Charity CRM pricing is harder to compare than it should be. Salesforce is "free" but costs thousands to implement. Beacon publishes pricing but the contact limits push growing charities into expensive tiers. Access thankQ requires a sales call. This guide puts the real numbers together so charity managers and trustees can compare like for like before committing.
| Platform | Starting Price | Mid-Tier | Contact Limit | Gift Aid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beacon | £69/month | £149/month | 2,500 (Essentials), 10,000 (Standard) | Yes, all plans |
| Donorfy | £59/month | £149/month | 1,000 (Starter), 5,000 (Growth) | Yes, all plans |
| Charitylog | Quote-based | Quote-based | Varies | Limited |
| Access thankQ | Quote-based | Quote-based | Unlimited (tiered by features) | Yes |
| Salesforce NPSP | Free (10 licences) | $60/user/month after 10 | Unlimited | Via app |
| CiviCRM | Free (open source) | Hosting: £50-200/month | Unlimited | Via extension |
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Salesforce gives 10 free licences to nonprofits that qualify through the Power of Us programme. The CRM itself is genuinely free. What is not free. Setting it up costs £5,000 to more than £20,000 with a good Salesforce partner. Salesforce arrives as a general CRM, so a charity must set up a great deal of it. Most charities then need a part-time Salesforce administrator, or a managed service at £500 to £1,500 a month. Many charity features also need paid apps from the AppExchange.
A mid-sized charity that chooses Salesforce for the "free" CRM often spends £10,000-£25,000 in the first year and £6,000-£18,000 annually thereafter. For charities with dedicated IT staff and complex requirements across fundraising, case management, and programme delivery, Salesforce can be worth it. For charities under 20 staff, the total cost of ownership regularly exceeds what a purpose-built charity CRM would have cost.
Moving from spreadsheets or an existing CRM to a new platform is never free. Clean data (deduplicated, consistently formatted, with complete records) migrates relatively smoothly. Messy data (which is what most charities have after years of spreadsheets, multiple databases, and staff turnover) requires significant cleaning work. Budget £1,000-£5,000 for migration, depending on data volume and quality.
Most platforms include basic onboarding. You must train the 5 to 15 staff who will use the CRM every day. The vendor charges £500 to £2,000 for that. Your own staff can do it, and that costs a lot of their time.
Your CRM must reach four other places. Your donation forms. Your email tool, such as Mailchimp or Campaign Monitor. Your event bookings. Your accounts, in Xero or Sage. Each link often costs money. Some need a tool in between, such as Zapier, from £16 a month. Some platforms include integrations in the base price. Others charge for API access or require third-party connectors.
All UK-focused charity CRMs handle Gift Aid declarations. The question is how well. Some platforms automate the HMRC submission process entirely. Others generate the R68 claim file but leave the submission to you. A few charge extra for Gift Aid features. Ask specifically: does this platform submit Gift Aid claims directly to HMRC, or do I need to export a file and submit it separately?
For a charity with 8,000 supporter records, 5 staff users, and standard fundraising requirements:
| Platform | Year 1 (inc. setup) | Annual (years 2-5) | Five-Year Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beacon (Standard) | £2,800 | £1,800/year | £9,800 |
| Donorfy (Growth) | £2,800 | £1,800/year | £9,800 |
| Access thankQ | £4,000-£8,000 | £3,000-£6,000/year | £16,000-£32,000 |
| Salesforce NPSP | £8,000-£20,000 | £6,000-£18,000/year | £32,000-£92,000 |
| CiviCRM (hosted) | £3,000-£5,000 | £1,200-£2,400/year | £7,800-£14,600 |
| Bespoke (ESRE Media) | £15,000-£25,000 | £0 | £15,000-£25,000 |
The bespoke system costs more upfront than Beacon or Donorfy. It costs less over five years than Access thankQ or Salesforce. The critical difference: after the initial build, recurring costs drop to zero. The charity owns the system and the data. There is no limit on contacts, and no fee for each user. Nothing forces you up a level as your supporters grow.
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Look again at what the tiers charge for. Not the work the software does, but the number of supporters you hold and the number of staff who log in.
That means your bill rises when your charity grows. The software does the same job on supporter 2,501 as it did on supporter 2,499. You pay more because you succeeded.
We charge for the build, not for the size of your list. Each charity owns its system, its data and the machine it runs on. Every charity we build for shares one foundation. You pay only for the part that is your own, and a new supporter costs nothing.
We set out the whole cost, including your own staff time, in what does it cost to own and run your own systems. We explain why a rented price rises each year in your software bill goes up every year.