Emily vs the Alternatives
The alternatives for UK parliamentary monitoring fall into four groups: enterprise monitoring platforms such as Dods and DeHavilland, mid-market tools such as PolicyMogul, free services such as TheyWorkForYou, and manual monitoring with Hansard and spreadsheets. Emily sits apart as an AI agent that monitors Parliament, researches your questions, and drafts the briefing, rather than only sending alerts.
An honest comparison of parliamentary monitoring options, from established players like Dods and TheyWorkForYou to the spreadsheet-and-Hansard approach that most teams still rely on.
1. The monitoring landscape
Public affairs professionals in the UK have historically had limited options for parliamentary monitoring. At one end, enterprise platforms like Dods offer comprehensive but expensive coverage. At the other, free tools like TheyWorkForYou provide basic tracking. Most teams fall somewhere in between, cobbling together a mix of tools, email alerts, and manual Hansard searches.
Emily represents a different approach: an AI-first platform that combines monitoring, analysis, and action (briefing drafting, stakeholder tracking, and proactive alerts) in a single conversational interface. This comparison aims to help you understand which tool best fits your needs.
A note on honesty: We built Emily because we saw gaps in the market, but that doesn't mean it's the right fit for everyone. Each tool has genuine strengths. We'll be straightforward about where alternatives may serve you better.
2. Feature comparison
| Feature | Emily | Dods | TWFY | Manual |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real-time Parliament monitoring | ✓ | ✓ | Partial | — |
| Chat and Q&A over the record | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Automated daily briefings | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Stakeholder CRM & tracking | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Document/briefing drafting | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Bill stage tracking | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MP voting records | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Written question monitoring | ✓ | ✓ | Partial | ✓ |
| Committee evidence tracking | ✓ | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Proactive alerts & notifications | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Hansard search & analysis | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cross-reference amendments with stakeholders | ✓ | — | — | — |
3. Emily: AI-first monitoring
Emily is built on the premise that parliamentary monitoring shouldn't require a dedicated analyst. It's an AI employee that ingests Parliament data, understands your priorities, and delivers actionable intelligence.
Strengths
- Ask questions in plain English and get sourced answers
- Automated briefing drafting saves hours per week
- Stakeholder CRM built in. No separate tool needed
- Proactive alerts based on your tracked issues and MPs
- Fixed, transparent pricing from £69/month
Considerations
- Newer entrant, less established than Dods
- AI-generated content should always be verified
- Currently UK Parliament focused (EU/international coming later)
- Smaller support team than enterprise competitors
4. Dods Political Intelligence
Dods is the established incumbent in UK political intelligence, serving large corporations, trade associations, and government affairs teams for decades. It offers comprehensive monitoring, deep contact databases, and human-curated analysis.
Strengths
- Decades of experience and established reputation
- Human-curated political intelligence and analysis
- Comprehensive contact database for engagement
- Covers UK and EU parliamentary activity
- Dedicated account managers for enterprise clients
Considerations
- Pricing not published, sold via consultation at enterprise level
- Analyst-led rather than agent-led, "curated by policy experts and powered by AI" is their own wording
- No conversational AI agent for research and drafting
- Long-term contracts often required
- Can feel over-engineered for smaller teams
5. TheyWorkForYou
Run by the charity mySociety, TheyWorkForYou is a free tool that makes parliamentary data more accessible to the public. It tracks MPs' voting records, speeches, and attendance, and offers email alerts for keyword mentions in Parliament.
Strengths
- Completely free
- Excellent MP profiles and voting record summaries
- Simple email alerts for keyword mentions
- Good for civic engagement and campaign groups
- Open source and transparent
Considerations
- Not designed for professional public affairs use
- No stakeholder management or CRM features
- No briefing generation or document drafting
- Alerts are keyword-only. No contextual intelligence
- Limited analysis capability
6. Manual monitoring
The reality for many public affairs teams (especially smaller ones) is a combination of Hansard searches, Parliament website checks, spreadsheet-based stakeholder tracking, and news aggregation. This approach has its place, but comes with significant trade-offs.
Strengths
- No subscription costs
- Full control over what you track and how
- Human judgement at every step
- Flexible, can adapt to any requirement
Considerations
- Time-intensive, often 2-3 hours daily
- Easy to miss important developments
- Doesn't scale, each new client multiplies the workload
- No automated alerts or proactive intelligence
- Briefing drafting is entirely manual
7. Pricing comparison
| Platform | Price | Contract |
|---|---|---|
| Emily | £69/month Standard · £149/month Professional · £399/month Team | Month-to-month, cancel anytime |
| Dods | Not published, quote via consultation | Annual contracts typical |
| TheyWorkForYou | Free | No contract |
| Manual | Staff time (2-3 hours/day ≈ £30,000 to £45,000/year equivalent) | N/A |
8. Who should use what?
Choose Emily if…
You want comprehensive monitoring plus AI analysis, briefing drafting, and stakeholder tracking in one tool, without the enterprise price tag. Ideal for consultancies, in-house PA teams, NGOs, and solo practitioners.
Choose Dods if…
You need human-curated analysis, EU coverage, a comprehensive political contact database, and dedicated account management. Enterprise budget required.
Choose TheyWorkForYou if…
You need basic MP research and simple keyword alerts at no cost. Great for civic engagement, campaign groups, and journalists on a budget.
Stick with manual monitoring if…
You have dedicated research staff, track a very narrow set of issues, and prefer full manual control. Be realistic about the time cost.
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Frequently asked questions
What are the alternatives to Dods for UK parliamentary monitoring?
The main alternatives are the other established monitoring providers (DeHavilland, Vuelio, PoliMonitor), newer platforms such as PolicyMogul and GovConnex, the free charity-run service TheyWorkForYou, manual monitoring using Hansard and the Parliament website, and Emily, an AI public affairs agent that combines monitoring, research, and drafting in one conversational tool.
Is TheyWorkForYou free to use?
Yes. TheyWorkForYou is run by the charity mySociety and is completely free, with MP profiles, voting record summaries, and keyword email alerts for mentions in Parliament. It is designed for civic engagement rather than professional public affairs work, so it has no stakeholder CRM, briefing drafting, or contextual analysis.
How much does UK parliamentary monitoring cost?
Most UK political monitoring providers do not publish pricing: buying typically starts with a demo or consultation call, and public contract awards on Contracts Finder suggest institutional monitoring contracts typically annualise to £10,000-£12,000 or more a year. Emily publishes its pricing openly, from £69/month (Standard) and £149/month (Professional), month-to-month, with team options listed on the pricing page. Free options exist too: TheyWorkForYou is free for everyone, and PolicyMogul is free for parliamentarians and their staff.
What is the difference between a monitoring service and an AI public affairs agent?
A monitoring service sends you alerts and digests of parliamentary activity, and you turn that into briefings, stakeholder plans, and drafts yourself. An AI public affairs agent like Emily also does that downstream work: you ask questions in plain English and it searches the parliamentary record, drafts the briefing or letter, and tracks your stakeholder engagement, with citations back to official sources.
For the full side-by-side of all seven UK tools (Vuelio, Dods, DeHavilland, PolicyMogul, PoliMonitor, GovConnex, and Emily), see our full side-by-side comparison, kept current. And for the scale of what any tool has to cover, our live UK political transparency statistics show the volume of bills, votes, and filings being tracked right now.