Local government
Municipal maintenance software for public works and council facilities
A town’s technical services look after dozens of buildings, schools, sports halls, streetlights, parks and vehicles with a handful of people. Requests arrive by phone, email and at the front desk, and the history lives in inboxes. FreeMaint puts every request, job and asset in one place, with a mobile app for field staff and no per-user licence to budget for.
Free your maintenance · Free Core tier, unlimited users, no credit card.
In short
Municipal maintenance software is a CMMS that lets a town or council record every request from residents and staff, turn it into a work order, schedule recurring checks on public buildings and equipment, and keep a costed history per site. FreeMaint does this on a free Core tier with unlimited users, QR request forms and an offline mobile app for field crews.
Updated September 27, 2026
What a municipal team runs in FreeMaint
Requests from residents and staff
Post a QR code in a school corridor, a changing room or on a park bench. Anyone can scan it and report a problem without an account; the front desk can also log phone calls on the caller’s behalf. Every request lands in one queue.
Included in Core (free)Mobile app for field crews, offline
Agents receive their jobs on a phone, add photos and notes, log time and parts, and close the work order on site. In a basement plant room with no signal, the app keeps working and syncs later.
Included in Core (free)Your whole estate as a location tree
Town, site, building, floor, room: model the estate as it is. Attach boilers, lifts, lighting cabinets or playground equipment to the right place and see every job ever done there.
Included in Core (free)Recurring maintenance on a calendar
Boiler servicing before winter, gutter cleaning in autumn, monthly checks of emergency lighting. Time-based plans create the work orders on their own, so nothing depends on someone remembering.
Included in Core (free)Inspection rounds
Checklists for playgrounds, fire extinguishers or sports equipment, with a monthly grid showing what was checked, when and by whom. A failed item can raise a work order. Part of the Starter plan.
Included in StarterMunicipal fleet
Vans, sweepers, minibuses and mowers: drivers and licences, fuel logs with consumption per vehicle, bookings, and insurance or inspection documents with expiry alerts. Part of the Business plan.
Included in BusinessEnergy across public buildings
Meters, zones and tariffs for electricity, gas and water, with consumption dashboards per building to spot the school whose heating runs all weekend. Part of the Enterprise plan.
Included in EnterpriseThe real problem: a scattered estate and a small team
A municipal technical service rarely looks after one site. It looks after a town hall, three schools, a gym, a pool, a cemetery, a library, several hundred streetlights, the parks and a dozen vehicles. The team that keeps all of this running is often five to ten people, sometimes fewer. According to FreeMaint Research, 2026, the median maintenance team using the product has two people for fifteen assets, and 27.1% of sites log no preventive maintenance at all.
With that ratio, the risk is not a lack of skill. It is that work gets organised by whoever shouts loudest, and that recurring checks slip until something breaks in front of the public. A maintenance system gives the team one list of what is open, what is due, and where.
- One request queue instead of phone notes, emails and sticky notes
- One history per building, readable by the next person in the job
- Preventive plans that create their own work orders on time
Requests that no longer get lost
A caretaker notices a leaking radiator, a teacher reports a broken blind, a resident calls about a streetlight that stays off. Today those arrive by phone, email or in the corridor, and some are never written down. In FreeMaint each one becomes a request with a location, a description and photos.
Public request forms work through QR codes: print them, stick them in a building or on equipment, and the person who spots the fault reports it directly, with no login. A supervisor reviews the request, approves it into a work order and assigns it. The person who reported it is kept informed by email when the request is approved and when the work is done, with a link to confirm the job is closed.
Showing elected officials what was done and what it cost
Council members and budget committees ask simple questions: what did we spend on the sports hall this year, how many requests are still open in the schools, why does the same boiler keep failing. Answering them from memory or from a pile of invoices takes days.
Every FreeMaint work order records who did the work, how long it took, the parts used and any extra costs. Because work orders are attached to locations and assets, the history of a building is a filter away, and the dashboards show open, overdue and completed work at a glance. Exporting reports to PDF or Excel for a committee is part of the Starter plan.
Budgeting without per-seat licences
Per-user pricing is a poor fit for a municipality: the team includes seasonal workers, caretakers in each school, a fleet manager and staff who only report problems. Paying a licence for each of them usually means only a few people get access, and the rest go back to phone calls.
FreeMaint is priced per organisation, flat, never per user. The Core tier is free for good and has unlimited users, assets, work orders and requests. Paid plans (Starter $29, Business $99, Enterprise $299 per month, in USD) add modules such as inspections, fleet and energy when you need them. Data is hosted in the European Union, at OVH in France.
How a council gets started
- 1
Map the estate
Create the locations tree: sites, buildings, floors and rooms. Import your asset list from a spreadsheet or add equipment as you go.
- 2
Open the request channels
Generate QR codes for buildings and equipment and put them where problems are noticed. Show the front desk how to log a phone request.
- 3
Invite the whole team
Add technicians, caretakers and supervisors. Users are unlimited, and roles decide who can approve, assign or only report.
- 4
Set up recurring plans
Start with the checks you cannot miss: heating, emergency lighting, lifts, fire safety equipment. Plans generate the work orders on schedule.
- 5
Review with the numbers
Use the dashboards to see open and overdue work per site, and the work order history to answer budget questions with facts.
FreeMaint compared with the usual alternatives
| Criterion | FreeMaint | Spreadsheets and email | Per-user licensed software |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost to add a field agent | None, users are unlimited | None, but no shared record | A licence per person |
| Requests from residents and staff | QR forms, no account needed | Phone and inbox, easy to lose | Varies, often an extra module |
| Work in the field | Mobile app, works offline | Paper notes typed in later | Varies |
| Recurring checks | Time-based plans create work orders | Manual reminders | Usually included |
| History per building | Filter by location or asset | Scattered across files | Usually included |
| Getting started | Free Core tier, set up the same day | Already there | Quote, contract, onboarding |
Frequently asked questions
Is FreeMaint really free for a municipality?
The Core tier is free with no time limit and includes unlimited users, assets, work orders, requests, time-based preventive maintenance, QR codes and the offline mobile app. Paid plans add modules such as inspection rounds, fleet or energy management. Pricing is per organisation and in USD.
Is there a special edition for the public sector?
No. Councils use the same product as every other customer, usually set up like a facilities team: locations for the estate, assets for the equipment, requests for residents and staff. The modules and tiers are identical for everyone.
Can residents report a problem without creating an account?
Yes. A public request form is reachable through a QR code. The person gives a name, an email and a description, can add a photo, and the request arrives in your queue. They receive an email when it is approved and when the work is completed.
Does the mobile app work where there is no signal?
Yes. Field staff can open their work orders, add notes and photos and record time in plant rooms, basements or remote parks. Changes sync when the phone is back online.
How do we track streetlights or playground equipment?
Each lighting cabinet, column group or play structure can be an asset attached to a location, with its own QR code and history. Recurring checks run on time-based plans, and structured inspection rounds with a monthly grid are part of the Starter plan.
Where is our data hosted?
FreeMaint is hosted in the European Union, on OVH infrastructure in France. The service is cloud-only; there is no version to install on your own servers.
Can we give some staff read-only or report-only access?
Yes. Access is based on permissions assigned to roles. A caretaker can be limited to reporting requests, a technician to the work assigned to them, and a manager can see everything across the estate.
Related pages
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