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Nonprofits · head to head

CommCare vs Fundraise Up

CommCare logo

CommCare

Nonprofits

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

From
$100/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Fundraise Up logo

Fundraise Up

Nonprofits

Donation checkout layer that replaces the giving form on an existing nonprofit website

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Fundraise Up the fee is a percentage of donations, so cost rises exactly as the product succeeds, and a single large gift routed through the checkout carries the same rate as a twenty pound one unless the agreement caps it.
  • They diverge on capability: CommCare covers Case management, Fundraise Up covers Embedded donation checkout.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CommCare and Fundraise Up actually diverge.

Attributes where CommCare and Fundraise Up differ
AttributeCommCareFundraise Up
Starting price$100/monthOn request
Pricing modelPer month by mobile user countPercentage of each donation
PlatformsAndroid, WebWeb

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 CommCare

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

Only in Fundraise Up

  • Embedded donation checkout
  • Digital wallet payments
  • Recurring gift upgrade prompts
  • Multi currency and multi language
  • Donor covered fees
  • CRM sync

What people use each for

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

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 Fundraise Up
  • A ministry of health digitising a national frontline protocol and requiring in-region data hosting for legal reasonsnot Fundraise Up
  • An NGO running the same intervention in four countries that needs one application, several languages and consolidated reportingnot Fundraise Up
  • 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 Fundraise Up

Fundraise Up

  • A charity with a working CRM and website that wants to raise online conversion without replatformingnot CommCare
  • An international organisation needing donors to give in local currency and languagenot CommCare
  • A campaign pushing one time givers into monthly recurring support at the point of donationnot CommCare
  • A digital team that can measure conversion before and after and justify a percentage fee with datanot CommCare

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Fundraise Up

  • The fee is a percentage of donations, so cost rises exactly as the product succeeds, and a single large gift routed through the checkout carries the same rate as a twenty pound one unless the agreement caps it.
  • It is a checkout, not a CRM, so it is always an additional cost on top of a donor database rather than a replacement for one.
  • Donor covered fee opt in rates vary widely by audience, so an organisation with an older or offline leaning donor base absorbs more of the fee than the sales model assumes.
  • Design control is limited to what the embedded component exposes, so brand teams that want full control over the giving experience will hit boundaries.
  • Live recurring gift authorisations are held in the platform, which makes leaving considerably harder than adopting, because migrating active mandates risks lapsing donors.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Fundraise Up

On request
  • Fundraise Up$undefined/year
    • Platform fee taken as a percentage of every donation processed
    • Card processing billed separately on top of the platform fee
    • Optional donor covered fee prompt shifts the cost to the giver rather than removing it

Which should you pick?

Choose CommCare if

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

Choose Fundraise Up if

  • You need embedded donation checkout.
  • You also want digital wallet payments.
Fundraise Up review

Questions people ask

Is CommCare or Fundraise Up better?
Neither clearly leads. CommCare starts at $100/month and Fundraise Up at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CommCare or Fundraise Up?
CommCare starts at $100/month and Fundraise Up at On request.
Does CommCare or Fundraise Up run on more platforms?
CommCare runs on Android, Web. Fundraise Up runs on Web.
What is CommCare best used for?
CommCare is most often used for 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 represent, a ministry of health digitising a national frontline protocol and requiring in-region data hosting for legal reasons, an ngo running the same intervention in four countries that needs one application, several languages and consolidated reporting, 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 requirement. Of those, 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 represent and a ministry of health digitising a national frontline protocol and requiring in-region data hosting for legal reasons are not what Fundraise Up is typically brought in for.
What can CommCare do that Fundraise Up cannot?
CommCare covers Case management, Offline-first mobile app, App builder, Multi-language support. Fundraise Up covers Embedded donation checkout, Digital wallet payments, Recurring gift upgrade prompts, Multi currency and multi language.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Fundraise Up: Is Fundraise Up a CRM?

No. It is a donation checkout that syncs into a CRM you already run, so budget for both.

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.

Fundraise Up: How does it charge?

A percentage of each donation, plus separately billed card processing. There is no flat licence that insulates you from volume.

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.

Fundraise Up: Does the donor covered fee option remove the cost?

It shifts it. When donors opt in they pay the platform and processing fee; when they do not, the charity does.

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.

Fundraise Up: What happens to recurring donors if we leave?

Active recurring authorisations sit with the platform and its processor, and migrating them is the part of an exit most organisations underestimate.

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.

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