How much does Beacon CRM cost for charities?

Beacon CRM starts at £69 per month for their Essentials plan (up to 2,500 contacts). The Standard plan is £149 per month (up to 10,000 contacts) and the Plus plan is £299 per month (up to 25,000 contacts). Enterprise pricing is quote-based. All plans include Gift Aid processing.

Is Salesforce free for charities?

Salesforce provides 10 free licences to eligible nonprofits through the Salesforce.org Power of Us programme. However, most charities need implementation support (£5,000-£20,000+), ongoing administration, and add-on apps. The 'free' CRM often costs more in total than a paid alternative when you factor in setup and maintenance.

How much does Donorfy cost?

Donorfy starts at £59 per month for their Starter plan (up to 1,000 contacts). The Growth plan is £149 per month (up to 5,000 contacts) and the Professional plan is £299 per month (up to 20,000 contacts). Gift Aid integration and JustGiving import are included in all plans.

Part of the Charity Software Guide

Charity Updated May 2026 8 min read

How Much Does Charity CRM Software Cost in the UK?

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.

£59/mo

Cheapest published plan (Donorfy Starter)

£5,000+

Typical Salesforce implementation cost

£15,000

Bespoke CRM (one-off, no recurring fees)

Published Pricing

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

Contact limits are the hidden cost driver. A charity with 3,000 supporter records on Beacon's £69/month Essentials plan will be forced to upgrade to the £149/month Standard plan the moment they add supporter 2,501. On Donorfy, the same jump happens at 1,001 contacts. Budget for the tier your database will grow into, not the one it fits today.

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The Costs That Are Not on the Price List

Salesforce: free CRM, expensive everything else

Salesforce provides 10 free licences to eligible nonprofits through the Power of Us programme. The CRM itself is genuinely free. What is not free: implementation (£5,000-£20,000+ for a competent Salesforce partner), customisation (Salesforce out of the box is a generic CRM that needs significant configuration for charity use cases), ongoing administration (most charities need a part-time Salesforce admin or a managed service contract at £500-£1,500/month), and add-on apps from the AppExchange (many charity-specific features require paid apps).

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.

Data migration

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.

Training

Most platforms include basic onboarding. Training for a team of 5-15 staff who will use the CRM daily costs £500-£2,000 if done by the vendor, or significant internal time if done in-house.

Integration costs

Connecting your CRM to your website donation forms, email marketing platform (Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor), event booking system, and accounting software (Xero, Sage) often requires paid integrations or middleware like Zapier (from £16/month). Some platforms include integrations in the base price. Others charge for API access or require third-party connectors.

Gift Aid processing

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?

Five-Year Total Cost of Ownership

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, owns the data, and has no contact limits, no per-user fees, and no forced tier upgrades as the supporter base grows.