FOIA software: what it is, how to choose, what it costs.
A buyer’s guide from a vendor with an obvious interest, written to be useful anyway: what the software category does, how to pick by the size and shape of your organization, and the cost picture the quote-only market makes hard to see.
What the category actually covers
FOIA software (also sold as public records request software or records request management) runs the request lifecycle end to end: intake through a public portal or a watched inbox; deadline tracking with the business-day math and receipt rules your state statute actually uses; response drafting, from acknowledgment to denial with exemption citations; redaction; fee calculation against statutory caps, with estimates, deposits, and collection; and the request log and reporting that prove all of it happened on time.
Products differ most on one axis: whether the software does the work or merely records it. A tracker stores what you type. A workflow product computes the deadline, drafts the response, performs the redaction permanently, and enforces the fee caps, leaving the clerk the judgment calls and the approvals.
Choosing by the size and shape of your organization
State agencies and the largest multi-department records operations genuinely need enterprise platforms: multi-department routing, litigation-hold workflows, dedicated administrators. That market is served by the incumbents, and an honest guide says so.
Local governments, from townships to counties, live differently: the FOIA coordinator is usually the clerk, the same person also runs meetings and records, and the office needs the work done more than it needs a workflow engine to administer. That is the buyer Dekree is built for, with published pricing under 25,000 residents and organization-specific quotes for counties and larger organizations, and it is why FOIA and Open Meetings live on one platform here rather than as separate products from separate vendors.
The very smallest offices sometimes need no software at all. If requests are rare and one careful person owns the process, a disciplined spreadsheet is defensible; we wrote an honest breakdown of exactly where that stops being true.
The cost picture, honestly
Most vendors in this market publish no prices, so buyers budget blind. The public record helps: documented small-agency contracts in procurement records run roughly $2,000 to $45,000 per year depending on product and scope, typically before one-time implementation fees, and often with per-user add-ons (redaction seats are a common one) and annual escalators. We publish the receipts, with sources, in our comparison pages, including a full GovQA pricing survey.
Dekree’s answer to the same question is a price list: FOIA from $199/mo for organizations under 5,000 residents, $599/mo for 5,000 to 25,000, from $999/mo at Enterprise scale, published at dekree.ai/pricing. No implementation fee, no per-user charges, permanent redaction included, and if you add more products, the full suite is capped at $499/mo at the Starter tier.
Whoever you evaluate, run the same homework: itemized Year 1, Year 3, and Year 5 totals covering implementation, migration, training, storage, support, increases, per-seat fees, and modules. Five-year totals, not first-year stickers.
Common questions
What does FOIA software actually do?
It runs the records-request lifecycle: intake through a portal or email, deadline tracking with business-day math, response drafting, redaction, fee calculation and collection, and the request log with reporting. The difference between products is how much of that work the software does versus merely records.
What does FOIA software cost?
Most vendors quote deal by deal and publish nothing. Documented small-agency contracts in public procurement records run roughly $2,000 to $45,000 per year depending on product and scope, before implementation fees. Dekree publishes its list: FOIA from $199/mo for organizations under 5,000 residents, $599/mo for 5,000 to 25,000, from $999/mo Enterprise, with no implementation fee and redaction included.
Do small governments need FOIA software at all?
Not always. An office with a handful of requests a year and one careful person can stay compliant on a spreadsheet. The honest breakdown of where the spreadsheet holds and where it cracks is in our spreadsheet-vs-software guide. Volume, turnover, sensitive redactions, and disputes are what change the answer.
How should we compare vendors?
Ask every vendor, Dekree included, for itemized Year 1, Year 3, and Year 5 totals covering implementation, migration, training, storage, support, annual increases, per-seat fees, and the modules you will actually use. Then compare five-year totals, not first-year stickers. Public contract figures you find online are evidence of a pricing model, not a promise of your price.
Can I move my records from GovQA, NextRequest, or JustFOIA to Dekree?
Yes. Dekree imports your existing request log from GovQA (Records Request Management), NextRequest, or JustFOIA and brings your document library across, so your FOIA history and past records stay searchable in the new system. You keep your original reference numbers and dates. Switching does not mean starting your history over.
Can I export my data out of Dekree, and does it cost anything?
Yes, and no. Any administrator can download everything the organization has in Dekree at any time, from Settings: your full request history, meetings, minutes, and every stored file, as spreadsheets and documents. There is no fee, no waiting period, and no expiration, and your records stay readable in Dekree even if a subscription lapses. This is deliberately the opposite of the common industry terms, where a vendor may delete customer data 30 to 45 days after departure and charge for the export.
Can the public browse past FOIA requests?
Optionally. A clerk can turn on a public request log that lists completed requests with the subject and the dates, so residents can find records that were already released and cite them instead of filing a duplicate. Requester names and contact information are never shown. The log is off by default.