What are the best door knocking apps?
In considering what is the best door knocking tool, there are two separates issues to consider. The first is where the data comes from. The second is the usability of the product. The former determines what doors to knock. The latter determines whether a volunteer or staffer inputs the right information. The best tool for you is a combination of both data, usability, and pricing. Door knocking tools have a wide range in pricing. We don’t recommend building a custom, in-house supported tools.
i360
i360 is a well-known data provider that expanded into a door knocking application to close the loop on receiving and providing data. i360 has wide adoption across the US, consider to have good quality data, institutional support; however, i360 is one of the pricer options.
Moonshadow
Moonshadow is one of the older products on the market but is battle-tested. It is used by both political and private organizations. Moonshadow has deep experience and a large data-set; however, the UI can be cumbersome to use and it is a pricier option.
Ecanvasser
Ecanvasser is one of the top canvassing apps in the business, which claims to save organizations an average of 12 hours per-month in administrative activity and another 35% reduction in monthly office expenditures (such as stationary, software, and IT costs) when implemented. Ecanvassers’ app has an easy-to-use dashboard with advanced permission settings and no additional charges for more users; however, it can get expensive, as Ecanvassers’ model is based on number of contacts managed instead of number of paying seats.
Pricing ranges from $49 a month for a maximum of 15,000 contacts to a high-end of $1,999 a month for 500,000 contacts. Moving an annual plan saves 20% across the board.
This is one of the better canvassing apps out there; however, their payment structure by certain bandwidth can cause significant cost increases. With that in mind, you’ll have to target your audience well to keep costs in check.
Crowdskout
Crowdskout is a newer upstart based out of Washington DC, formed by experienced politicos and technologists. The platform allows users to discover and understand actionable data regardless of their expertise; this is especially valuable in political campaigns where campaign managers capable of deep data-analysis is sometimes lacking.
Despite a vast feature set, Crowdskout is primarily a hub for all data insights. In a world with so many trackable interactions both on and off-line, Crowdskout makes it much easier to act on these insights from all kinds of touch points. As Crowdskout’s product offering has grown, the pricing can vary greatly and the tool might not make sense for every organization depending on their size. With strong customer service and good product development, Crowdskout is a good choice if you can afford it.
Polis
Polis is set up in such a way that anyone with the will can become a door knocker for a campaign or cause by simply applying to organizations within the Polis app. This capability proves beneficial for “underpowered” campaigns which may look to organic and grassroots support to hit targets. Thisis one of the main differentiators of Polis compared to the competition.
While Polis lacks some CRM and data analytics we see from other door knocking apps (likely because Polis is not specific to the civic campaigning space, but is a sales tool as well), it excels in functionality during the actual door knocking process. Polis gives users the ability to canvass on the fly by dropping a pin on the in-app map, which will self populate a route of 20 homes. This is a unique feature which will save managers, canvassers and most importantly the candidates, time, money and headaches.
FLS Geo-Connect
FLS Connect is an officially approved RNC vendor and directly integrates with FLS Data Center (the main data provider for the Republican Party). FLS Connect is battle tested and has large institutional support. The downsides of FLS is the interface is hard to use, poor customer support, and questionable data quality.
TRC
TRC is a new upstart in Washington state that takes a different a approach. TRC is free, open-source, and community driven. TRC’s APIs are publicly available and has the ability to easily divide data between different door-knocking campaigns. The downsides are TRC has limited access to data and is primarily focused on the East Coast.
Voter Gravity
In their effort to change the voter-engagement process, Voter Gravity allows your campaign to express itself away from the Rolodex and in the field. Voter Gravity is a cloud-based voter contact system available via desktop, tablet, or mobile devices. Their focus is on data-driven decision making, possible anywhere and from any device. Voter Gravity was founded by former field operatives, who combined their experience with a team of professional developers.
Voter Gravity also has a series of API’s readily available to implement datasets, such as data sets from the RNC, SalesForce, HubSpot, Eventbrite, and others. Fees range between $99 dollars per month for smaller local campaigns to $5k per month for statewide campaigns.
All things considered, Voter Gravity is an effective app.
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