Home / Resources / Aplos alternatives
Plain-English guide · for small nonprofits
Aplos alternatives, honestly compared
Updated September 2026
Aplos started as fund accounting for churches and small nonprofits and is now sold inside Velora, alongside Raisely and Keela. If the rebrand or the price ladder has you shopping, here is the landscape. One disclosure up front: we make Ember, one of the options below.
The main Aplos alternatives depend on the job. For donor management: Little Green Light (from $45 a month) and Bloomerang (from $125 a month). For a broader suite: Neon One (from $99 a month). For budgets by program alongside donors, volunteers and grants: Ember (free under a $50K budget). For full fund accounting, Aplos's home ground, the like-for-like swap is another accounting package.
A company backed by the private equity firm Alpine Investors bought Aplos in a deal announced in February 2022. Aplos has since been combined with Raisely and Keela under the Velora brand. The footer of the Aplos pricing page now reads "powered by Aplos, Raisely, and Keela". No shutdown has been announced. What changed is ownership and branding. Where the roadmap goes from here is the question worth asking them directly, not one we can answer for you.
The price ladder is the thing to check
As read on 24 September 2026: Lite is $79 a month with two users, Core is $129 with two, Advanced is $229 with three and is pitched at organizations over $250,000 in revenue, and above a million you are quoted. So the bill moves on three axes at once, tier, seats and revenue, which makes it hard to predict two years out.
Seats are the one that surprises small teams. Two included users is fine until the treasurer, the bookkeeper and the executive director all need to be in there, and a volunteer board treasurer is exactly the person you want looking at the books.
Where Aplos genuinely fits
True fund accounting is its home ground, and it is better at that than most fundraising tools that added an accounting tab. If your auditor is the reason you are shopping, and your fundraising is simple, Aplos is a reasonable answer and we would say so.
Where it fits less well is the organization whose problem is everything else: volunteers, programs, grant deadlines, board records. Accounting is one of six jobs, and buying the strongest tool for one of them still leaves five.
Before you switch anything
Export your data first
Contacts, gift history, notes, communications. Do it while everything works and you are calm, not mid-migration.
Price every option on your real numbers
Record count, contact count, annual revenue, seats. Different tools bill on different things, so a headline price tells you almost nothing until you put your own figures in.
Check your renewal date
Migrations take longer than planned. Start well before renewal, not the week of it.
The alternatives
| Tool | Entry price | Bill grows with | Honest fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Little Green Light | $45/mo to 2,500 records | Record count, in $15 steps | Donor management done simply. Unlimited users, no contracts, founder-owned since 2007. |
| Bloomerang | $125/mo donor database; $242/mo full platform | Contacts | The donor retention specialist. Unlimited users. Private equity owned. |
| Neon One | $99/mo (Neon CRM) | Your organization's revenue | Broad suite, mid-size orientation. Prices on revenue, not records. Backed by FTV Capital since 2018. |
| Aplos (Velora) | $79/mo, 2 users | Tier, extra users, and revenue | Fund accounting first, with fundraising added later. Now sold beside Raisely and Keela. |
| DonorPerfect | From $99/mo | Tier, and a custom quote | Long-established and deep. A published starting price and three tiers, but the real number comes from a sales conversation. |
| CiviCRM | Free; hosted from $15/mo | Hosting and help | Powerful and free, but it needs someone technical or a paid implementer. |
| Zeffy | $0 | Nothing; funded by donor contributions | Fundraising and donor tracking only. Your donors get asked to add a contribution at checkout. |
| Givebutter | $0; Plus from $29/mo | Contacts, on Plus | Fundraising with a free donor database and unlimited contacts. Donors are asked to tip; turn tips off and it charges a 3% platform fee. |
| Ember (that's us) | $0 under $50K budget; $29/mo billed yearly to $100K | Your annual budget band, never contacts | Donors, volunteers, programs, grants, board and compliance in one place. Newest tool here. |
How to choose between them
If donor management is the whole job and you want it calm and cheap, Little Green Light is hard to beat. If retention analytics are the reason you are shopping, that is Bloomerang's home turf. If your books are the problem and fundraising is secondary, Aplos is built that way round. If you have technical help and no budget, CiviCRM does the most for nothing. If you only need donation forms, Zeffy costs nothing, with the donor contribution prompt as the tradeoff. Givebutter is free on the same terms and adds a donor database with unlimited contacts.
Ember's pitch is different: one place for the whole operation, priced by your budget so a growing list never raises your bill. We are also the newest name on this list. If a decade of track record is what you need, that is Little Green Light or DonorPerfect, not us.
Prices and company facts were read from each vendor's own pages on the date shown above and change often. Nothing here is legal, tax or purchasing advice. Check the vendor's current pricing page before you decide, and read your own contract before you switch.
The Ember tool for thisEmber Budget
A budget for every program, with restricted grants kept separate from flexible funds. Budgeting and fund tracking, not bookkeeping. Included on every tier, unlimited users.
Sources: Prices read from each vendor's own pricing page on 24 September 2026: Little Green Light, Neon One, Bloomerang, Givebutter, CiviCRM Spark, Aplos, DonorPerfect, Zeffy. Pricing changes often; check the vendor's page before you decide.