsOnline bulk importer reads request-export CSVs from NextRequest, GovQA, JustFOIA, FOIAXpress, and MyGovHub directly — preserving the original dates, statuses, requester contact information, and source IDs. The clerk does it self-serve from Settings. No vendor migration project, no professional services engagement, no implementation fee. Compare against your current platform below.

NextRequest alternative Compare CivicRecordsOnline with CivicPlus-oriented request management. GovQA alternative Compare a Granicus-style platform with a simpler clerk-focused workflow. JustFOIA alternative Compare established FOIA tooling with self-serve setup and monthly pricing. FOIAXpress alternative Compare federal-scale FOIA case management with local-agency request tracking. Tyler Technologies alternative Compare broad enterprise government software with a dedicated records workflow. All alternatives See the comparison hub and evaluation criteria for records request software.

Priced for real city budgets

$1,188 to $5,988 a year. Not $15,000 to $50,000.

Most clerks tell us their current enterprise platform costs $15,000 to $50,000 per year, plus implementation fees and paid redaction add-ons. CivicRecordsOnline District starts at $1,188 per year. City is $3,588 per year, and Metro is $5,988 for high-volume agencies. Every plan includes the privacy scanning and bulk redaction tools enterprise vendors charge thousands extra for.

Buy it on your P-card today Every tier is under $500/mo — inside normal department purchasing card limits. No RFP. No council vote. No procurement officer.
No annual contract required Monthly subscription. Cancel anytime. Try it for a month; if it works, keep it.
No implementation fee Enterprise platforms charge a separate one-time setup fee on top of the contract. CivicRecordsOnline is $0 to start — the clerk configures it self-serve.
Published limits, no surprise meters Metro includes up to 5,000 requests per year and 50 staff seats. No per-user or per-request add-on charges inside the published tier limits.

Simple pricing

Pick the size that fits your office. Pay it on a P-card.

Every plan includes Instant Privacy Scan, Find & Fix Everywhere, Permanent Safety Lock, Sensitive Health Catching, scanned-paper reading, the public requester portal, deadline tracking for all 50 states, the Released Records Portal, document storage, fee tracking, audit trail, and email from your city's own address. Every government agency gets a free 14-day trial — .gov agencies approved instantly, others within one business day.

District

$99/mo

  • Up to 200 requests per year
  • 5 staff seats
  • 100 GB document storage
  • All Instant Privacy Scan, Find & Fix, and Permanent Safety Lock tools
  • All 50 states' deadline rules configurable
  • Public requester portal & Released Records Portal
  • Fee tracking, audit trail, reports
  • Built-in helpdesk for your team

Special districts and small towns.

Town

$199/mo

  • Up to 500 requests per year
  • 15 staff seats
  • 500 GB document storage
  • Everything in District
  • Custom request forms
  • Custom email sending domain
  • Priority helpdesk queue

Growing clerk offices and small counties.

City

$299/mo

  • Up to 1,500 requests per year
  • 20 staff seats
  • 2 TB document storage
  • Everything in Town
  • Advanced reporting

Active city halls.

Metro

$499/mo

  • Up to 5,000 requests per year
  • 50 staff seats
  • 5 TB document storage
  • Everything in City
  • Single sign-on (Azure Entra ID, Google Workspace)
  • Custom reports

High-volume consolidated agencies.

No per-user or per-request add-on charges inside the published tier limits. No paid redaction module. No implementation fee. Cancel anytime.

Predictable redactions, not AI guesses

Same input, same answer, every time.

Enterprise platforms are pushing machine-learning redaction modules as paid upgrades — results that drift between releases and are hard to defend in audit. CivicRecordsOnline uses a pattern-based engine that gives the same answer every time. Your records never train an outside AI model. The full review trail is captured in the audit log, defensible in court.

Instant Privacy Scan Finds Social Security numbers, phone numbers, emails, dates of birth in context, addresses, ZIP codes, driver license numbers, VINs, credit cards, IP addresses, and health details in context as draft redactions.
Find & Fix Everywhere Enter a name, phrase, internal ID, or pattern once and apply matching redactions across the entire document at once.
Sensitive Health Catching Flags health details — conditions, treatment, mental-health and addiction mentions — and the names of minors, in context, so the details your state's records law requires you to withhold don't slip past ordinary search.
Permanent Safety Lock Published redactions are baked permanently into the release copy. No one can ever undo them. The original master file stays untouched in the audit trail.
Scanned-paper reading Reads text out of scanned PDFs and images so the privacy scan and bulk erase work on historical paper records too, not just digital files.
Your records never train an outside AI The redaction workflow is deterministic pattern matching, not generative AI. Records stay encrypted in US-hosted Microsoft Azure storage.
The in-browser redaction screen with black boxes covering personal information on a document.
Redact in the browser — the released copy permanently hides everything you lock.
Instant Privacy Scan category checkboxes for SSNs, phone numbers, emails and more.
Instant Privacy Scan
Find and Fix Everywhere search box that redacts a phrase across every page.
Find & Fix Everywhere
The Permanent Safety Lock control with a locked-redaction counter.
Permanent Safety Lock

For your IT director and city attorney

The boring details, ready for your security review.

The redaction workflow is a deterministic pattern-matching engine with literal and regex string matching, plus OCR layers for scanned documents and a separate output compilation step that flattens the release copy. All data is stored on Microsoft Azure in US data centers, encrypted AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.3 in transit, with role-based access control and an immutable audit trail of every action. CivicRecordsOnline does not process payments and is not in PCI scope.

CivicRecordsOnline is intentionally not CJIS-audited or HIPAA-compliant. We focus on standard municipal records — zoning, permits, council correspondence, public crime statistics, contracts, public works — and pass the savings from skipping that compliance overhead back to the city as the monthly price. See the full IT & security overview →

US-hosted Microsoft Azure AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit. No offshore processing. No offshore support.
Browser only, nothing to install No VPN, no firewall rules, no on-prem hardware. Single sign-on through Azure Entra ID or Google Workspace on the Metro plan.
Role-based access control Staff see only the requests and documents their role allows. Every action recorded immutably.
Full data export, no lock-in Export all requests, documents, messages, and audit history in standard formats any time.
US-based company PALDAM LLC is registered in California. Your data is stored on secure Microsoft Azure infrastructure and always encrypted.
Your data is never sold We do not sell, share, or use your records data for anything other than running the service.
Security documentation on request Vendor questionnaire, insurance certificates, and data handling policies for IT review. See the IT & security overview →
Export your data anytime Full export of all requests, documents, and audit history in standard formats. No lock-in.

On the roadmap

Features we are building after launch: