HeyGov: The GovTech App Born From Town Web's Work With Municipalities

Back in 2020, Town Web set out to build software that would go beyond what a municipal website alone could do. That project became HeyGov, a payments and permitting platform for municipal clerks and their residents. It’s since grown into an established product in its own right, and it’s worth revisiting what it actually does today.

How HeyGov Got Started

The idea came out of conversations Town Web was having with municipal clerks and administrators who wanted an easier way for residents to pay bills, apply for permits, and report issues online, without generating even more email for already-stretched municipal staff. In early 2020, Town Web surveyed municipalities to gather feedback on what an issue-tracking and payments app should do, then spent months talking one-on-one with clerks and administrators about how paper-based processes like utility billing, permits, and licenses could move online. Formal development began that October, building on that research.

Those conversations surfaced a few recurring pain points: payment processes that were largely paper-based for things like utility billing, permits, and boat launches; no easy way to route an application from one staff member or department to the next; and difficulty keeping residents updated on where their request stood without picking up the phone. Those pain points shaped HeyGov’s early feature set.

From the start, the goal was a platform that complemented a municipality’s existing website rather than replaced it: a tool residents could use for payments, applications, and requests, connected to the site clerks already relied on to communicate with their community.

What HeyGov Does Today

HeyGov (heygov.com) is now a live payments and permitting platform used by municipalities across the country. According to its website, HeyGov currently works with more than 380 municipalities, giving upward of 500,000 residents access to its tools. It’s built around a few core modules:

• HeyGov Pay: online payments for municipal services, including utility bills, permits, and parking tickets. Residents can pay by credit card online, by ACH transfer, by scanning a QR code, or in person with a card reader.
• HeyLicense: streamlined workflows for licenses, permits, and applications, so residents can apply and pay online instead of printing forms and dropping them off at town hall.
• Hey311: an app for residents to report issues in their municipality, so requests get routed and tracked instead of getting lost in email.
• HeyReserve: payments and booking for municipal facility rentals, like campgrounds, marinas, and park spaces.
• ClerkMinutes: AI-assisted meeting minutes, part of the same family of clerk tools.

HeyGov’s site lists use cases including utility bills, building permits, parking tickets, dog licenses, park and short-term rental permits, boat launch permits, digital FOIA and public records requests, police report requests, marina operations, and campground reservations — the kinds of paper-based, in-person processes clerks have historically had to manage by hand.

How It Complements a Town Web Website

A Town Web website is where residents find information, browse services, and get in touch with your municipality. HeyGov handles the transactions that come after: paying a bill, applying for a permit, reporting a pothole, without a resident having to print anything or a clerk having to manually re-key it. The two are designed to work alongside each other. Your website stays the front door for your community, and HeyGov gives residents a way to actually complete tasks once they’re there.

Both products come out of the same experience: years of working directly with municipal clerks on the day-to-day of running a small town’s public-facing operations. A website and a payments/permitting platform solve different parts of that problem, which is why Town Web built one and HeyGov grew out of it as its own product.

If you want to see what HeyGov offers for your municipality, visit heygov.com. And if you’re looking to build or update the website it connects to, get a no-obligation quote from Town Web.

Ready to modernize your municipal website? Request a Quote or Book a Demo — 800+ municipalities have, since 2007.