| Criterion | Espace sur Demande (ANCT) | ASLOT |
|---|---|---|
| Status and cost | Free public service, run by the ANCT | Private platform, from €59 excl. VAT per month, no commitment, no commission |
| Eligible local authorities | Municipalities with fewer than 3,500 inhabitants, inter-municipal bodies with fewer than 15,000 inhabitants, shared-service organisations | Any local authority, any space manager, with no population threshold |
| Publishing the offer | Dedicated showcase page on the service’s website, spaces and equipment, communication kit | Booking page that can be embedded in the municipality’s website, in its own colours |
| Handling requests | Request based on the calendar, email notification, approval, refusal or counter-proposal in one click | Booking confirmed as soon as payment is made, or manual approval if the municipality prefers |
| Hire agreement | Generated automatically, customisable template, signed on the platform | Hire agreement and hire terms accepted when booking, kept with the booking record |
| Online payment | Not found on the official pages at the time of writing | Online card payment, proof of payment issued |
| Collection through the revenue account (régie) | Not found on the official pages at the time of writing | Public revenue account (régie), exports for the Public Treasury |
| Access to the space | Not covered: handing over keys is left for the municipality to organise | Code or badge valid during the time slot, the door opens with no key to hand over |
| Equipment controlled | Not found | Electric strike, gate, lighting, heating, photocopier, depending on the hardware in place |
| Calendars and team | One calendar per space, access for council staff, .csv export | Schedule per space, time-stamped access history, several sites in one account |
Espace sur Demande: what the free government solution does well
Espace sur Demande is a public service for booking spaces, free for small local authorities and run by the French National Agency for Territorial Cohesion (Agence nationale de la cohésion des territoires). It was launched in September 2022 in the Isère department under the name “Salle sur Demande”, then taken over by the ANCT’s Incubateur des Territoires. The agency’s press release of 31 July 2025 announced 304 local authorities using it.
The scope described on the official website is clear. The municipality has a dedicated showcase page where residents, associations, businesses and public employees can view what is on offer. Booking requests are made according to each space’s availability. The council receives an email notification, then approves, refuses or amends the request. It can suggest another time slot or another price as a counter-proposal. The service generates the hire agreement from a template that the municipality customises, and the agreement is signed directly on the platform. Each hall has its own calendar, updated with each approval, which other staff can view from their own account.
The offer is visible online, requests arrive in a structured form, and the agreement no longer has to be retyped. All this without a subscription, without a procurement process and with support from a public team. Within this scope, publishing a hall offer and receiving requests, the service does its job.
For the limits of a tool without payment or access in general, the page free room booking software complements this comparison.
Who can use Espace sur Demande?
At the time of writing, publishing spaces on Espace sur Demande is restricted to municipalities with fewer than 3,500 inhabitants, inter-municipal bodies with fewer than 15,000 inhabitants, and shared-service organisations and their members within this target group. This is stated on the service’s home page. A larger municipality therefore cannot publish its halls there.
This threshold changes how the comparison should be read. For a municipality of 2,000 inhabitants with a village hall and a community room, the choice between the free solution and a paid platform is a real one. For a town of 8,000 inhabitants, the question does not arise: the public service is not open to it, and a tool on the market is needed in any case. The service’s website states that organisations outside the target group can write to the team to have their case looked at
What doesn’t the free solution do?
At the time of writing, Espace sur Demande’s official pages mention neither online payment, nor payment collection through a revenue account, nor access control, nor control of equipment. The service stops at approving the request and signing the hire agreement. Payment, the deposit, handing over keys and the condition report are still handled by the municipality, outside the platform.
Online payment
We did not find online payment on the official pages. On one space listing published by a municipality, the payment method stated is a deposit cheque made payable to the Public Treasury (Trésor public) and a down payment. The council then matches the booking and the payment by hand
Payment collection through a public revenue account
A paid hall hire collected by a municipality goes through a public revenue account (régie de recettes). We did not find, on the service’s pages, any feature dedicated to the revenue account, nor any online payment collection that meets the requirements of public revenue accounts. A full platform, by contrast, lets you collect hall hire payments through a revenue account directly from the booking.
Self-service access to the hall
The service does not handle opening the door. Once the request has been approved and the agreement signed, the municipality organises handing over the keys and getting them back, and deals with forgotten keys. The official pages mention neither codes, nor badges, nor smart locks. This is the point municipalities raise most often when they look for an alternative to Espace sur Demande.
Equipment control
Espace sur Demande lets you list items that can be lent out, such as tables or chairs. It does not control the hall’s equipment. Lighting, heating, the gate or the barrier are not linked to the booking
White label
The municipality’s showcase page is hosted on the service’s domain, with a URL specific to the local authority and a communication kit. We did not find any white-label integration into the council’s website, nor any visual customisation beyond the information on the page
Multi-site monitoring
The service lets you create a team and give access to the managers of the different spaces, with permissions. We did not find any consolidated view across several municipalities or several remote facilities showing the actual occupancy of each site.
When should you stay with the free solution?
Stay with Espace sur Demande if your municipality is eligible, if your halls are mostly made available free of charge or hired out only a few times a year, and if handing over keys is not a problem. In that case, a paid tool would bring features you have no use for.
The typical case is a municipality with fewer than 1,500 inhabitants, a village hall and a meeting room. Local associations rehearse there free of charge, residents hire it about ten times a year, the town hall is open several half-days a week and the town hall office hands over the keys without it becoming a burden. Most of the need comes down to a reliable calendar, structured requests and a clean agreement. Espace sur Demande covers this need, free of charge, with a service backed by the State.
Even in this case, two points are worth noting for later. The first is the population threshold: a municipality that grows or joins a shared-service organisation may find its situation changes. The second is access: as soon as hires become more frequent or shift to weekends, the key becomes the weak link. Our page on free room booking software details what a solution without a subscription covers and where it stops.
When should you move to a full platform?
Move to a full platform when payment, access or volume go beyond what a calendar and an agreement can handle. Three signals show it: regular paid hires, time slots outside the town hall’s opening hours, or several facilities to manage.
The first signal is financial. A hall hired out every weekend generates payments to track, deposits to collect or return, and receipts to produce. With ASLOT, the user pays online by card when booking, within the revenue account. The municipality receives the proof of payment and the exports for the Public Treasury. Rates for each user group (association, resident, non-resident) apply automatically, and free use granted to associations is still recorded.
The second signal is access. When a hall is hired on a Saturday evening, a key handover on the Friday and a return on the Monday tie someone up twice per hire. With ASLOT, the user receives a code, or their badge is activated, for the duration of the time slot and no longer. The time-stamped access history then supports the condition report. Managing community halls with booking and access describes how this works, hall by hall.
The third signal is the number of spaces. A municipality that runs a sports hall for associations, a motorhome aire where people arrive at night and a car park in addition to its halls needs a single dashboard, with a schedule and access equipment for each space. The use cases for councils and local authorities show these configurations. Before choosing, the list of twelve points to check for booking and access to a community hall provides an assessment grid.
How much does an ASLOT deployment really cost?
ASLOT is offered from €59 excl. VAT per month, with no commitment and no commission on payments. There is neither a free edition nor a premium edition. The exact price is set during the demo, based on the municipality’s actual spaces and equipment.
The subscription covers the platform: the booking page, the schedule, online payment, payment collection through the revenue account, receipts and exports, access management and support. Two items may be added, priced separately and communicated before any order. The first is the access control hardware, only if the hall is not already fitted with a keypad, a badge reader or a controllable electric strike. The second is setup, carried out remotely by our team.
When comparing with the free solution, factor in the real cost of what Espace sur Demande does not handle: the time spent reconciling payments, the trips to hand over keys, the deposits to track. Moving to a full platform is justified when this time exceeds the subscription, which happens quickly once hires are regular. ASLOT’s pricing terms set out what is included in the subscription and what comes on top. A municipality below the eligibility thresholds can also start on the public service, then migrate when the need for payment or access arises: spaces and prices can be re-entered in a few hours.
Your questions
Is Espace sur Demande really free for a council?
Yes, at the time of writing. The official website presents Espace sur Demande as a free service run by the French National Agency for Territorial Cohesion (Agence nationale de la cohésion des territoires). The municipality pays no subscription or setup fees, and does not need to go through a public procurement process. On the other hand, publishing spaces is restricted to municipalities with fewer than 3,500 inhabitants, inter-municipal bodies with fewer than 15,000 inhabitants and shared-service organisations. Payment, public revenue account (régie) and access services are not part of the service; the municipality has to organise them with its usual resources.
My municipality has more than 3,500 inhabitants. Can I use Espace sur Demande?
At the time of writing, not for publishing spaces. The service’s home page states that publishing is restricted to municipalities with fewer than 3,500 inhabitants and inter-municipal bodies with fewer than 15,000 inhabitants, or to members of a shared-service organisation within this target group. The site invites organisations outside the target group to write to the service team so that their situation can be looked at. We have not found any published pricing for this case. A municipality above the threshold will therefore turn to a tool on the market, free or paid, depending on its needs for payment and access.
Can you collect payment for a hall hire online with Espace sur Demande?
We did not find online payment on the service’s official pages at the time of writing. The service handles the request, approval, the calendar and the hire agreement signed online. Payment for the hire and the deposit are handled outside the platform, by cheque, bank transfer or revenue order (titre de recettes), depending on how the municipality’s revenue account is organised. If your main need is to collect payments online by card within a revenue account, you need a platform that provides for it.
What is the alternative to Espace sur Demande if you want automatic access to the hall?
A platform that combines booking, payment and access control. With ASLOT, the user books, pays online and receives a code, or has their badge activated, valid during the booked time slot. They let themselves in, including at weekends, and access ends when the time slot ends. The municipality no longer has keys to hand over or collect, and the time-stamped access history supports the condition report. This alternative requires a door fitted with a keypad, a badge reader or a controllable electric strike; if it is not, the hardware is priced separately.
Can you use Espace sur Demande and ASLOT at the same time?
Nothing prevents it, but it means keeping two calendars. A booking approved on the public service would have to be re-entered in ASLOT to trigger payment and access, and vice versa. We did not find any connection between the two tools at the time of writing; the service’s website mentions a developer area under construction. The public service is suitable for publishing an offer and receiving requests; the full platform takes over when payment and access need to be automated.
How much does ASLOT cost for a municipality moving on from the free solution?
From €59 excl. VAT per month, with no commitment and no commission on payments. The exact price depends on the actual spaces and equipment; it is set during the demo and communicated before any order. On top of this, priced separately, comes the access control hardware if the hall has none. The spaces and prices published on the free solution can be re-entered in a few hours during setup.
Official references
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