Softwr

Nonprofits · head to head

CommCare vs Keela

CommCare logo

CommCare

Nonprofits

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

From
$100/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Keela logo

Keela

Nonprofits

Nonprofit CRM and fundraising platform with Canadian tax receipting built in

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.; Keela pricing scales with contact count, so a charity that keeps twenty years of lapsed donors pays every month for records it never contacts, and the only fix is deleting history it may need for reporting.
  • They diverge on capability: CommCare covers Case management, Keela covers Donor records and segmentation.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CommCare and Keela actually diverge.

Attributes where CommCare and Keela differ
AttributeCommCareKeela
Starting price$100/monthOn request
Pricing modelPer month by mobile user countPer month by contact count
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 Keela

  • Donor records and segmentation
  • CRA and IRS receipting
  • Donation forms and pages
  • Email and automation
  • Grant and pledge tracking
  • Reporting dashboards

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

Keela

  • A Canadian registered charity that must issue CRA compliant receipts without building templates itselfnot CommCare
  • A development team of two to five people replacing spreadsheets and a mailing toolnot CommCare
  • An organisation already running Aplos fund accounting that wants gifts to post through automaticallynot CommCare
  • A bilingual charity sending French and English donor communications from one contact listnot 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.

Keela

  • Pricing scales with contact count, so a charity that keeps twenty years of lapsed donors pays every month for records it never contacts, and the only fix is deleting history it may need for reporting.
  • The email marketing tools are adequate for donor appeals but weaker than a dedicated platform, so organisations with heavy newsletter programmes end up paying for a second tool and syncing lists.
  • Custom reporting is limited to the fields and filters Keela exposes, so questions the product did not anticipate require exporting to a spreadsheet.
  • The integration list is short next to Salesforce or Blackbaud, so a charity running an unusual event, membership or advocacy tool will be moving data by CSV.
  • Since the 2023 Aplos acquisition the roadmap serves a combined accounting and fundraising suite, so investment favours the accounting join rather than standalone CRM depth.

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

Keela

On request
  • Keela$undefined/month
    • Published tiers priced by number of contacts held, not by user seat
    • Higher tiers unlock automation, custom fields and additional reporting
    • Card processing is charged separately by the payment processor

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 Keela if

  • You need donor records and segmentation.
  • You also want cra and irs receipting.
Keela review

Questions people ask

Is CommCare or Keela better?
Neither clearly leads. CommCare starts at $100/month and Keela at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CommCare or Keela?
CommCare starts at $100/month and Keela at On request.
Does CommCare or Keela run on more platforms?
CommCare runs on Android, Web. Keela 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 Keela is typically brought in for.
What can CommCare do that Keela cannot?
CommCare covers Case management, Offline-first mobile app, App builder, Multi-language support. Keela covers Donor records and segmentation, CRA and IRS receipting, Donation forms and pages, Email and automation.

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.

Keela: Does Keela issue CRA compliant tax receipts?

Yes, receipt numbering, required wording and batch issuance are built in, which is the main reason Canadian charities choose it over US products.

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.

Keela: Who owns Keela?

Aplos Software, a US fund accounting vendor, acquired it in 2023. Keela is still sold as its own product but shares a roadmap with Aplos.

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.

Keela: Is pricing per user?

No, it is by contact count. Adding staff does not raise the bill, growing the mailing list 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.

Keela: Can it replace a fund accounting system?

No. It records income and pledges but does not do fund accounting, so you still need Aplos, QuickBooks or an equivalent.

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 CommCare

More on Keela

Keep looking

Other head to heads