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Government · head to head

RecDesk vs Very Good Security

RecDesk logo

RecDesk

Government

Parks and recreation management for municipalities with published annual pricing and no per-seat fee

From
$3835/year
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Very Good Security logo

Very Good Security

Cybersecurity

Tokenisation proxy that keeps card and personal data out of your own systems and out of PCI scope

From
$1000/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: RecDesk scope is recreation only, so a municipality wanting parks asset management, work orders or wider permitting must buy and integrate a second system.; Very Good Security vGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • They diverge on capability: RecDesk covers Activity registration, Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which RecDesk and Very Good Security actually diverge.

Attributes where RecDesk and Very Good Security differ
AttributeRecDeskVery Good Security
Starting price$3835/year$1000/month
Pricing modelPer year, all inclusive with unlimited usersPer month
PlatformsWebWeb, API
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in RecDesk

  • Activity registration
  • Facility reservations
  • Memberships and passes
  • League scheduling
  • Resident portal
  • Unlimited users
  • Financial reporting
  • Premium integrations

Only in Very Good Security

  • Aliasing proxy
  • PCI scope reduction
  • Network tokenisation
  • Processor optionality
  • Card issuing data
  • Vault and access controls
  • Data residency options
  • Compliance artefacts

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

RecDesk

  • A town recreation director who needs a budget number for next year without running a procurement to get a quotenot Very Good Security
  • A department with a dozen seasonal part-time staff who would each cost a seat on per-user municipal softwarenot Very Good Security
  • A small city replacing paper facility permits and phone registrations with an online resident portalnot Very Good Security
  • A recreation district running summer camps, pool passes and youth leagues on one household accountnot Very Good Security

Very Good Security

  • A marketplace facing its first PCI DSS Level 1 assessment that wants to keep card data off its own estate rather than harden a dozen servicesnot RecDesk
  • A merchant negotiating with a second acquirer that needs card credentials portable so the negotiation is real rather than theoreticalnot RecDesk
  • A fintech collecting bank account and identity documents that wants sensitive fields absent from logs, backups and analytics warehouses by constructionnot RecDesk
  • A card issuer that must display a full PAN in its own mobile app without the app or its backend touching cardholder datanot RecDesk

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

RecDesk

  • Scope is recreation only, so a municipality wanting parks asset management, work orders or wider permitting must buy and integrate a second system.
  • The published prices are starting points and the premium integrations most departments actually need, such as financial system and access control links, are priced separately and not listed.
  • Customer concentration is regional, mostly in the north-eastern United States, so a department elsewhere will find fewer local references and less familiarity with its state reporting requirements.
  • The resident-facing portal is plain compared with commercial registration platforms, which matters when residents compare it with the private classes they book elsewhere.
  • As a smaller vendor it does not offer the procurement conveniences larger municipalities expect, such as cooperative contract vehicles across many states, which lengthens the buying process for some agencies.

Very Good Security

  • VGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • Token portability is the whole selling point yet leaving VGS means migrating tokens back out, a project the vendor has no incentive to streamline, so the lock-in you removed from your acquirer partly moves to VGS.
  • Entry pricing at around one thousand US dollars a month is real money for a pre-revenue fintech, and it buys volume-limited throughput, so cost scales with exactly the growth that made you buy it.
  • Scope reduction is not scope elimination: your QSA still assesses how you integrate, and teams regularly discover that a support tool or an internal admin screen pulled plaintext back in and dragged systems into scope again.
  • Proxy-based interception constrains how you design request flows, and non-standard payloads, streaming uploads or binary formats often need custom routing rules that make debugging production issues noticeably harder.

Pricing, plan by plan

RecDesk

$3835/year
  • Essential$3835/year
    • Activity registration and household accounts
    • Resident portal
    • Unlimited staff users
  • Standard$6240/year
    • Adds facility reservations and memberships
    • Unlimited users
    • Financial reporting
  • Plus$10790/year
    • Adds league scheduling and expanded modules
    • Unlimited users
  • Enterprise$16250/year
    • Largest configuration
    • Premium integrations such as access control, GIS and financial system links priced separately

Very Good Security

$1000/month
  • Starter$1000/month
    • Aliasing proxy
    • Vault storage
    • PCI scope reduction
  • Growth$undefined/month
    • Network tokenisation
    • Multiple processors
    • Data residency options
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom vault architecture
    • Dedicated support and SLA
    • Contractual compliance coverage

Which should you pick?

Choose RecDesk if

  • You need activity registration.
  • You also want facility reservations.
RecDesk review

Choose Very Good Security if

  • You need aliasing proxy.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want pci scope reduction.
Very Good Security review

Questions people ask

Is RecDesk or Very Good Security better?
Neither clearly leads. RecDesk starts at $3835/year and Very Good Security at $1000/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, RecDesk or Very Good Security?
RecDesk starts at $3835/year and Very Good Security at $1000/month.
Does RecDesk or Very Good Security run on more platforms?
RecDesk runs on Web. Very Good Security runs on Web, API.
What is RecDesk best used for?
RecDesk is most often used for a town recreation director who needs a budget number for next year without running a procurement to get a quote, a department with a dozen seasonal part-time staff who would each cost a seat on per-user municipal software, a small city replacing paper facility permits and phone registrations with an online resident portal, a recreation district running summer camps, pool passes and youth leagues on one household account. Of those, a town recreation director who needs a budget number for next year without running a procurement to get a quote and a department with a dozen seasonal part-time staff who would each cost a seat on per-user municipal software are not what Very Good Security is typically brought in for.
What can RecDesk do that Very Good Security cannot?
RecDesk covers Activity registration, Facility reservations, Memberships and passes, League scheduling. Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy, PCI scope reduction, Network tokenisation, Processor optionality.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

RecDesk: Is the pricing really published?

Yes, which is unusual in municipal recreation software. Four tiers from $3,835 to $16,250 a year, described as all-inclusive with unlimited users. Premium integrations are extra.

Very Good Security: Does VGS make me PCI compliant?

No. It removes cardholder data from your systems so your assessment covers a far smaller boundary, but you still complete an assessment and your integration is part of it.

RecDesk: Are there per-user charges?

No. Unlimited staff users on every tier, which is the main saving against per-seat municipal systems.

Very Good Security: Can I move to another processor without re-collecting cards?

Yes, that is a core reason people buy it. The vault reveals stored credentials to whichever processor you route to.

RecDesk: Does it do parks maintenance and work orders?

No. It is registration, reservations, memberships and leagues. Asset and work order management needs another system.

Very Good Security: What does it cost?

Published entry pricing is about one thousand US dollars per month; growth and enterprise tiers are quoted.

RecDesk: Will it integrate with our finance system?

There is a premium financial system integration option, priced separately. Confirm your specific ERP is supported before assuming it.

Very Good Security: Is it only for card data?

No. The proxy handles any sensitive field, including bank details, national identifiers and documents, though payments is where the product is now focused.

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