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Nonprofits · head to head

CharityEngine vs Fundraise Up

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
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: 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.; 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: CharityEngine covers In-house payment processing, Fundraise Up covers Embedded donation checkout.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where CharityEngine and Fundraise Up differ
AttributeCharityEngineFundraise Up
Pricing modelquotePercentage of each donation

Identical on both: starting price (On request), free tier (No), platforms (Web), 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 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.

CharityEngine

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

Fundraise Up

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

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

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

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 CharityEngine if

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

Choose Fundraise Up if

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

Questions people ask

Is CharityEngine or Fundraise Up better?
Neither clearly leads. CharityEngine starts at On request and Fundraise Up at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CharityEngine or Fundraise Up?
CharityEngine starts at On request and Fundraise Up at On request.
Does CharityEngine or Fundraise Up run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
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 Fundraise Up is typically brought in for.
What can CharityEngine do that Fundraise Up cannot?
CharityEngine covers In-house payment processing, Recurring giving recovery, Direct mail segmentation, Peer-to-peer and events. Fundraise Up covers Embedded donation checkout, Digital wallet payments, Recurring gift upgrade prompts, Multi currency and multi language.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CharityEngine: How long is the contract?

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

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.

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