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Plain-English guide · for small nonprofits
Zeffy alternatives, honestly compared
Updated September 2026
Zeffy costs a nonprofit nothing, which is a genuinely hard thing to compete with and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What it costs is a prompt in front of your donors. Here is the comparison, with that tradeoff named. One disclosure up front: we make Ember, one of the options below.
The main Zeffy alternatives for small nonprofits are Givebutter (free with donor tips, or a 3% platform fee with tips off), Little Green Light (from $45 a month, donor management only), CiviCRM (free, but it needs technical help), Bloomerang (from $125 a month) and, if you need more than fundraising, Ember (free under a $50K budget; it does not process donations).
Zeffy charges the nonprofit nothing and covers card processing itself. It pays for that by asking your donor to add a voluntary contribution to Zeffy at checkout, prompted twice, at a suggested percentage that varies with gift size. Per Zeffy's own help center, around 60 percent of donors contribute, and the wording and suggested amounts of the prompt cannot be customized.
The question that decides it
Are you comfortable with your donors being asked for money by your vendor, in your donation flow, in a prompt you cannot edit? For plenty of organizations the answer is yes and the math is unarguable: zero cost, and roughly six in ten donors cover it. For others, particularly ones with major donors or a board that watches the giving experience closely, the answer is no, and that is also a reasonable position.
It is worth understanding rather than guessing at. Read Zeffy's own explanation, then make your own donation on your own form and see what your donors see.
What Zeffy does not do
It is a fundraising platform with donor tracking attached, and a good one. It is not volunteer scheduling, program outcomes, grant deadlines, fund accounting or board records. If those live in spreadsheets today, they will still live in spreadsheets after you adopt Zeffy, and that is the honest limit of a free fundraising tool.
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.
If your budget is under $50,000, Ember is free too, so compare the two on what they do rather than on price. Zeffy takes donations and Ember does not; Ember covers volunteers, programs, grants and board records, which Zeffy does not.
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: Little Green Light, Neon One, Bloomerang, Givebutter, CiviCRM Spark, Aplos, DonorPerfect, Zeffy. Pricing changes often; check the vendor's page before you decide.