These three products get compared constantly, but they are built for different buyers. The honest way to choose is by the size and shape of your organization, so that is how this comparison is organized, with every price traced to a public document.
JustFOIA is a focused records-request tracker, commonly sold through the reseller MCCi, priced for small and mid-size governments. GovQA, now sold as Granicus Records Request Management[5], is the enterprise platform for state agencies and other large multi-department records operations. Dekree is the compliance platform for Michigan local government, built around the clerk for whom FOIA and the Open Meetings Act are one job, with every price under 25,000 residents published and county and Enterprise plans quoted to the organization.
| JustFOIA | GovQA / RRM | Dekree | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Documented price, small organization | ≈$2,000–$2,800/yr all-in (pop. ~2,500) | $4,300–$17,000 (WA grants, varies by scope)[1] [4] | $199/mo ($2,388/yr) published, under 5,000 pop. |
| Documented price, larger organization | $9,058.50/yr + $2,250 implementation | $28,916–$83,383/yr (state-agency scale)[2] [3] | $599/mo ($7,188/yr) published, 5,000–25,000 pop. |
| Pricing published on the website | No, quoted via reseller (MCCi) | No, quoted per deal | Yes, in full |
| Implementation fee | $2,250 in the documented deal | $5,100–$21,800 in MI contracts[2] [3] | None |
| Redaction | Available in product | Per-named-user licenses, $175–$318/user/yr[3] | Included: permanent, server-side |
| Open meetings (notices, agendas, minutes) | Not offered, FOIA only | Separate Granicus product line | Sold a la carte on the same platform; full suite capped at $499/mo (Starter) |
| Drafts responses with statute citations | No | No (clerk-side drafting) | Yes: Dekree drafts, the clerk approves |
JustFOIA and GovQA figures are deal-specific contract prices from public documents, not vendor list prices; configurations vary. Dekree prices are the published tiers at dekree.ai/pricing.
At the small end, the raw FOIA-software prices are closer than the market’s reputation suggests: a ~2,500-resident town paid roughly $2,000–$2,800 per year all-in for JustFOIA[1], and Dekree’s published Starter FOIA price is $2,388 per year. The separation happens on scope. FOIA is half a Michigan clerk’s compliance job; the other half is the Open Meetings Act. With a FOIA-only tool, meetings still live in Word templates and a wall calendar, or in a second product with a second contract from a second vendor. Dekree sells Open Meetings a la carte on the same platform, and if you take everything, the full suite is capped at $499/mo under 5,000 residents, with drafting, permanent redaction, statutory fee math, and the public portal included.
An honest read. Different tools fit different organizations, and the right answer depends on your size, budget, and how much of the work you want the software to do.
If you are comparing vendors this year, check what your neighbors run. In Michigan, GovQA portals operate in Kalamazoo, Lansing, Novi, and Oakland and Ingham counties; JustFOIA runs in Portage, East Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Allegan and Bay counties. Ask them what they pay and what implementation took, then compare it to a price list you can read at dekree.ai/pricing.
The product is public. Watch it run, do the math on your own numbers, and click through the same screens a clerk uses, before you ever book a call.
For a small government, documented JustFOIA deals run roughly $2,000–$9,000 per year plus implementation, documented GovQA deals start around $4,300 and climb quickly with configuration, and Dekree FOIA is published at $2,388 per year for organizations under 5,000 residents with no implementation fee. For FOIA alone the small-end prices are comparable; the difference grows when you add meetings, which only Dekree offers a la carte on the same platform, with the full suite capped at $499/mo at the Starter tier.
Usually. GovQA (now Granicus Records Request Management) is engineered for state agencies and other large multi-department records operations; its documented Michigan state-agency configurations run $29,000 to $83,000 per year, which is enterprise scale, not a small-town quote. Most local governments tend to be better served by tools sized and priced for them.
JustFOIA is a dedicated records-request product. It does not cover the open-meetings side of compliance (notices, agendas, minutes, publishing), and it does not draft responses for you. It is commonly sold through the reseller MCCi.
Competitor pricing reflects publicly available procurement documents and published materials as of the date above. Contract pricing varies by configuration; confirm current figures with each vendor. Dekree pricing is published in full at dekree.ai/pricing.