Most charity managers choose a CRM based on a demo and a sales pitch, then discover the limitations six months in. The contact fields are wrong. The reporting does not match what the board actually needs. Gift Aid claims require a workaround. Volunteer hours are tracked in a spreadsheet because the CRM was not designed for that. This article is a practical comparison of the main options available to UK charities, with honest assessments of what each does well and where each falls short.
The table below covers the platforms most commonly used by UK charities. Pricing is indicative and may have changed since publication. Always check current pricing directly with the provider.
| Provider | What It Does | Pricing | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beacon CRM | Fundraising CRM with modern UI. Gift Aid with HMRC integration. Donor management, event tracking, and campaign tools. Rated #1 in Fundraising Magazine six years running. | From ~£34/month | Small to mid-sized fundraising charities wanting a modern, well-designed platform |
| Donorfy | Donor management CRM. ISO certified. Online donation pages, Gift Aid, and integration with payment processors. Now owned by the Access Group. | Free for 500 contacts; paid from ~£65/month | Charities starting out with digital donor management on a limited budget |
| Charitylog | Service delivery CRM. Tracks client outcomes, referrals, and service usage. Income-based pricing with unlimited users. Used by approximately 1,000 charities. | Income-based pricing; unlimited users | Service delivery charities (advice, housing, support) rather than fundraising organisations |
| Lamplight | Outcomes measurement CRM. Strong on evaluation, reporting, and funder compliance. No per-user charges. Designed for organisations that need to prove impact. | From £15/project/month | Charities focused on outcomes measurement and funder reporting |
| CiviCRM | Free open-source CRM. Highly customisable with extensions for fundraising, case management, events, and membership. Interface is dated. Requires technical skills to set up and maintain. | Free (hosting and development costs apply) | Technically capable organisations wanting full control and zero licence fees |
| Salesforce Nonprofit | Enterprise CRM with 10 free licences for nonprofits. Enormous feature set. Implementation typically takes 3 to 12 months. Total cost of ownership: £20,000 to £100,000+ in the first year. | 10 free licences; TCO £20k-£100k+ year one | Large charities with budget for implementation and ongoing administration |
| Blackbaud (Raiser's Edge) | Enterprise fundraising platform. Custom pricing. Long-standing market presence. Persistent complaints about cost, forced renewals, and contract terms. A 2020 data breach significantly damaged user trust. | Custom pricing (enterprise) | Large, established charities already in the Blackbaud ecosystem |
| ThankQ (Access Group) | Established CRM since 1992. Strong membership management. Interface is dated. No case management capability. Part of the Access Group portfolio alongside Donorfy. | Custom pricing | Membership organisations and charities with established ThankQ workflows |
There is a structural divide in the charity CRM market that no single platform has solved. Fundraising CRMs (Beacon, Donorfy, Raiser's Edge) are designed around the donor relationship: who gave what, when, how much, and how to ask again. Service delivery CRMs (Charitylog, Lamplight) are designed around the beneficiary relationship: who needs help, what services were provided, and what outcomes were achieved.
Most charities need elements of both. A homelessness charity needs to track the people it supports (case management) and the people who fund that support (donor management). A community organisation runs services, manages volunteers, applies for grants, and cultivates individual donors. These are fundamentally different data models forced into a single system.
Some organisations attempt to solve this with Salesforce, which is flexible enough to handle both models. But flexibility comes at a cost. Research consistently shows that 40% of Salesforce features go unused in nonprofit deployments. The platform requires ongoing administration, and implementation costs regularly exceed the budget that was approved.
How a CRM charges matters as much as what it charges. Different pricing structures create different pressures, and some are structurally hostile to how charities actually operate.
Many charities rely on volunteers for data entry, event coordination, and donor communications. A CRM that charges per user creates an immediate problem: do you pay for volunteer access, or do you restrict who can use the system? In practice, most charities restrict access. Volunteers then operate outside the CRM, and the data they handle never makes it into the central record.
Charities with large supporter bases (newsletter subscribers, event attendees, one-off donors) can find their CRM costs escalating as their contact list grows. A contact list of 50,000 people, most of whom donated once five years ago, should not cost the same to maintain as 50,000 active relationships. But most per-contact pricing models treat them identically.
Charitylog's income-based model avoids the per-user and per-contact problems but creates a different one. A charity whose income grows (through successful fundraising or a large grant) pays more for the same software, even if its usage has not changed. The pricing penalises growth.
Salesforce's 10 free licences and Donorfy's free tier for 500 contacts are genuine offers, but they come with constraints that most charities outgrow quickly. The cost of migrating away from a "free" system once you have outgrown it is often higher than starting with a paid system that scales properly from the beginning.
The structural problem outlined above (fundraising vs. service delivery, pricing models that penalise charities for being charities) is not a bug in any individual platform. It is a consequence of building general-purpose software for a sector with enormous variation in how organisations operate.
A bespoke system can bridge the gap. Donor management and case management in a single data model, designed around the specific workflows of one organisation. No per-user fees penalising volunteer access. No per-contact charges that scale with your mailing list. Gift Aid claims handled exactly the way your finance team needs them. Reporting that matches what your board and funders actually ask for.
This is not the right approach for every charity. Small organisations with standard fundraising needs will be well served by Beacon or Donorfy at a fraction of the cost. But for charities whose operations span both fundraising and service delivery, or whose workflows do not fit any off-the-shelf template, a bespoke system can be more cost-effective over five years than the combination of platforms and workarounds they are currently maintaining.
For a fuller exploration of when bespoke makes sense and when it does not, see our charity software guide.