Most charity CRM guides list ten products side by side. That is useful for a first shortlist, but the decision usually comes down to two names you are weighing against each other. This article takes the head-to-heads UK charities actually search for: Charity Log against Charitylog (a common point of confusion), CharityLog against Beacon, and Access Charity CRM against Salesforce. For the full field, see our charity CRM comparison.
First, the one that trips people up. "Charity Log" (two words) and "Charitylog" (one word) are the same product: Charitylog, a UK case-management and service-delivery CRM. There is no separate "Charity Log" system to compare it against. If you have seen both spellings and wondered whether you were looking at two tools, you were not. It is one platform, most often written as a single word.
What Charitylog is built for matters more than how it is spelled. It is a service-delivery CRM: it tracks clients, referrals, cases and outcomes for charities that deliver services (advice lines, community support, befriending, housing help) rather than charities whose main job is fundraising. Pricing is income-based, which suits larger operational charities. If your primary need is donor management and Gift Aid, Charitylog is not the natural fit; a fundraising CRM is.
This is the clearest fork in the road, because the two products are built for opposite jobs. Beacon is a fundraising CRM: donor management, campaigns, events and native Gift Aid with HMRC submission, rated 4.9/5 on Capterra from 32 reviews (checked July 2026) and voted number one in Fundraising Magazine's charity CRM survey for several years running. Its Starter plan is £37 per month (£33.50 billed annually).
Charitylog is a case-management CRM. It is stronger where Beacon is weaker (recording service delivery, tracking a beneficiary's journey, reporting outcomes to funders) and weaker where Beacon is strong (fundraising workflows and Gift Aid depth). The practical rule: if you raise money, choose Beacon; if you deliver services, choose Charitylog. Charities that do both in volume are the ones that end up running two systems or looking at a bespoke build, which is covered at the foot of this page.
This head-to-head is really off-the-shelf versus platform. Access Charity CRM is part of the Access Group's not-for-profit suite. It arrives configured for UK charity workflows (fundraising, Gift Aid, supporter management) and is bought as a finished product with a UK vendor behind it.
Salesforce takes the opposite approach. Its nonprofit programme offers 10 free licences to registered nonprofits through Power of Us, which sounds decisive until you price the rest. Salesforce is a platform, not a finished charity CRM, so most charities engage a Salesforce implementation partner to configure it, typically several thousand pounds and often into the tens of thousands, plus ongoing administration by a dedicated staff member or a retained consultant. The trade is flexibility for complexity and cost.
The honest read: Access Charity CRM suits charities that want a UK product that works out of the box and a supplier to call. Salesforce suits larger, well-resourced charities with the budget and in-house capability to shape a platform to an unusual operating model, and the discipline to keep using the depth they pay for. For most small and mid-sized UK charities, "free Salesforce" is not the cheapest option once the true cost of ownership is counted.
| Head-to-head | Choose the first if | Choose the second if |
|---|---|---|
| Charity Log vs Charitylog | Same product; nothing to choose between. It is Charitylog, a case-management CRM. | |
| CharityLog vs Beacon | You deliver services and report outcomes to funders | You fundraise and need native Gift Aid (Beacon) |
| Access Charity CRM vs Salesforce | You want a UK product that works out of the box (Access) | You are large, well-resourced and will use the platform depth (Salesforce) |
| Bespoke (ESRE) | Your charity fundraises and delivers services and coordinates volunteers, and no single product covers all three without compromise | |
If none of these pairings fits how your charity actually works, that is usually because you sit across two categories at once: fundraising and casework, or casework and heavy volunteer coordination. A system built around your own processes puts them in one place, with no per-record fees and the data owned by you. You can see working examples of what we build on our demos page.
Yes. "Charity Log" and "Charitylog" are two spellings of the same UK case-management CRM, usually written as one word. There is no separate product called Charity Log.
Salesforce offers 10 free licences to registered nonprofits through its Power of Us programme, but free licences are not a free system. Most charities pay a Salesforce partner to configure it, commonly several thousand to tens of thousands of pounds, plus ongoing administration. Compare the five-year total cost, not the licence headline.
Beacon handles Gift Aid natively, including declaration management and HMRC claim preparation, and Access Charity CRM supports it as a UK fundraising product. Salesforce needs additional configuration or a third-party app for Gift Aid, and Charitylog's strength is casework rather than fundraising.