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Plain-English guide · for small nonprofits
How nonprofit software pricing actually works
Updated September 2026
The sticker price matters less than what makes the bill grow. Four models dominate this market, and each one quietly punishes a different kind of success.
Ask one question of any tool: what makes my bill go up? Per-contact pricing punishes list growth. Per-seat pricing punishes involving people. Revenue pricing punishes fundraising success. Budget-band pricing rises only when your whole organization grows. Disclosure: we make Ember, which uses the last model, so read this knowing where we sit.
The four models
Per contact
The bill rises with the size of your database. Common among donor databases: as of September 2026, Bloomerang starts at $125 a month and Keela at $164, both billed annually and both scaling on contacts. The punishment: a good year of list growth raises your software bill, and cleaning your list becomes a cost decision.
Per seat
The bill rises with each user account. Common in general business tools. The punishment: you ration logins, and the board member or volunteer who should see the system does not get an account.
By revenue
The bill rises with the money your org handles. Neon CRM (Neon One's donor database) starts at $99 a month and scales this way. Fairer than contacts for many orgs, but the punishment is direct: raise more, pay more, even if nothing about your usage changed.
By budget band
The bill is set by your organization's annual budget bracket and nothing else. Ember works this way: free under a $50K budget, then flat tiers. The tradeoff is bluntness: a band is a step, not a slope, so the price jumps when you cross one.
Watch for the second bill
Transaction fees sit under many sticker prices: a percentage of every donation processed, sometimes plus per-ticket fees. A tool that looks cheap monthly can cost more than any subscription once fees are counted against a real fundraising year. And a $0 tool is being paid for somehow; Zeffy, for example, is free to the nonprofit and funded by optional tips your donors are asked for at checkout.
Questions to ask before signing
What exactly makes the bill grow?
Get it in a sentence. If the sentence is long, that is the answer.
What does it cost at twice our size?
Price the tool at where you plan to be, not where you are.
Are users unlimited?
If not, count everyone who should genuinely see the system, including board and volunteers, and price that.
What are the transaction fees on our real volume?
Multiply the percentage by last year's donations and add it to the annual price.
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.
Where Ember fitsEmber
Simple tools built only for nonprofits, priced by your annual budget, never by contacts or seats. Free under a $50K budget, every app and unlimited users on every tier.
Sources: Prices read from each vendor's own pricing page on 24 September 2026: Bloomerang, Keela, Neon One, Little Green Light, Zeffy, Givebutter. Pricing changes often; check the vendor's page before you decide.