Organizations leave Zeffy when the donor tip at checkout starts to bother their supporters, or when they need volunteer shifts, facility booking or program registration a forms tool does not have. Stay on Zeffy if you only need donation forms, ticketing and simple memberships at $0.
Ordered by how well each one fits the organizations that usually outgrow Zeffy.
Volunteers, donors and POS on one member record, with programs and facilities
Member records, volunteer shifts with hour tracking, donation forms with automatic CRA and IRS receipts and POS in one base subscription, with programs and facility booking as add-ons.
Check first: It is not free, so if $0 software is the whole point, Zeffy or Givebutter is the honest answer.
The closest free swap, with the option to turn tips off
Givebutter's free plan covers donation forms, campaign pages, events, auctions and a CRM with unlimited contacts, funded the same way as Zeffy with donor tips on by default.
Check first: Memberships are recurring payment forms plus tags, with no member cards, and there is no volunteer management.
Embeddable donation forms and recurring giving with no tip prompt
Donorbox is embeddable donation forms, recurring giving and event ticketing that drop into a website you already run.
Check first: A percentage on every transaction scales badly for higher-volume organizations, and API access is locked to Pro.
A real donor database with gift history, acknowledgments and mailings
Little Green Light is the donor database for organizations that have outgrown forms, with constituent records, gift tracking, acknowledgments, mailings and LGL Forms, and unlimited users on every plan.
Check first: Membership is a field on a constituent with manual renewal queries; no self-service renewals, portal or digital cards.
Membership dues, a directory and a website builder in one product
Wild Apricot is the step up for clubs and associations that treat dues, a member directory and a website as the core product and donations as secondary.
Check first: Pricing counts every contact, and a gateway other than Personify Payments adds a 20% servicing fee to the subscription.
Canadian donor CRM with email automation and CRA receipting
Keela is built in Vancouver and issues receipts compliant with both CRA and IRS rules, with donor profiles, email marketing and automation in every plan.
Check first: Events run through an Eventbrite integration, volunteer management is forms and tagging rather than shifts, and there is no free trial.
Free to 50 members, embeds in the website you already have
MembershipWorks plugs membership, events and a directory into the WordPress, Squarespace, Wix or Weebly site you already run.
Check first: Donor receipting, volunteers and facilities are thin; it is a dues-and-events tool.
| Feature | Communal | Zeffy | Givebutter | Donorbox | Wild Apricot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Membership management | IncludedTiers, custom fields, segments | Included | Partial | Included | Included |
| Automated renewals | IncludedReminders and auto-renew | Included | PartialRecurring payments | IncludedRecurring | Included |
| Digital membership cards (Apple / Google Wallet) | IncludedIncluded in every plan | Included | Not offered | Not offered | Partial |
| Family & household memberships | Included | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | PartialBundles |
| Resident vs non-resident pricing | IncludedAutomatic by address | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not offered |
| Event registration & ticketing | Add-onPrograms & events, +$50/mo | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| 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 | Partial | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered |
| Donations & fundraising | IncludedIncluded; donor covers fees option | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Automatic tax receipts | IncludedAutomatic | Included | Included | Included | PartialDonation receipts |
| Point of sale | IncludedSoftware included; Stripe Terminal readers, Interac | PartialTap to Pay | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| Email campaigns | IncludedCampaigns and segments | Partial | Included | Partial | Included |
| Member self-service portal | Included | Partial | Not offered | Partial | IncludedMember app |
| Public API | IncludedREST API, Zapier webhooks, MCP server | Partial | Included | Partial | Included |
| Detail | Communal | Zeffy | Givebutter | Donorbox | Wild Apricot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $75/mo | $0 (donor tips) | Free; Plus from $29/mo | $0 + 2.95% per donation | From $66/mo |
| Pricing model | Flat, by member band (to 250 members at the floor) | Free; funded by optional donor tips | Free core (donor tips) + Plus per contact | Platform % of donations; Pro $150/mo | Per contact, tiered |
| Contract | No contracts, prorated billing, cancel any module any time | none | Month-to-month or annual for Plus; free plan has no contract | Monthly or yearly billing; no long-term contract on Standard | Month-to-month available;Detailsoptional 1-year and 2-year prepay discounts; no cancellation fees |
| Payment fees | Card-processing application fee set in your agreement, often 2%; no monthly minimums | 0% platform fee and 0% processing fee to the nonprofit;DetailsZeffy covers Stripe costs from optional donor tips | 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. | 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. | No per-transaction fee from WildApricot itself when using the integrated Personify Payments processor (processor rates not published on the pricing page).DetailsUsing a third-party gateway (Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net) triggers a Payment System Servicing Fee described in the help center as 20% of the subscription plan price, applied to US/Canada accounts; vendor pricing page calls this 'an additional fee'. |
| Free trial | Free trial, no credit card | Free plan (entire product is free) | Free plan (no trial needed); Plus is a paid upgrade | Free Standard plan; no separate trial advertised for Pro | 60-day free trial, no credit card required; no permanently free plan |
Zeffy charges the nonprofit nothing and covers processing from an optional contribution donors are shown at checkout, and says roughly 2 in 3 donors tip. Some boards are fine with that; others do not want a third party asking their supporters for money on the organization's own form.
Volunteer signups in Zeffy use the Event form type. There is no shift scheduling, no hours tracking and no volunteer record; Zeffy's own help center points organizations to POINT or SignUpGenius for that.
Zeffy is forms and campaign pages. Community associations that rent a hall or courts, or run a kids program with a waitlist, have to run a second system and lose the link between the member and what they booked.
Zeffy is available to US and Canadian nonprofits only, and its public API is read-only, so pushing data into other systems has to go through Zapier or exports.
Your donors are never asked to contribute to a software vendor, because the flat $75/mo subscription pays for the software instead. Card processing is set in your agreement, with a donor-covers-fees checkbox if you want it, and funds settle weekly to your own Stripe account.
Opportunities, shifts, capacity, clock in and out hour tracking, shift reminders and volunteer discounts applied automatically on programs are included in the base price. Zeffy routes volunteer signups through its Event form and recommends a separate tool for scheduling.
Programs and events add sessions with capacity, waitlists and attendance sheets, and facility booking adds halls, rooms and courts with approval workflows and invoices. Zeffy has no booking and no program capacity or waitlist.
Family and household memberships, resident vs non-resident pricing by map boundary, Apple and Google Wallet passes that update on renewal, and a member portal for renewals, bookings and receipts. Zeffy emails a scannable card on signup and stops there.
Stay on Zeffy if your week is donations, ticket sales and a simple membership list, your donors are comfortable with the tip, and you have no halls to rent or shifts to fill. It is a good product for that job and it costs you nothing. Move only when the missing pieces above describe work you are currently doing in spreadsheets.
Givebutter if you want to stay free and keep the option of turning tips off, or Donorbox if you would rather have no tip prompt at all. Little Green Light once you need donor history, acknowledgments and reporting more than you need forms.
Communal, where household memberships, resident pricing, hall and court rentals, kids programs with waitlists and volunteer shifts all sit on one member record with donations and receipts included. The EFCL runs 163 Edmonton community leagues on it.
Wild Apricot for a site builder and membership in one product, or MembershipWorks if you already have a website and want to stay free to 50 members. Communal if the club also books space or runs programs.
Keela for a fundraising-led charity that wants donor profiles and campaigns with CRA and IRS receipting. Communal for a Canadian community organization that needs CRA receipts plus memberships, volunteers and facilities, with CAD pre-authorized debit and Interac on terminals.
Zeffy exports are CSV, and most moves finish in two to three weeks because the data is simple: contacts, payments and memberships.
Export contacts, donations, memberships and event registrations from Zeffy as CSV; we map donors to member profiles and gifts to donation history, and run a dry-run import so you can check totals before anything goes live.
Rebuild your membership types, donation forms and campaign pages in Communal, keeping existing renewal dates so nobody is billed early, and set up volunteer opportunities and any facilities or programs you were running elsewhere.
Swap the form links on your website for the Communal portal, send members their wallet cards, and keep Zeffy receipts for your records; receipts issued after go-live come from Communal with their own numbering.
The Big Apple Knitters Guild moved 400 members off PayPal and spreadsheets and cut 14 to 18 volunteer hours a month of reconciliation. 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
For the nonprofit, yes: no subscription, no platform fee and no processing fee, and you receive 100% of the donation. The cost is carried by donors, who are shown an optional contribution to Zeffy at checkout; Zeffy says about 2 in 3 tip. Zeffy is also limited to US and Canadian nonprofits, and its public API is read-only.
Givebutter is the closest match: free with donor tips, or a 3% platform fee plus 2.9% + $0.30 processing with tips off. Donorbox has no subscription and charges 2.95% per donation with no tip ask. Communal has no platform fee on donations, only card processing set in your agreement (often around 2%), but it is a $75/mo subscription that also covers memberships, volunteers and POS.
Because of what sits outside donations. Communal includes volunteer shifts with hour tracking, family memberships, resident pricing, wallet cards and POS software in the $75/mo base price, and adds programs (+$50/mo) and facility booking (from +$50/mo). If you run those on spreadsheets today, the subscription usually costs less than the volunteer hours it replaces. If you do not, stay on Zeffy.
Zeffy if budget is the deciding factor and you need forms, tickets and receipts. Keela if you want a donor CRM with profiles, email automation and CRA and IRS receipting and can pay from $134/mo billed annually. Neither does volunteer shifts or facility booking; for that, see Communal. Read the full Keela vs Zeffy comparison.
Wild Apricot is the more complete membership product: contact database, member levels, directory, events and a website builder from $66/mo for 100 contacts. Zeffy covers memberships with auto-renewal and emailed digital cards for free. If dues and a directory are your core and you want a website, Wild Apricot; if donations are the core, Zeffy. See Wild Apricot vs Zeffy.
Only as a workaround. Volunteer signups use Zeffy's Event form type, and there is no shift scheduling, capacity per shift or hours tracking; Zeffy's help center suggests POINT or SignUpGenius. Communal includes opportunities, shifts, clock in and out hours and volunteer discounts in every plan.
Yes, at no charge. Export contacts, donations, memberships and registrations from Zeffy as CSV; we map them to Communal profiles, donation history and membership records, validate with a dry run, and keep your renewal dates. Most moves finish in two to three weeks. See the full Communal vs Zeffy comparison.