Nonprofits · pricing
Candid pricing
Candid publishes 3 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.
As of 31 August 2026, Candid pricing is $219/month across 3 published tiers. Figures are the vendor's list prices as recorded on this page's last check; the vendor's site is the final word.
- Entry price
- $219/month
- Model
- Per user per month by tier
- Tiers
- 3
- Free tier
- Not on record
Candid plans, side by side
Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foundation Directory Essential | $219/month | 4 | Entry tier |
| Foundation Directory Professional | $1499/month | 4 | +$1280/month, 4 more features |
| Data licensing | On request | 3 | Priced on request |
What each tier adds
The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.
Foundation Directory Essential
$219/monthThe entry tier. It covers search us grantmakers and grant records, saved searches and prospect lists, single user, annual commitment available at a lower monthly rate.
Foundation Directory Professional
$1499/monthOver Foundation Directory Essential, this tier adds:
- Full grantmaker, grant and recipient search
- Trustee and key staff search
- Advanced filters and larger exports
- Multiple user options
Data licensing
On requestOver Foundation Directory Professional, this tier adds:
- API and bulk data feeds
- Charity check and organisation verification
- Priced by volume and use case, quoted
What the product covers
The full Candid feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.
Other
- Foundation Directory
- 990 based grant records
- Nonprofit Profiles
- Charity check
- Data APIs and bulk feeds
- Candid Learning
- Funding Information Network
People bring Candid in for a development director building a list of foundations that have actually funded organisations of your size, sector and geography in the past three years, a funder verifying us tax exempt status before releasing a grant payment, a software vendor embedding nonprofit organisation data and charity verification into its own product, a nonprofit maintaining a transparency seal on its public profile because institutional funders check it before giving. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Candid are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Nonprofits
Too few nonprofits tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candid (this page) | $219/month | Per user per month by tier | - | |
| CommCare | $100/month | Per month by mobile user count | - | vs Candid |
| Foundant Technologies | On request | quote | - | vs Candid |
| SmartSimple Cloud | On request | quote | - | vs Candid |
| CharityEngine | On request | quote | - | vs Candid |
| Sumac | On request | quote | - | vs Candid |
| Keela | On request | Per month by contact count | - | vs Candid |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Candid badges page.
Before you pay for Candid
Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.
What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 3 tiers between $219/month and On request, with the jump itemised above. With no free tier on record, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to compare Candid against the tools that do have one before committing.
Candid runs on web, api, and is published by Candid of New York, New York, United States. The full record is on the Candid review, and the rest of the category is under best nonprofits tools.
Candid pricing questions
- How much does Candid cost?
- Candid publishes 3 tiers, from $219/month for Foundation Directory Essential up to On request for Data licensing. The cheapest paid tier is $219/month.
- Does Candid have a free plan?
- Not on the record we hold: Candid is listed as Per user per month by tier. Whether a free trial is offered is not something this record captures, so check the vendor's site.
- What is the difference between Foundation Directory Essential and Foundation Directory Professional on Candid?
- Foundation Directory Professional costs $1499/month against $219/month, and adds full grantmaker, grant and recipient search, trustee and key staff search, advanced filters and larger exports, multiple user options.
- Is the Data licensing plan on Candid worth it?
- That depends entirely on whether you need what it adds, which on the published record is api and bulk data feeds, charity check and organisation verification, priced by volume and use case, quoted. It costs On request against $219/month for Foundation Directory Essential. Softwr has not used either tier, so this page can tell you what changes, not whether it is worth the difference to you.
- Which nonprofits tools can I use without paying?
- 2 of the 8 nonprofits tools listed alongside Candid have a free tier: Give Lively, OpenGrants.
- What am I actually paying for with Candid?
- The record lists 7 features across 1 area: other. In practice it is brought in for a development director building a list of foundations that have actually funded organisations of your size, sector and geography in the past three years, a funder verifying us tax exempt status before releasing a grant payment, a software vendor embedding nonprofit organisation data and charity verification into its own product.
- Does Candid charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 3 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
- Are these Candid prices current?
- They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
- What should I compare Candid against before paying?
- The closest nonprofits tools in this directory are CommCare, Foundant Technologies, SmartSimple Cloud, CharityEngine. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Candid covering price, platforms and features.