A data service, and a product built on data.
This is not really a head-to-head. LegiScan sells access to legislative data; we build the software that reads it. We are also one of their users.
What LegiScan is good at
LegiScan is one of the most generous public data sources in this field, and we say so as a customer of it.
- ✓A free public-service API key with a documented limit of 30,000 queries a month.
- ✓Bulk weekly datasets — every bill, roll call and person as JSON, per session.
- ✓A paid Push API for real-time updates, from a single state to the whole country.
- ✓It describes itself as “an impartial and nonpartisan legislative tracking, reporting and data service”, and that is a fair description.
Feature by feature
Only what both platforms claim to do. ✓ yes · ● partly · × no.
| Capability | LegiScan | One Click | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bill, roll-call and person data | ✓ | ✓ | Theirs as an API; ours as a product. We read theirs too. |
| Free access | ✓ | ✓ | 30,000 API queries a month there; a free account here. |
| Bulk datasets | ✓ | × | LegiScan publishes weekly ZIP datasets per session. We do not resell data. |
| Real-time push | ✓ | ✓ | Their Push API is a paid subscription; our instant alerts are Pro Citizen. |
| A user interface | ● | ✓ | LegiScan has a public site; the API is the product. Nothing to build here. |
| Plain-language explainers | × | ✓ | |
| Redlines against current law | × | ✓ | |
| Regulations & comment deadlines | × | ✓ | |
| Alerts, digests, saved searches | × | ✓ | The follow-and-notify machinery you would otherwise build against an API. |
| Advocacy campaigns | × | ✓ | Quote-only here; not something LegiScan sells. |
Side by side, from what each of us publishes
| LegiScan | One Click Politics | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A legislative data web service | Software for tracking, understanding and acting on legislation |
| Free tier | Public-service API key, 30,000 queries/month | Free account — search everything, track one bill with alerts |
| Who it is for | Developers and teams who will build their own tooling | Teams who want the tooling already built |
| Real-time updates | Push API, paid subscription; no price published | Instant alerts on Pro Citizen — $140/mo |
| Do we use them? | — | Yes. We cross-check session status against LegiScan (CC BY 4.0). |
LegiScan figures read from the LegiScan API User Manual v1.91 on 25 August 2026. Pricing changes without notice — check theirs before deciding.
“One Click Politics was the key that helped me deliver more than 25,000 highly targeted messages to Congress, and gave our employees and passengers a loud voice pushing for the Coach USA / Megabus.com policy point of view.”
What we add on top of data like theirs
Plain-language explainers
What a bill does and who it touches, written for someone who is not a legislative analyst.
Redlines against current law
The amendatory text resolved into the statute as it will actually read.
Alerts, digests and tracking
The follow-and-notify machinery you would otherwise build yourself against an API.
Advocacy on the same corpus
Take-action pages and messages to legislators, wired to the same bills and districts.
Check it yourself
If you have engineers and want raw data, use LegiScan directly — genuinely. If you want the product, start here.
Search every bill free, no account: /bills