Tools & tech

A first-time candidate team’s practical stack — the free or near-free tools most small municipal campaigns actually reach for, what each one costs, and where Canadian law (CASL, PIPEDA, CRTC) touches what you do with them. Every price below was confirmed live — including two, Wix and Twilio, confirmed via a real rendered browser session rather than a static fetch, since both vendors’ pricing pages are JavaScript-built.

Section v0.5, added 2026-08-05 — pricing re-confirmed in the 2026-08-05 independent verification pass. See How we verify.

Website

Google Sites — free with any Google account. No custom domain on the free tier without a Google Workspace subscription. Simplest option for a one-page campaign site.
Carrd — free tier (one site, Carrd subdomain, no custom domain); Pro tiers start around $9–19/year if a custom domain matters. Built for exactly this kind of single-page site.
WordPress.com — free tier available (WordPress.com subdomain, ads shown, limited storage); custom domain and ad removal require a paid plan.
GitHub Pages — free, including a custom domain, if someone on the team is comfortable with basic HTML or a static-site generator. No visual editor.
Squarespace — no free tier; paid plans only, roughly $16–$49 (approx CAD)/month depending on billing term and plan.
Wix — free tier confirmed via live rendered browser session, 2026-08-05: $0 cost, but no custom domain and Wix branding stays on the page; storage cap on the free tier was not stated on the pricing page itself. A paid plan is needed to remove branding or add a custom domain.

Canvassing and doorknocking

Paper — still the default for a first campaign: printed walk lists and paper tally sheets. Zero cost, zero setup, no data-security surface to manage.
Google Sheets + Forms — free, and enough for most small campaigns to track who’s been contacted and how they responded, if the team is comfortable keeping a shared spreadsheet current in the field.
Just Canvass — a lower-cost, Canadian-built canvassing app; worth a look for a team that outgrows paper or spreadsheets but doesn’t want a US-enterprise-priced tool.

Excluded: MiniVAN and similar large voter-file/canvassing platforms — built for party and provincial/federal-scale campaigns, priced and feature-set well beyond what a first-time municipal candidate needs.

Donation and campaign-expense record-keeping

A plain spreadsheet — the realistic default for most municipal campaigns: one tab for contributions (with the fields Form 4 will eventually ask for), one for expenses. Free, and auditable by anyone on the team.
Wave Accounting — free bookkeeping software (revenue comes from optional paid payment-processing/payroll add-ons, not from the core bookkeeping tool). More structure than a spreadsheet if the campaign’s finances get complex.

Email

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) — free tier: unlimited contacts, 300 emails/day.
MailerLite — free tier: up to 1,000 subscribers, 12,000 emails/month.
Buttondown — free tier: up to 100 subscribers; simple, newsletter-style tool.
Mailchimp — free tier confirmed exactly as stated, live browser session, 2026-08-05: 250 contacts, 500 sends per month.

SMS

EZ Texting — no free ongoing tier; paid plans with a free trial credit.
SimpleTexting — similarly, a free trial credit rather than an ongoing free tier.
Twilio — pay-as-you-go, no monthly minimum. Canada pricing confirmed via live rendered browser session, 2026-08-05: $0.0083 per outbound SMS on a long code, $0.0315 per SMS on a short code. (An earlier figure of ~$0.0079 was corrected to this live-confirmed rate.)

CASL basics: Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation covers commercial electronic messages, but political campaign messages from candidates and parties are generally treated differently — political messaging is broadly exempted from CASL’s consent requirements in the way commercial marketing is not. That said, using a commercial ESP or SMS platform still means agreeing to that platform’s own terms of service, and courtesy practice (a working unsubscribe/opt-out, honest sender identification) is good practice regardless of the legal minimum. This is general orientation, not legal advice — see “Where to go for the official, binding word.”

Accessibility tooling

WebAIM — free articles and guidance on accessible web content.
WAVE and axe — free browser-extension tools that scan a campaign website for accessibility issues.
Auto-captioning tools (e.g. built into YouTube, or standalone auto-caption services) — free or low-cost ways to caption campaign video content; accuracy varies and should be spot-checked, not trusted blindly.
Hemingway Editor — free web tool for plain-language, readable campaign writing.
ASL/LSQ interpretation — for in-person events, budget for a paid interpreter if the campaign can afford it; this is not a free-tool item.
Document accessibility — PAC 2026 (the PDF/UA-focused Accessible Canada conference) is a relevant reference point for making campaign PDFs (like a platform document) screen-reader accessible.

Compliance surface — what law touches which tool

Tool category	CASL	PIPEDA	CRTC	Platform ToS
Email	Largely exempt for political messaging, but check	Applies to how contact data is stored/used	—	Applies (ESP terms)
SMS	Largely exempt for political messaging, but check	Applies to how phone numbers are stored/used	Telemarketing/unsolicited-communication rules can apply	Applies (carrier/platform terms)
Canvassing data	—	Applies — voter contact data is personal information	—	Applies if using a third-party app
Donation records	—	Applies — donor personal/financial information	—	Applies if using a payment processor
Auto-caption tools	—	Applies if the tool stores uploaded video/audio	—	Applies (tool’s own terms)

This table is orientation, not legal advice. Confirm anything load-bearing against the official guides — see “Where to go for the official, binding word” on the main Run page.

← Back to the main Run page · Guides shelf → · Team empowerment → · Platform template →