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Nonprofits · head to head

Bonterra vs CharityEngine

Bonterra logo

Bonterra

Nonprofits

The rolled-up parent of EveryAction, Apricot, CyberGrants and Network for Good, sold as three product lines

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
CharityEngine logo

CharityEngine

Nonprofits

Nonprofit CRM with its own in-house payment processing rather than a third-party gateway

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Bonterra the three lines are separately acquired codebases, so buying two of them gives you two logins, two support queues and a connector rather than one system.; CharityEngine payment processing rates are negotiated and never published, so the total cost cannot be compared to a licence-only CRM without getting a quote and modelling your own volume in basis points.
  • They diverge on capability: Bonterra covers Case management, CharityEngine covers In-house payment processing.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Bonterra and CharityEngine actually diverge.

Attributes where Bonterra and CharityEngine differ
AttributeBonterraCharityEngine
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Nonprofits).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Bonterra

  • Case management
  • Fundraising and engagement
  • Corporate grantmaking
  • Employee giving and volunteering
  • Outcomes reporting
  • Impact data connectors

Only in CharityEngine

  • In-house payment processing
  • Recurring giving recovery
  • Direct mail segmentation
  • Peer-to-peer and events
  • Advocacy and membership
  • Marketing automation

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Bonterra

  • A human services agency that must report participant outcomes to a government funder and cannot do it in a donor CRMnot CharityEngine
  • A national advocacy organisation needing high-volume email, action alerts and distributed organising in one donor recordnot CharityEngine
  • A large employer running a global employee match and grant disbursement programme across many countriesnot CharityEngine
  • A nonprofit consolidating a legacy Salsa or ETO deployment onto a supported product within the same vendornot CharityEngine

CharityEngine

  • A nonprofit processing high recurring gift volume that wants card updater and dunning built into the CRM rather than bought separatelynot Bonterra
  • Replacing a stack of a CRM, an email tool and a separate donation gateway with one contract and one reconciliationnot Bonterra
  • A direct mail heavy organisation that needs offline gift entry and mail file segmentation as first-class features, not add-onsnot Bonterra
  • An organisation whose finance team wants a single settlement file that already reconciles to donor recordsnot Bonterra

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Bonterra

  • The three lines are separately acquired codebases, so buying two of them gives you two logins, two support queues and a connector rather than one system.
  • Legacy products absorbed in the roll-up, notably ETO and older Salsa modules, receive limited development while investment goes to flagship products, leaving those customers on a slowly ageing platform.
  • No pricing is published for any line, and quotes vary widely by contact count and negotiation, so benchmarking against competitors requires a full sales cycle.
  • Private equity ownership has produced repeated renewal price increases reported by customers, and the portfolio structure reduces the credibility of threatening to switch since several obvious alternatives are also Bonterra products.
  • Implementation for Case Management is a configuration project measured in months, and agencies routinely underestimate the internal staff time required to define forms and outcome measures.

CharityEngine

  • Payment processing rates are negotiated and never published, so the total cost cannot be compared to a licence-only CRM without getting a quote and modelling your own volume in basis points.
  • Because the vendor is both the software provider and the merchant processor, switching CRM also means re-papering merchant services and re-tokenising every recurring donor, which is a far larger project than a normal migration.
  • Subscription pricing is quote-only and reported entry points come from third parties rather than the vendor, so small organisations often discover the floor is well above what they budgeted.
  • The interface is dense and configuration-heavy, and organisations without a dedicated database administrator tend to use a fraction of what they pay for.
  • Implementation and data migration are billed on top of the subscription and are commonly the largest first-year line item, which is easy to miss when comparing monthly figures.

Pricing, plan by plan

Bonterra

On request
  • Bonterra Fundraising and Engagement$undefined/year
    • Donor CRM and email
    • Advocacy and organising tools
    • Priced by contact record count
  • Bonterra Case Management$undefined/year
    • Apricot participant records and assessments
    • Outcomes and funder reporting
    • Priced by user seats and programme count
  • Bonterra Corporate Social Responsibility$undefined/year
    • CyberGrants grant disbursement
    • Employee giving and volunteering
    • Enterprise contract, priced by programme spend

CharityEngine

On request
  • CharityEngine$undefined/year
    • Donor CRM and gift processing
    • In-house payment processing at a negotiated rate
    • Email, SMS and direct mail tools

Which should you pick?

Choose Bonterra if

  • You need case management.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want fundraising and engagement.
Bonterra review

Choose CharityEngine if

  • You need in-house payment processing.
  • You also want recurring giving recovery.
CharityEngine review

Questions people ask

Is Bonterra or CharityEngine better?
Neither clearly leads. Bonterra starts at On request and CharityEngine at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Bonterra or CharityEngine?
Bonterra starts at On request and CharityEngine at On request.
Does Bonterra or CharityEngine run on more platforms?
Bonterra runs on Web, iOS, Android. CharityEngine runs on Web.
What is Bonterra best used for?
Bonterra is most often used for a human services agency that must report participant outcomes to a government funder and cannot do it in a donor crm, a national advocacy organisation needing high-volume email, action alerts and distributed organising in one donor record, a large employer running a global employee match and grant disbursement programme across many countries, a nonprofit consolidating a legacy salsa or eto deployment onto a supported product within the same vendor. Of those, a human services agency that must report participant outcomes to a government funder and cannot do it in a donor crm and a national advocacy organisation needing high-volume email, action alerts and distributed organising in one donor record are not what CharityEngine is typically brought in for.
What can Bonterra do that CharityEngine cannot?
Bonterra covers Case management, Fundraising and engagement, Corporate grantmaking, Employee giving and volunteering. CharityEngine covers In-house payment processing, Recurring giving recovery, Direct mail segmentation, Peer-to-peer and events.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Bonterra: Is Bonterra a single product?

No. It is three product lines built from separately acquired software. You buy one of them, and integration between them is a connector rather than a shared database.

CharityEngine: Does CharityEngine publish pricing?

No. Both the subscription and the payment processing rate are quoted. Third-party sites report a starter tier around 550 US dollars a month, but the vendor does not confirm this.

Bonterra: What happened to EveryAction and Apricot?

They still exist as the underlying products, rebranded as Bonterra Fundraising and Engagement and Bonterra Case Management respectively.

CharityEngine: Is the payment processing optional?

In practice no. The processing is the product. Using an external gateway removes most of what distinguishes CharityEngine from cheaper CRMs.

Bonterra: Does Bonterra publish pricing?

No line has published pricing. Fundraising is generally priced by contact record count, case management by seats and programmes.

CharityEngine: Is there a nonprofit discount?

Every customer is a nonprofit, so there is no separate discount; pricing is tiered by contact count and gift volume instead.

Bonterra: Should a small nonprofit consider Bonterra?

Rarely. The entry price and implementation effort suit organisations with dedicated operations staff; smaller charities are better served by a single-product CRM.

CharityEngine: How long is the contract?

Annual terms are standard, and multi-year commitments are used to buy down the rate.

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