How (and why) CityGrows is free
The core CityGrows platform is free to use. At the same time, we’re a for-profit company. We’re here to prove it’s possible to offer high quality, useful software at a pain-free price and make a living.
CityGrows is a new approach to government software.
People ask: Is this for real? How you can you be free to use? And what’s the catch?
How we keep the core CityGrows platform free to use:
The open source software movement has revolutionized technology — a small team built the CityGrows platform at a fraction of what custom software solutions cost. Open source software requires skillful developers (who we are lucky to have!) but it means we don’t have to reinvent the wheel (or code line) every time we want to add a new feature — we repurpose what others in the community have done before.
CityGrows is designed to be adopted and implemented quickly — there’s no more long procurement cycle and specification changes that derail so many government software solutions before they even begin.
We have a three-pronged approach to earning revenue:
- Credit card processing: We charge a 2% fee on credit card transactions (this is in addition to the 2.9% charged by our current payment platform). The total cost is 4.9% of the processed fee + a $0.30 minimum charge. There’s no charge for check payments mailed in by end users. If there is no fee associated with the process, then there is no cost to use CityGrows.
- Private processes: If a government wants to keep its process + all data hidden from the general public, we charge a monthly recurring fee. The actual amount charged varies with the number of hidden processes. Transparency is a core company value, so we ‘reward’ transparency in our clients.
- Custom projects, negotiated pricing: We are open to negotiating lump sum contracts and fee waivers for our clients. These agreements tend to be based on the need to develop custom features, or for certain high-volume processes.
Visit our website (https://citygro.ws/docs/pricing) or contact us via email or chat if you have more specific questions, But we don’t charge license (seat) fees, or for upgrades. We’re committed to offering a core platform that is affordable and accessible to local governments.
WHY we structured CityGrows as a free core product
The economy might be booming in some places, but local government budgets remain tight. This is especially true for funds to digitize the kind of small-but-vital processes and forms that are the lifeblood of municipal management.
We wanted to reduce the difficulty of getting started with CityGrows — and budget allocations or RFPs can really slow things down.
Plus as more governments and school districts sign on, CityGrows becomes even more useful. Admin users (our government clients) can see each other’s work and clone processes from other organizations and from our own sample templates.
Public sector organizations will be able to learn from and share with each other — much like a public sector library of processes — a government process version of open software.
Sign up for a CityGrows account and test out a sample process today!
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Thanks to Catherine Geanuracos for co-authoring.
