Aplosvs
QuickBooks
QuickBooks: Cheaper and far more widely supported by accountants, if you can live with tracking funds by class
Aplos
Fund accounting for nonprofits and churches, with donor management and online giving attached
As of 31 August 2026, Aplos's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. Accounting software built around fund and restricted gift tracking rather than general bookkeeping, sold with a donor database and giving pages. Softwr lists it under Nonprofits. Aplos is made by Aplos Software, available on Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Aplos does
Aplos is a cloud accounting platform for nonprofits and churches, based in Fresno, California. Its core is fund accounting: separate tracking of unrestricted, temporarily restricted and permanently restricted funds, with reporting shaped to the statements a nonprofit board and auditor expect rather than the profit and loss a business needs. Around that it sells donor management, online donation pages, contribution statements and event registration. The distinction that matters is the direction of travel. Most nonprofit systems are donor databases that later added bookkeeping exports, and they treat restricted funds as a tag on a gift. Aplos treats the fund as a dimension of the ledger, so a grant with spending restrictions is enforced in the accounts rather than tracked in a parallel spreadsheet. For an organisation whose auditor keeps raising restricted fund reporting, that is the entire argument, and it is why Aplos wins against a general ledger like QuickBooks plus a donor CRM even though that pairing is cheaper on paper. Aplos acquired the Canadian nonprofit CRM Keela in 2023, which tells you where the product is heading: an accounting spine with a fundraising front end joined to it. A buyer evaluating Aplos and Keela separately should know they are evaluating one company. The trade off is depth on the fundraising side. Aplos donor management is competent record keeping, not the segmentation and automation a serious fundraising programme runs on, so larger development teams keep a dedicated CRM and use Aplos purely for the books.
What people use it for
- A nonprofit whose auditor has raised restricted fund reporting as a finding
- A church tracking contributions, designated funds and giving statements in one system
- A small organisation replacing QuickBooks plus a spreadsheet of fund balances
- An Aplos and Keela buyer wanting gifts to post from the CRM into the ledger without export
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Aplos.
- The donor management side is record keeping rather than fundraising software, so any organisation running segmented appeals or automation will still buy a CRM and pay twice.
- It is not a general ledger for complex structures, so multi entity groups, consolidations and intercompany transactions push organisations back to a mainstream accounting package.
- Higher tiers are needed for the budgeting and custom reporting many buyers assume are standard, so the entry price is rarely the real price.
- Payroll is handled through a partner rather than natively, which adds a vendor and a reconciliation step for organisations with staff.
- The bookkeeper ecosystem is far smaller than QuickBooks, so finding an accountant already fluent in the product is harder and handover after staff turnover takes longer.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Aplos
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- AplosvsBloomerang
Bloomerang: Better choice when the real problem is donor retention and fundraising rather than the books
- AplosvsBlackbaud Raiser's Edge
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge: Enterprise option when fundraising complexity, not accounting, is the constraint
Pricing
What Aplos costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Aplos
On request
- Published monthly tiers separating core accounting from the full suite
- Advanced accounting, budgeting by fund and custom reporting sit in higher tiers
- Card and bank processing on donations charged separately
- Annual billing reduces the monthly rate
Capabilities
Features
Fund accounting ledger
Tracks restricted and unrestricted funds as a dimension of the general ledger
Nonprofit financial statements
Statement of financial position and activities in the format boards and auditors expect
Donor management
Contact records, giving history and annual contribution statements
Online giving pages
Hosted donation and recurring gift forms feeding directly into the ledger
Budgeting by fund
Sets and reports budgets per fund or programme rather than only organisation wide
Church tools
Contribution tracking, people management and giving statements for congregations
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is Aplos an accounting system or a CRM?
Primarily fund accounting. The donor management is included but shallow compared with a dedicated nonprofit CRM.
What is the relationship with Keela?
Aplos acquired Keela in 2023. The two are being integrated, so a buyer comparing them is comparing products from one company.
Can it replace QuickBooks?
For a single entity nonprofit, usually yes, and it handles restricted funds far better. For multi entity consolidation, no.
Does it handle payroll?
Through a partner integration rather than natively, so payroll is an extra subscription and an extra reconciliation.
Keep looking
Where to go from Aplos
- Aplos alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Aplos pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Aplos badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Nonprofits softwareThe full category
- Best Nonprofits softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Nonprofits software for
Compare Aplos with
- Blackbaud Raiser's Edge
- Bloomerang
- CharityEngine
- Sumac
- NeonCRM
- DonorPerfect
- Salesforce for Nonprofits
- Little Green Light
- Kindful
- Network for Good
- Virtuous
- CiviCRM
- Fundraise Up
- Get Connected
- Give Lively
- GiveSmart
- Google Nonprofit Tools
- InitLive
Other Nonprofits software
Nonprofit CRM with its own in-house payment processing rather than a third-party gateway
Pricing on request12 researched notesModular nonprofit CRM that pairs donor management with client case management
Pricing on request12 researched notesAffordable donor management for small nonprofits
Free, then $45/mo13 researched notesOpen source constituent relationship management for nonprofits, with no per contact or per donation fee
Open source12 researched notesDonation checkout layer that replaces the giving form on an existing nonprofit website
12 researched notesFundraising software given free to nonprofits, funded by its founders rather than by fees
Free plan12 researched notesMobile bidding and event fundraising for charity auctions and galas
Pricing on request12 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Aplos, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Aplos
Aplos alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Aplos pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Aplos
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Aplos badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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