Service terms

New STR plan terms effective August 28, 2026. Earlier purchases retain the scope and price accepted at checkout.

Scope and orders

Each CivicDataForge offer states a bounded product, geography, volume, delivery, and evidence boundary. A purchase covers only that published scope or a separate written scope accepted by both sides. Do not send property lists, secrets, payment-card data, or sensitive personal data until CivicDataForge supplies the agreed secure intake route.

Permit Audit

The $4.99 one-time audit checks up to 25 customer-supplied addresses in one supported jurisdiction. The website validates the input before opening Stripe. Confirmed payment starts automatic processing, with a private result page and downloadable source-linked evidence. Source failure or incomplete coverage is shown explicitly. Ambiguous matches stay labeled for review; human analyst review and legal determinations are not included. Delivery depends on the official publisher responding; no fixed completion time is promised.

Monthly monitoring subscription

Weekly Permit Monitoring is $19.99 per month for up to 25 fixed customer-supplied addresses across up to five supported cities. After confirmed payment and subscription enrollment, automatic processing establishes a baseline and checks weekly. Results and change history appear in your private dashboard. Alerts go to the email used at checkout: after the first check, when a permit record changes, for each published expiry date on an exact match, once when it falls within 60 days, once within 30 days and once within 7 days (each on the first weekly check inside that window), and when a week's check can't finish. A reminder repeats the date the city publishes; check the city's own renewal steps and deadline. Source failures appear as failures and receive bounded retries, not a fabricated clean result. Keep your private results link and use Refresh to inspect the latest status. Changing the fixed portfolio requires a new scoped intake; it is not an unlimited address-lookup plan.

Portfolio Permit Monitoring is $59 per month for up to 100 fixed customer-supplied addresses across up to ten supported cities, on the same terms as Weekly Permit Monitoring, all of which apply: a baseline, weekly checks, a private dashboard, the same alerts (after the first check, when a permit record changes, for each published expiry date, once within 60, 30 and 7 days, and when a week's check can't finish), cancellation in the Stripe billing portal, and a new scoped intake to change the portfolio. It includes no analyst review, and it is not an unlimited address-lookup plan.

The subscription renews monthly until canceled. Cancel through the Stripe-hosted billing portal. Monitoring requires a paid service period and stops when that period ends or a refund, payment dispute or pause removes service eligibility. No credit from an earlier audit is included in these new self-service prices. Historical managed-service purchases retain their original agreed terms.

Supported cities and returned fields

Each audit and monitoring plan covers only the cities below and returns only the fields each city publishes.

All 54 cities and what each check returns there

In every city the Permit Audit ($4.99) and the monthly plans check whether each address is on the city's own permit or license list, and link the list. The permit or license number comes back where the city publishes one. Status and expiry dates come back only where the city publishes them; we never fill in a blank. "No" means the city doesn't publish that field. Renewal reminders go out only where the city publishes expiry dates (29 of 54 cities). The free check works from your browser in 18 of them.

City	Free check	Status	Expiry	Renewal email
Albuquerque, NM	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Arlington, TX	Yes	Yes	No	No
Asheville, NC	Yes	Yes	No	No
Aspen, CO	Yes	No	No	No
Austin, TX	No	Yes	No	No
Baldwin County, GA	No	Yes	No	No
Bedford, TX	No	No	Yes	Yes
Belton, TX	No	No	No	No
Bend, OR	Yes	No	No	No
Big Bear Lake, CA	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Boston, MA	No	Yes	No	No
Breckenridge, CO	No	Yes	No	No
Cambridge, MA	No	Yes	No	No
Chattanooga, TN	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Chicago, IL	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Clear Creek County, CO	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Coconino County, AZ	Yes	No	No	No
Cody, WY	No	Yes	No	No
Columbus, GA	No	No	Yes	Yes
Cook County, MN	No	Yes	No (publishes the year a license is valid, not a date)	No
Corpus Christi, TX	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Covington, KY	No	Yes	No	No
Denver, CO	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Green Bay, WI	No	No	No	No
Honolulu, HI	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Houston, TX	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Huntington Beach, CA	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Kansas City, MO	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Key West, FL	No	Yes	No	No
Las Vegas, NV	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Little Rock, AR	No	Yes	No	No
Long Lake Township, MI	No	No	No	No
Louisville, KY	Yes	No	No	No
Marin County, CA	Yes	Yes	No	No
Nashville, TN	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
New Orleans, LA	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Norfolk, VA	Yes	No	Yes (the date is a renewal-due date)	Yes
North Las Vegas, NV	No	No (publishes approval dates instead)	No	No
Orlando, FL	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Osceola County, FL	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Philadelphia, PA	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Placer County, CA	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Polk County, FL	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ruidoso, NM	No	No	Yes	Yes
Sacramento, CA	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
San Bernardino County, CA	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
San Diego, CA	No	No	Yes	Yes
San Juan County, WA	No	Yes	No	No
Scottsdale, AZ	No	No	Yes	Yes
Seattle, WA	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shreveport, LA	No	Yes	No	No
South Haven, MI	No	Yes	No	No
Summit County, CO	No	Yes	No	No
Washington, DC	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

Refunds and delivery problems

Before work begins, an unsupported or materially out-of-scope direct purchase is eligible for a refund unless the customer accepts a revised scope. After work begins, completed data work and elapsed subscription periods are not refundable except where required by law. If CivicDataForge cannot deliver the accepted scope because a required publisher source is unavailable or materially damaged, CivicDataForge will offer a revised delivery, account credit, or refund for the undelivered scope.

India starter refund policy

Effective September 5, 2026 for India starter purchases accepting this policy. Earlier purchases retain their accepted terms. This section takes precedence over the general refund paragraph above for the India starter only.

If you cannot access your paid service or we materially fail to deliver the scope you purchased, contact bryan@steellantern.com with your order reference and the problem. Never send your API key or private access pass. We will correct the problem or refund the undelivered service; you do not have to accept account credit instead of a refund.

Once your paid access is activated, we do not offer discretionary change-of-mind refunds when the service works as described. Activation means your paid API access has been provisioned and made available to you; opening checkout alone is not activation. Before activation, contact support to request cancellation.

This policy does not limit your statutory rights or override the payment terms and refund decisions of Stripe/Link. For purchases sold through Link, Stripe can issue refunds in certain cases within 60 days of the transaction. That is not an unconditional 60-day money-back guarantee. Link payment and refund support.

Evidence boundaries

CivicDataForge reports what an identified government publisher returned in the stated scope and observation window. A no-match does not prove illegality, ineligibility, or absence from every government system. Products are research and compliance-support tools, not legal advice, consumer reports, or automatic enforcement or eligibility decisions. Consequential facts must be verified with the issuing authority.

Customer responsibilities

Customers must have authority to submit the requested inputs, use the output lawfully, protect delivered data and credentials, and follow the data-use limits. Customers may not use CivicDataForge to make prohibited consumer-reporting decisions, evade access controls, or misrepresent evidence.

City of Chicago data notice

For CivicDataForge applications using City of Chicago data, the City requires the following notice. The applicable City of Chicago Data Terms of Use and any source-specific terms remain controlling. This notice does not imply City endorsement.

This site provides applications using data that has been modified for use from its original source, www.cityofchicago.org, the official website of the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago makes no claims as to the content, accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any of the data provided at this site. The data provided at this site is subject to change at any time. It is understood that the data provided at this site is being used at one's own risk.

Payments and support

Stripe processes direct payments and subscriptions. Marketplace purchases remain governed by the marketplace terms shown at purchase. For billing, cancellation, delivery, or scope questions, email bryan@steellantern.com. We reply within one business day. Review the privacy notice.