Softwr

Nonprofits · head to head

CharityEngine vs CommCare

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
CommCare logo

CommCare

Nonprofits

Offline-first case management and mobile data collection for frontline health and development programmes

From
$100/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; CommCare pricing is by included mobile user bands with a hard step between them, so a programme at 260 mobile users pays the Pro band plus per-user overage or jumps to Advanced, and neither option matches its actual size.
  • They diverge on capability: CharityEngine covers In-house payment processing, CommCare covers Case management.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CharityEngine and CommCare actually diverge.

Attributes where CharityEngine and CommCare differ
AttributeCharityEngineCommCare
Starting priceOn request$100/month
Pricing modelquotePer month by mobile user count
PlatformsWebAndroid, Web

Identical on both: 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 CharityEngine

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

Only in CommCare

  • Case management
  • Offline-first mobile app
  • App builder
  • Multi-language support
  • Two-way SMS
  • Report builder
  • API access
  • BI integration

What people use each for

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

CharityEngine

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

CommCare

  • A community health worker programme where each worker must see their own assigned households, what is overdue and what happened last visit, which a survey tool cannot representnot CharityEngine
  • A ministry of health digitising a national frontline protocol and requiring in-region data hosting for legal reasonsnot CharityEngine
  • An NGO running the same intervention in four countries that needs one application, several languages and consolidated reportingnot CharityEngine
  • A research team collecting longitudinal data on the same participants over years, where linking visits to a case rather than a submission is the whole requirementnot CharityEngine

Where each one falls short

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

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.

CommCare

  • Pricing is by included mobile user bands with a hard step between them, so a programme at 260 mobile users pays the Pro band plus per-user overage or jumps to Advanced, and neither option matches its actual size.
  • The subscription is the small number; application design, device procurement, worker training and supervision dominate the real cost, and grant budgets that fund only the licence stall at deployment.
  • Grant funding cycles and subscription renewals rarely align, so programmes routinely face a year-four cliff where the software is embedded in a workflow and the money that paid for it has ended.
  • It is Android-only on the device side, which is usually right for the target markets but blocks iOS-issued staff and makes the platform a poor fit for programmes in higher-income settings.
  • The open source option is real but effectively theoretical: self-hosting CommCare HQ requires substantial engineering, so the licence being free does not translate into an escape from the subscription.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

CommCare

$100/month
  • Standard$100/month
    • 50 mobile users included
    • $2 per additional mobile user per month
    • Unlimited free web users
  • Pro$500/month
    • 250 mobile users included
    • Case sharing and child cases
    • Web report builder
  • Advanced$1000/month
    • 500 mobile users included
    • Power BI and Tableau integration
    • Web applications
  • Enterprise$4000/month
    • Custom mobile user count
    • Single sign-on
    • Named account management

Which should you pick?

Choose CharityEngine if

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

Choose CommCare if

  • You need case management.
  • You work on Android, Web.
  • You also want offline-first mobile app.
CommCare review

Questions people ask

Is CharityEngine or CommCare better?
Neither clearly leads. CharityEngine starts at On request and CommCare at $100/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CharityEngine or CommCare?
CharityEngine starts at On request and CommCare at $100/month.
Does CharityEngine or CommCare run on more platforms?
CharityEngine runs on Web. CommCare runs on Android, Web.
What is CharityEngine best used for?
CharityEngine is most often used for a nonprofit processing high recurring gift volume that wants card updater and dunning built into the crm rather than bought separately, replacing a stack of a crm, an email tool and a separate donation gateway with one contract and one reconciliation, a direct mail heavy organisation that needs offline gift entry and mail file segmentation as first-class features, not add-ons, an organisation whose finance team wants a single settlement file that already reconciles to donor records. Of those, a nonprofit processing high recurring gift volume that wants card updater and dunning built into the crm rather than bought separately and replacing a stack of a crm, an email tool and a separate donation gateway with one contract and one reconciliation are not what CommCare is typically brought in for.
What can CharityEngine do that CommCare cannot?
CharityEngine covers In-house payment processing, Recurring giving recovery, Direct mail segmentation, Peer-to-peer and events. CommCare covers Case management, Offline-first mobile app, App builder, Multi-language support.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

CommCare: How much does CommCare cost?

Standard is $100 a month for 50 mobile users, Pro $500 for 250, Advanced $1,000 for 500 and Enterprise from $4,000. Extra mobile users are $2 each per month; web users are unlimited and free.

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.

CommCare: Is CommCare open source?

Yes, CommCare HQ is open source, but self-hosting requires serious engineering capacity. Nearly all users take the hosted service.

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.

CommCare: Where is our data stored?

You choose United States, European Union or India hosting, which is what makes it acceptable to ministries with data residency rules.

CharityEngine: How long is the contract?

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

CommCare: Who funds CommCare?

Dimagi is a for-profit B Corporation funded by customer subscriptions and services. Individual deployments are usually funded by donors such as USAID successors, the Gates Foundation or national health budgets.

CommCare: Does it do case management or just forms?

Case management. Workers hold a caseload of individuals or households and see history and due actions, which is the main reason to choose it over a form tool.

Share

Related pages

More on CharityEngine

More on CommCare

Keep looking

Other head to heads