Participatory Budgeting on a Map — Free Tool for Proposals and Priorities

What it is

Where participatory budgeting software usually goes wrong

Participatory budgeting gives residents a direct say over part of a public budget: they propose projects, the administration checks feasibility and cost, and residents vote on what gets funded. Most participatory budgeting software is built for the last step. It is a ballot with a budget constraint: pick projects until the virtual money runs out, or drag sliders to balance a budget. That step matters, but it comes months after the step where most PB programmes lose their residents: idea collection.

Idea collection usually happens in a form. 'Describe your proposal and where it would go.' The answers are paragraphs, the locations are addresses typed from memory, and someone in the council spends weeks geocoding and de-duplicating them before anyone can see that forty people asked for the same crossing. A participatory budgeting map turns that around. Residents put the proposal where it belongs, as a pin, a line or an outlined area, answer the questions attached to it, and add a photo. Duplicates become a cluster, and the cluster is the first result of the programme.

Mapsurvey is that map. It is a participatory budgeting tool for the proposal and prioritisation rounds: collecting locations, showing them on a shared map so residents can react to each other's ideas with a thumbs up or down and a comment, and exporting the whole set to the GIS and the spreadsheet where feasibility and costing happen. It is not a budget-allocation or voting module. Reactions are one per session and do not verify voters; the binding vote on a fixed budget belongs in a PB voting tool or on paper, and many programmes combine the two.

PB budgets should fund projects, not software licences. Mapsurvey is free to run, with no per-project or per-response fees, and open source under the AGPLv3 licence, so a city that wants its residents' proposals on its own servers can host the same software itself. The hosted version runs in the United States.

How it fits your PB cycle

From idea collection to a funded map

1 · BUILD

Set up the proposal map

One map question for the where, a category, a short description, an optional photo and a cost guess as follow-up questions. Add the district boundary and the projects already funded last year as reference layers.

Mapsurvey layer editor: ten Copenhagen cycling bridges with categories, photos and descriptions

2 · COLLECT

Idea collection, then reactions

Residents pin proposals where they belong, with no account and from any phone. Show the collected proposals on a shared map and let people react to the ones they support, so the prioritisation starts in the collection round.

A respondent opens a bridge card with a photo, reactions from others and a thumbs up or down question

3 · ANALYZE

Shortlist by cluster and category

See the demand as a heat map, filter by category, read the reactions, export the lot and shortlist with your committee. The cluster of forty pins on one crossing is one project, costed once.

Mapsurvey Responses map: routes, unsafe spots and bridges across Copenhagen

4 · SHARE

Vote elsewhere, show the result here

Run the binding vote in your PB voting tool or on paper, then publish the funded projects on a public results page, exactly where people asked for them.

Public results page with the response count, a link to take the survey, and charts

Why a map

What the map adds to a PB programme

Demand you can see

Clusters of pins tell you which street, park or block the community actually cares about, before a single euro is allocated.

Reactions, not just submissions

Residents see what others proposed and give each proposal a thumbs up or down and a comment. The shortlist writes itself.

Fair by design

A public link reaches beyond the usual meeting crowd, and every neighbourhood's input lands on the same map, in any of 75 languages.

Proposals with evidence

A photo of the broken bench, a line along the missing pavement, a polygon around the lot. Costing starts from a place, not a paragraph.

GIS-ready output

GeoJSON, CSV, Excel, GeoPackage, Shapefile or KML export drops straight into QGIS or ArcGIS for feasibility, costing and the final report.

Budget-friendly, literally

PB budgets should fund projects, not software licences. Mapsurvey is free to run, with no per-project or per-response fees.

Compared

Mapsurvey vs Decidim and Balancing Act

Two participatory budgeting tools at opposite ends of the process: Decidim runs the whole programme including the vote, Balancing Act simulates the budget. Mapsurvey covers the part both leave thin: where the proposals are.

	Mapsurvey	Decidim	Balancing Act (Polco)
Free tier for real projects	Yes, hosted, unlimited proposals and respondents	Free software; you host it or pay a partner	Free trial; pricing on request
Pricing	Published: free, or one flat workspace price	Software free; managed hosting prices not published	Quote only
Open source / self-hosting	Yes, AGPLv3, Docker on your servers	Yes, AGPLv3; self-hosting is the default	No, SaaS only
What a respondent can draw	Points, lines and polygons, each with follow-up questions	An address geocoded to a pin on a proposal; no line or polygon drawing published	No map input published
GIS export	GeoJSON, GeoPackage, Shapefile, KML, plus CSV and Excel	CSV, JSON, Excel; coordinates not in the proposals export	Spreadsheet of record-level submissions
Respondent account	None needed	Registration required to propose, comment or vote	Not published for simulations; receipts are anonymous
Languages	75, included	18 or more, community-translated	English, Spanish, French; others on request
The budget vote	Reactions on a shared map; no ballot, no voter verification	Budgets component: vote on projects within a budget, thresholds, results to Accountability	Budget simulation, prioritisation and ranking of costed projects
Accessibility statement	No formal conformance audit yet	Follows WCAG; AA as objective	Polco states WCAG 2.1 AA on resident-facing parts

Competitor details reflect the projects' and vendors' published pages and documentation as of October 2026; verify current specifics with them. 'Not published' means the public material does not say.

When Decidim or Balancing Act may fit better

You need the binding vote: a verified electorate choosing projects within a fixed budget, with the result published and tracked. That is Decidim's Budgets component or a dedicated PB voting tool, not Mapsurvey.
Your programme is about the trade-offs in the whole municipal budget rather than a list of neighbourhood projects. That is a budget simulator.
You already run a participation portal with proposals, debates and voting under one login. Mapsurvey can still run the proposal map and hand the layer back.

Planning a PB round? Talk to the person who builds this

Mapsurvey is independent and founder-led. Describe your programme, the budget line and the timeline, and you will get a reply from the developer with a draft proposal map you can open the same day.

Email the developer

Examples

Participatory budgeting rounds that belong on a map

Neighbourhood PB: small capital projects, pinned where they would go, with a photo of the problem.
School and youth PB: pupils map the routes, crossings and spaces around their school and propose what to fix.
Green PB: trees, pocket parks and rain gardens, outlined as areas so the parks team can cost them.
Mobility PB: missing pavements, cycle links and lighting drawn as lines along the streets concerned.
Rural and village PB: one map for a whole parish, with the proposals visible to every hamlet.
Second-round reactions: shortlisted projects on a shared map, residents give a thumbs up or down before the vote.

Create your PB survey — free More civic engagement methods

Pricing

Free to run a real project. One flat price when you need more.

Not a trial and not a sandbox: the whole collection and analysis product, with no cap on surveys, respondents or team members.

Every question type, including point, line and polygon on the map
Follow-up questions attached to each place a respondent marks
Unlimited surveys, responses and team members
Survey text in 75 languages
Export as GeoJSON, CSV, Excel, GeoPackage, Shapefile or KML
Responses map, filters, heat maps and charts
Self-host the open-source code (AGPLv3) on your own servers

Create a free account

One workspace, any number of users, surveys and responses. No per-project, per-seat or per-response metering, so a consultancy can run every engagement of the year on one line item.

Everything in Free
Public results pages for residents and councillors
Direct support from the developer who builds the product
Read-only access for clients and committees, custom domain and branding, and a choice of hosting region, as they ship

See what Pro includes

Pro is in early access: the workspace price is fixed, the feature list is being finished with the first customers, and existing accounts keep what they have. If a grant or a council budget needs an invoice rather than a card, write to us.

Community engagement platformThe product page: features, hosting, data ownership, price. Public consultation softwareStatutory and planning consultations answered on the map. Citizen engagement platformFor local-government buyers: free plan, price, data ownership, uptime. Civic engagementMethods that work on a map, from neighbourhood plans to safety audits. Participatory mapping toolsThe buyer's guide: fifteen tools in five categories, every fact sourced and dated. For local governmentCouncils, cities and agencies running engagement in-house.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Can Mapsurvey run participatory budgeting?

It runs the spatial side: residents pin exactly where investment is needed, propose and describe projects in place, and react to shortlisted locations on a shared map. It is not a budget-allocation or ballot module; for the final vote on a fixed budget, use a PB voting tool.

What does participatory budgeting software cost?

Mapsurvey is free at $0 for unlimited proposals and respondents, and $49 a month or $490 a year per workspace on Pro. Full PB suites are mostly quote-only; open-source suites such as Decidim are free to license but need hosting and setup.

How do residents propose a project on the map?

They open the link, drop a pin or outline an area, and answer the questions attached to it: what to build, why, a photo. No account is needed, and the map works on a phone.

Can residents react to each other's proposals?

Yes. Shortlisted proposals can be shown as a layer on the map, and an "objects on the map" question lets residents give each one a thumbs up or down and a comment. Reactions are one per session, without voter authentication, so use them to prioritise, not as a binding ballot.

Can we export the pinned proposals for scoring?

Every response — including map geometry — exports as GeoJSON plus a CSV for non-spatial answers, so results drop straight into QGIS, ArcGIS, or a spreadsheet. You own the data.

Do residents need an account to submit a location?

No. Respondents open a public link and answer on the map — no sign-up or login required. Only survey creators need an account.

Can we self-host it?

Yes. Mapsurvey ships as a Docker stack you can run on your own infrastructure, so response data stays on servers you control — useful for GDPR and data-residency requirements.

Participatory budgeting, grounded in place