Every product in this category demonstrates the same four screens, and the differences that matter are underneath them. This is what CCPA software has to do to be worth its price for a small business, and the one job no product in the category can do for you.
Publish and version the notices
The notice at collection and the privacy policy, with a version history, because the question later is what the policy said in March. A product that renders the current policy and keeps no history has solved the display problem and not the evidence one.
Take requests on at least two routes
California Civil Code section 1798.130 expects designated methods for submitting requests. A web form plus an email address is the usual pair. What matters is that both land in the same place with the same receipt date, because two intakes with two spreadsheets behind them is how deadlines get missed.
Run the clock, visibly
45 days from receipt, extendable once by an additional 45 days when reasonably necessary and only with notice inside the first period. The product should show days remaining on every open request without anybody computing it, since a due date somebody has to work out is a due date somebody will get wrong.
Keep the record
Requests received, what was searched, what went out, who approved it and when. This is the difference between saying you comply and showing it, and it is the only one of the four that gets more valuable with age.
What it cannot do: find your data
No product knows which spreadsheet on which drive holds customer emails. Discovery tools help at enterprise scale and cost accordingly. For a small company the map is made by hand, once, and it is the input to everything above.
Questions people ask about ccpa software
Do we need software at all?
Below a few requests a year, a shared inbox and a calendar genuinely work. The point they stop is when two requests are open at once and nobody can say which is closest to its deadline.
What should we ask in a demo?
To see a request that was answered eighteen months ago: the receipt date, the systems searched, the approver and the sent date. Products that keep only the current state cannot show it.
Is CCPA software the same as GDPR software?
Mostly, because the process is the same shape. The differences are in the notices and in the do-not-sell link, which has no GDPR equivalent.