Most organizations outgrow Givebutter when they need real memberships rather than recurring payment forms, or when the donor tip prompt at checkout stops fitting their audience. Stay on Givebutter if online campaigns, auctions and peer-to-peer pages are your main job and donor tipping is fine.
Ordered by how well each one fits the organizations that usually outgrow Givebutter.
Memberships, volunteers and donations on one member record
Communal is built for organizations that have members, not just donors: membership types with automated renewals, family memberships, wallet cards, volunteer shifts and donation forms with tax receipts.
Check first: No auctions, peer-to-peer pages or text-to-donate; if those drive your revenue, Givebutter still wins.
Also free, and with real memberships and digital cards
Zeffy charges the nonprofit nothing, including processing, and funds itself with an optional donor contribution at checkout.
Check first: Same tip-based model as Givebutter, volunteer signups are an event-form workaround, and it is only available in the US and Canada.
Embeddable donation forms and recurring giving for your own website
Donorbox puts fast, well-converting donation forms on your own website, with recurring giving and no tip prompt shown to donors.
Check first: The percentage fee never goes away, and API and Zapier access require Pro at $150/mo.
A full nonprofit CRM rather than a fundraising front end
Neon CRM covers constituent management, donation forms and reporting, with memberships, events and volunteers arriving on the Impact tier.
Check first: No free plan or trial, processing is 2.99% + $0.30, and the features Givebutter users want most sit on Impact ($209/mo) or higher.
Best for public ticketed events that need discovery
If the reason you used Givebutter was event ticketing, Eventbrite gives you a consumer marketplace, mobile check-in and free events at no cost.
Check first: It is a ticketing product only: no donor CRM, no memberships, no consolidated tax receipts.
Donor retention tooling for fundraising-led nonprofits
Bloomerang CRM adds engagement scoring and stewardship workflows, event registration with QR check-in, and an optional volunteer product.
Check first: Annual contracts, per-record tiers, and membership is a basic level on the constituent record with no cards.
A simple donor database for gift tracking and mailings
Little Green Light gives you gift tracking, acknowledgments and mailings with unlimited users, no platform fee on donations, and a 30-day free trial with no card.
Check first: Memberships are a field with manual renewal queries, and events are attendee tracking rather than public registration.
| Feature | Communal | Givebutter | Zeffy | Donorbox | Neon CRM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Membership management | IncludedTiers, custom fields, segments | Partial | Included | Included | Add-onImpact tier and up |
| Automated renewals | IncludedReminders and auto-renew | PartialRecurring payments | Included | IncludedRecurring | Included |
| Digital membership cards (Apple / Google Wallet) | IncludedIncluded in every plan | Not offered | Included | Not offered | Not listed |
| Event registration & ticketing | Add-onPrograms & events, +$50/mo | Included | Included | Included | Add-onImpact tier and up |
| Program & class registration | Add-onWaitlists, capacity, attendance, rosters | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| Facility booking & rentals | Add-onFrom +$50/mo; approvals, invoices, agreements, iCal | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered |
| Volunteer shifts & hour tracking | IncludedShifts, hours, auto volunteer discounts | Not offered | Partial | Not offered | Add-onImpact tier and up |
| Donations & fundraising | IncludedIncluded; donor covers fees option | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Automatic tax receipts | IncludedAutomatic | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Member self-service portal | Included | Not offered | Partial | Partial | Included |
| Email campaigns | IncludedCampaigns and segments | Included | Partial | Partial | Included |
| Website builder | Not offeredWorks beside your site | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered |
| Public API | IncludedREST API, Zapier webhooks, MCP server | Included | Partial | Partial | Included |
| Detail | Communal | Givebutter | Zeffy | Donorbox | Neon CRM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $75/mo | Free; Plus from $29/mo | $0 (donor tips) | $0 + 2.95% per donation | From $99/mo |
| Pricing model | Flat, by member band (to 250 members at the floor) | Free core (donor tips) + Plus per contact | Free; funded by optional donor tips | Platform % of donations; Pro $150/mo | Tiered subscription; unlimited records |
| Contract | No contracts, prorated billing, cancel any module any time | Month-to-month or annual for Plus; free plan has no contract | none | Monthly or yearly billing; no long-term contract on Standard | annual (typical); not confirmed on vendor page |
| Payment fees | Card-processing application fee set in your agreement, often 2%; no monthly minimums | With donor tips enabled (default): 0% platform fee and Givebutter covers processing fees (Givebutter says 92% of donors cover fees).DetailsWith tips disabled: 3% platform fee plus processing of 2.9% + 30¢ (cards) or 1.9% + 30¢ (ACH); nonprofits can ask donors to cover fees. | 0% platform fee and 0% processing fee to the nonprofit;DetailsZeffy covers Stripe costs from optional donor tips | Platform fee 2.95% / 1.75% / 1.6% by plan (3.95% / 2% / 2% for events and memberships) plus processor fees: Stripe 2.2% + 30¢ cards and wallets, ACH 0.8% capped…DetailsPlatform fee 2.95% / 1.75% / 1.6% by plan (3.95% / 2% / 2% for events and memberships) plus processor fees: Stripe 2.2% + 30¢ cards and wallets, ACH 0.8% capped at $5; PayPal 1.99% + 49¢ (non-AMEX). Donors can be asked to cover fees. | Neon Pay: 2.99% + $0.30 per card transaction, 1% + $1 per ACH/e-check, +1% for American Express; donor-covered fees option available |
| Free trial | Free trial, no credit card | Free plan (no trial needed); Plus is a paid upgrade | Free plan (entire product is free) | Free Standard plan; no separate trial advertised for Pro | No free trial or free plan; demo only |
Givebutter handles memberships as recurring payment forms plus CRM tags. There are no membership tiers with their own rules, no renewal logic, no member directory and no member cards, so a club or association ends up tracking who is current in a spreadsheet beside the CRM.
The free plan is funded by asking donors to tip Givebutter at checkout. Turning tips off costs a 3% platform fee on top of card processing, so organizations whose members or donors dislike the prompt pay to remove it.
Workflows, tasks, the advanced email editor, texting and QuickBooks sync live on Givebutter Plus, which is priced per contact from $29/mo for 250 contacts. Every contact in the CRM counts, including one-time event attendees.
There is no volunteer management and no room or facility booking, so community organizations that schedule shifts or rent space need a second tool and a second copy of each person.
Communal has membership types with plans, fixed-date or anniversary renewals, automated reminders before and after expiry, family memberships with dependents and Apple and Google Wallet cards that update when a membership renews. Givebutter documents memberships as recurring payment forms with tags.
Volunteer opportunities, shifts, clock in and out hour tracking and automatic volunteer discounts on programs sit beside donation forms, fundraiser pages with goals and automatic numbered tax receipts with CRA and US templates. Givebutter has no volunteer module.
Communal is $75/mo to 250 members and scales by member band, with a card-processing application fee set in your agreement (often around 2%) and a donor-covers-fees option at checkout. There is no tip screen in front of your donors and no platform percentage to turn off.
Programs and events with waitlists, capacity and attendance sheets are an add-on module, and so is facility booking with approvals and invoices. Givebutter events are ticketing pages, and it has no booking at all.
Stay on Givebutter if you are a fundraising-first nonprofit, the free plan covers what you do, and membership means a recurring gift rather than a card, a renewal cycle and member pricing. The tip model is a fair trade for a free platform if your donors accept it. Move only when members, volunteers or facilities start needing their own records.
Communal if your events are tied to members: program and event registration with member, public and volunteer price tiers, waitlists, attendance sheets and guest registration for non-members. Eventbrite if your events are public and ticket sales depend on marketplace discovery.
Communal, where membership tiers, automated renewals, family memberships and wallet cards are the core of the product and donations and volunteers are included. Zeffy is the free option if your club only needs simple memberships and ticketing.
Donorbox if you want donation forms with no tip screen, or Little Green Light if you want a donor database with no platform fee on gifts. Communal if the charity also has members or volunteers to manage.
Neon CRM for unlimited records and a donor pipeline, or Bloomerang if donor retention reporting is the priority. Both are subscriptions with no donor tipping.
Givebutter moves are quick because the data is simple: contacts, transactions and recurring plans. We map it for you at no charge.
Export your contacts, tags, transactions and recurring plans from the Givebutter CRM; we map tags to membership types, custom fields and audiences and run a dry-run import so you can check it.
Set up membership types, donation forms and volunteer opportunities in Communal, then import supporters with their history so tax receipts and renewal dates line up.
Replace the Givebutter links on your website with the Communal portal, send members their wallet cards, and let recurring donors set up their plan in the portal while you keep Givebutter open for the last campaign.
The Big Apple Knitters Guild moved 400 members off PayPal and spreadsheets onto Communal for memberships and payments. Read the case study.
How the hall gets booked, how program pricing works, how you chase renewals. No canned tour. We walk Communal through your real process so you can see the fit before you decide.
No canned tour · No sales script
It depends on why you are leaving. Communal is the best fit for clubs, associations and community organizations that need memberships, volunteers and donations on one flat-priced system. Zeffy is the closest free swap for small US and Canadian charities. Donorbox suits organizations that want embeddable donation forms without a tip prompt, and Neon CRM suits nonprofits ready for a full CRM.
The core platform is $0/mo with unlimited contacts, forms, events and auctions, funded by an optional tip donors see at checkout. If you turn tips off, Givebutter charges a 3% platform fee plus processing (2.9% + 30¢ for cards, 1.9% + 30¢ for ACH). Givebutter Plus, which adds workflows, texting and QuickBooks sync, is $29/mo for up to 250 contacts, $79/mo for 1,000 and $129/mo for 2,500.
Yes. Communal is a flat subscription from $75/mo with no tip screen and a donor-covers-fees option you control. Donorbox shows no tip prompt and charges 2.95% per donation on its free plan. Little Green Light and Neon CRM are subscriptions with no platform percentage. See Communal pricing for the member bands.
Partly. Givebutter documents memberships as recurring payment forms combined with CRM tags. It does not have membership tiers with their own renewal rules, a member directory, family memberships or membership cards. Communal and Zeffy both treat membership as a first-class record with automated renewals and digital cards.
Yes, and the scoped migration is free. We import your contacts, tags, transactions and recurring plan history from the Givebutter export, map tags to membership types and audiences, and run a dry-run import you can review before go-live. Most organizations finish within a few weeks.
No. Communal includes donation forms, fundraiser campaign pages with goals, recurring giving, automatic tax receipts and a Double the Donation matching-gift integration, but not auctions or peer-to-peer team pages. If those are central to your fundraising, keep Givebutter or Zeffy for campaigns and use Communal for members, programs and volunteers.