Softwr

Nonprofits · head to head

Bonterra vs CommCare

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
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: 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.; 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: Bonterra covers Fundraising and engagement, CommCare covers Offline-first mobile app.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Bonterra and CommCare actually diverge.

Attributes where Bonterra and CommCare differ
AttributeBonterraCommCare
Starting priceOn request$100/month
Pricing modelquotePer month by mobile user count
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidAndroid, 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 Bonterra

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

Only in CommCare

  • Offline-first mobile app
  • App builder
  • Multi-language support
  • Two-way SMS
  • Report builder
  • API access
  • BI integration
  • Data de-identification and HIPAA BAA

Both cover

  • Case management

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 CommCare
  • A national advocacy organisation needing high-volume email, action alerts and distributed organising in one donor recordnot CommCare
  • A large employer running a global employee match and grant disbursement programme across many countriesnot CommCare
  • A nonprofit consolidating a legacy Salsa or ETO deployment onto a supported product within the same vendornot 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 Bonterra
  • A ministry of health digitising a national frontline protocol and requiring in-region data hosting for legal reasonsnot Bonterra
  • An NGO running the same intervention in four countries that needs one application, several languages and consolidated reportingnot Bonterra
  • 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 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.

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

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

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 Bonterra if

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

Choose CommCare if

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

Questions people ask

Is Bonterra or CommCare better?
Neither clearly leads. Bonterra 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, Bonterra or CommCare?
Bonterra starts at On request and CommCare at $100/month.
Does Bonterra or CommCare run on more platforms?
Bonterra runs on Web, iOS, Android. CommCare runs on Android, 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 CommCare is typically brought in for.
What can Bonterra do that CommCare cannot?
Bonterra covers Fundraising and engagement, Corporate grantmaking, Employee giving and volunteering, Outcomes reporting. CommCare covers Offline-first mobile app, App builder, Multi-language support, Two-way SMS. Both handle Case management.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bonterra: Does Bonterra publish pricing?

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

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.

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.

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 Bonterra

More on CommCare

Keep looking

Other head to heads