Donorfy vs HubSpot for non-profits

Donorfy CRM is very popular for non-profits, it comes straight out of the box with a bunch of relevant tools and features. HubSpot, on the other hand, is a CRM not necessarily directed at the non-profit sector, but due to the large amount of customisation, it can be tailored to fit non-profits easily.

In this blog we're going to be looking at the features of both CRMs comparatively, and giving our suggestion on what might be the best choice for you.

Features

Donorfy

Main features include:

Contact/company management
Transaction management (with Stripe)
Connections between contacts & companies
Task creation
Templated emails
Campaigns
Lists (with conditional filtering)
Forms (3 in essential, unlimited in pro)
'Opportunities' (deal pipeline - pro feature only)
Data management
'Triggers' (automation - 3 in essential, unlimited in pro)
Reporting

HubSpot

Main features include:

Contact/company management
Associations between contacts, companies, deals and tickets
Task creation
Conversations inbox for non-marketing emails (including templates)
Email marketing
Campaigns
Lists (with conditional filtering)
Forms
2 deal pipelines
Ticket pipeline
Data management
Automation (pro feature only)
Reporting (single and multi object)
Personalisations tokens
Chatbots
CMS
Blog
Landing pages

Both HubSpot and Donorfy CRMs have quite similar features. Notably, Donorfy offers transaction management, a feature currently only available to US customers of HubSpot, but this will be rolling out in the UK and rest of world very soon.

HubSpot on the other hand offers email marketing where as Donorfy does not, however both do offer integrations with popular email marketing companies such as MailChimp. HubSpot also offers a ticket pipeline, which is fully customisable and adds up to a total of 3 completely customisable pipelines available, including the deal pipelines.

HubSpot also includes 'personalisation tokens', these essentially use information from the CRM to personalise certain content. So for example, you could create one marketing email that goes out to thousands of people, and each of the people receiving the email will see their own first name, their own previous donation amount, the last date they donated, and so on...

Integrations

The ability to integrate your CRM system to other systems you use is key. So let's take a look at the integrations available for both Donorfy and HubSpot.

Donorfy

Donorfy's standard, pre built integrations include:

Mailchimp
Eventbrite
JustGiving
Facebook/Instagram
Stripe
GoCardless
Loqate
Xero
Gift Aid
Virgin Money Giving
PayPal

Donorfy also has an open API to allow for custom integrations to be built, you can learn more about their integrations here.

HubSpot

HubSpot has their own ecosystem of apps and integrations, these range from being built by HubSpot and by other companies due to their simple open API. Their ecosystem has hundreds of integrations, if not thousands, to suit almost any need. For that reason I won't list them in this blog, however you can view their app ecosystem here.

Cost

So now you've got an idea of the CRMs, let's crunch some numbers.

Donorfy - view their pricing page here

Donorfy have two packages, 'essentials' and 'professional'. Essentials is free of charge with up to 500 constituents, whereas professional ranges from £65 p/month with up to 500 constituents, all the way to £2,133 p/month with up to 500,000 constituents - with lots of intervals in between.

HubSpot - view their pricing page here

The HubSpot pricing is a little more complex, they have 5 'hubs', these consist of marketing hub, sales hub, service hub, CMS hub, and operations hub. These hubs are available at three levels: starter, professional, and enterprise - all of which are paid for (although HubSpot do offer a free version, which essentially includes a taster of all of the different hubs). You then also have the option to buy all of the hubs together at a discounted price, or you can pick and choose which hubs you want, at what level, and which hubs you don't want.

The prices therefore vary due to the customisation, but to give you some figures, the standard starter bundle will cost £38 p/month, the standard professional bundle will cost £1,314 p/month, and enterprise will cost £4110 p/month.

Conclusion

Now whilst I am a part of a HubSpot Solutions Partner, I'm going to try and give my unbiased view on the CRMs. It appears to be quite clear cut to me, in that the best option for price is Donorfy, and the best option for scalability is HubSpot.

I think for non-profits just starting, Donorfy's free option is a great option. It has key integrations available, allows you to hold a decent amount of constituents, and has a lot of great features to get your feet off the ground - this is impressive for a free CRM.

However, HubSpot has a much wider range of tools available, but these do come with a price. That being said, the starter tools can get you a long way, and these still give you key features such as forms, a blog, deal pipelines... These tools can get you a long way as a non-profit, and there's a lot of room to add tools as you scale.

It's important to remember that your choice doesn't necessarily have to be permanent. Whilst it is much easier to pick one CRM and stick with it, it is still possible to switch - in fact I've handled a data migration from Donorfy to HubSpot in the past for a non-profit client and whilst it can be rather tedious, it is most definitely doable.