Comparison
PermitFlow vs Tyler / Accela / OpenGov
The legacy vendors built permit software for city governments. We built a permit data API for developers. Here's the difference.
5 min
to first API call
$99
starting price, public
0
sales calls required
Feature
PermitFlow
Tyler / Accela / OpenGov
Time to first API call
✓Under 5 minutes — sign up, copy key, curl
2–6 weeks — sales call, MSA, procurement
Pricing
✓Public. $99 / $499 / $2k+ tiers. Self-serve.
Quote-based. Often $25k–$100k+/yr minimums.
API style
✓Modern REST, OpenAPI 3.1, JSON, cursor pagination
SOAP / proprietary / SDK-only / CSV exports
Webhooks
✓HMAC-signed, retries, auto-pause, in-dashboard
Usually not offered. Polling only.
Sandbox
✓Free forever. Same schema as production.
None, or behind paid contract.
Coverage transparency
✓/coverage shows freshness per city, live
Opaque — discover gaps after you sign
Multi-city queries
✓Single endpoint, filter by city/state/type
Per-jurisdiction integration, often per-tenant
Built for
✓Developers, data teams, modern PropTech
Government IT departments
When you should pick Tyler / Accela / OpenGov instead
We're not for everyone. Pick a legacy vendor if:
- • You're a city government issuing permits (we don't do permitting software).
- • You need a specific city we don't yet cover and can't wait — check coverage.
- • You require on-prem deployment or FedRAMP compliance.
For everyone else building lead-gen, contractor tools, market intelligence, or PropTech analytics — you're our customer.