The City of Montreal has stopped funding the popular INFO-Neige app, which has become a paid app, much to the dismay of some users who believe the metropolis' new app is ineffective.
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It now costs $4.99 to install the INFO-Neige app on your phone for six months.
“There are a lot of costs associated with the server and hosting,” explains in an interview with the publication Magazine Gregory Cerallo, founder of Sidekick Interactive, owner of INFO-Neige.
He notes that 10 years ago his company won the programming marathon (hackathon) develop an application that tracks snow removal operations in real time for the city.
“The city has been working with his company since the 2014-2015 season,” Guillaume Rivest, public relations officer for the City of Montreal, confirmed via email.
The $75,000 contract for 2024-25 ended in April 2025 and was not renewed, he wrote.
“This solution aims to simplify the citizen experience by integrating INFO-Neige functionality directly into the City of Montreal app,” he writes.
“Ineffective”
But negative comments about the city's official statement are pouring in on social media.
“It's completely ineffective. Notifications come too late, and that's when we get them,” condemns Juni Berthiam, for example.
Without going that far, Mr. Cerallo isn't sure the user experience of the city's new app is the same.
“They tried to replicate some of the features, but our product was mature after ten years. We spent a lot of development time making it easy to use,” he says.
Within ten years, INFO-Neige was downloaded on half a million devices, and the company replicated the model in Terrebonne and Laval, which still fund the app today.
