Frequently asked questions
Answers for residents who read notices, and for the municipal staff who publish them.
For residents
For the overview, see Towncrier for residents.
Do I need an account?
No. Towncrier never asks for your name, your email address or your phone number, and there is nowhere to type them. You do not sign up, and there is nothing to sign in to.
See the privacy policy for what the app holds and why.
Does it cost anything to read notices?
No. Residents never pay and never sign up. The municipality is charged one fee, billed once a year, and there is no per-resident charge.
How do I follow my town?
Open Find a town in the app and search by your town’s name, your ZIP code, or your county. Tap Follow and the button changes to “Following”; that town’s notices then show up in your feed.
Why am I not getting notifications?
Check three things, in this order.
- That you are following the town. Open Find a town and confirm the button says “Following”.
- That the category is switched on in the Settings tab. Muting a category stops notices in it reaching you.
- That notifications are allowed for Towncrier in your phone’s own Settings app.
Why did a notice arrive the next morning?
Notices are never sent overnight. Something published late in the evening reaches you the following morning, deliberately.
My town is not listed — what can I do?
Towncrier adds one municipality at a time, and only after verifying it is a real government body. A town that has not been verified, or has chosen not to appear in our directory, will not show up.
If you would like your town on Towncrier, ask your clerk to get in touch — or send them the page for municipalities so they can see how it works.
A notice looks wrong — who fixes it?
If a notice is wrong, out of date, or missing, the municipality is the only one who can change it. We do not write notices, edit them, or decide what a town publishes.
Contact the clerk’s office directly. You can also tap Report this notice in the app, which flags it for that town’s staff.
Can my town see what I read or who follows it?
No. A count, and never a list. A town can see how many devices opened a notice. It cannot see which devices, it cannot see who follows it, and it cannot see what any individual has read. There is no screen for it and no way to ask for it — the municipal accounts simply have no permission to read those tables at all.
That is deliberate. A list of which residents follow their council is the most sensitive thing this product touches, and a town should not hold it any more than we should.
If you report a notice, the municipality is told how many reports a notice received. It is not told who sent them.
How do I delete my data?
To delete everything held about your device:
- Open the Towncrier app.
- Go to Settings — the last tab along the bottom.
- Scroll to the end, tap Delete everything on this device and confirm when asked.
That removes the device record, every follow, and every record of what was read. It happens immediately, and it cannot be undone.
Uninstalling the app does not do this. It leaves the device record on the server, so use the button first.
The Delete your data page explains what is deleted, what is kept, and for how long.
Is Towncrier an emergency alert system?
No. Towncrier is not an emergency notification system. Do not rely on it for life safety. There is deliberately no emergency category.
Is Towncrier a government agency?
No. Towncrier is an independent app. It is not a government agency. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by any government, and it does not represent any municipality.
Every notice on Towncrier is written and published by the municipality named on it. The list of every municipality currently on Towncrier is public, and About Towncrier explains how a town joins.
For municipalities
For the overview, see Towncrier for municipalities.
How do we get started?
- You tell us about your municipality using the inquiry form.
- We talk it through, and you get a quote and an invoice.
- Once that’s settled we switch your account on and show you around.
- You post a notice in about ninety seconds. Residents find it by search, on your town’s page, or as a notification if they follow you.
The form goes to a person, not a queue.
What does it cost?
One fee for the municipality, billed once a year — which is how a budget line and a board voucher actually work. No per-notice charge and no per-resident charge — residents never pay and never sign up.
The fee is priced on population, and the pricing page has the full price table.
How many staff accounts do we get?
It depends on your population band. Each band includes a set number of staff accounts, and the price table lists them next to each band’s price.
Can anyone sign up to post for our town?
No. There is no public sign-up for staff accounts, by design: an account can publish legal notices in a government’s name. Staff accounts are issued by your own municipality.
Before a town is listed, it has to ask to join, and the person requesting it has to show they are authorized to publish on that municipality’s behalf — a clerk, a secretary, or another officer of that body. We verify that the municipality is a real government body and that the request comes from inside it before anything is published.
How long does posting take?
You post a notice in about ninety seconds, from a phone or from the portal on a computer. Residents find it by search, on your town’s page, or as a notification if they follow you.
Can we post emergency alerts?
No. Towncrier is not an emergency notification system. There is deliberately no emergency category. Keep your county alert service for life safety — that is what it is built and contracted for.
What happens to our notices if we stop paying?
If you ever stop paying, everything you have already published stays public and stays searchable.
Can residents see who posted a notice?
Yes. A clerk account holds a name, the office held, and an email address, because a notice published by a government should say who published it. Your name and title appear publicly under the notices you publish. Your email address does not.
Where do staff sign in?
In the clerk portal on a computer, or on the Town staff tab in the Towncrier app.
If you have forgotten your password, use Forgot your password? on the sign-in screen; the reset link arrives by email and lands on the web portal, not in the app. If the app says your account has been switched off, an admin at your own municipality can switch it back on from the Staff page.
Still have a question?
Email support@ainovations.net. We answer questions about the app itself — notifications, sign-in, deleting your data. Questions about the content of a notice belong with the municipality that published it.
Work for a municipality? Tell us about your municipality. For app troubleshooting, see Support.
Get the app
Follow your town and Towncrier tells you when it posts something.