Nonprofit case management software ranges from free plans to paid systems that charge for each staff member who logs in, every month. Many also add setup, data migration, and training on top.
Advocate prices by the number of people you serve instead. Its organization plans run from $0 to $129 a month, and each program you add has its own plan, from free to $499 a month.
What drives the price of case management software?
The biggest driver is how the vendor counts. Software priced per staff user costs more every time you add a caseworker or let a volunteer log in. Software priced by people served grows with your program instead of your team. Advocate counts people served, so adding staff and volunteers doesn't raise the price.
What does Advocate cost for an organization?
Advocate's organization plans cover applications, case management, messages, volunteers, and events for everyone you serve. The plan you need depends on how many people you serve, how much email you send, and how many volunteers you work with.
- Free: $0 a month, up to 500 people, 2,000 emails a month, 50 volunteers
- Grow: $49 a month, up to 2,500 people, 10,000 emails a month, 250 volunteers
- Scale: $129 a month, up to 5,000 people, 20,000 emails a month, 1,000 volunteers
- Custom: priced to fit, for 5,000+ people
What does a program cost on Advocate?
Programs such as sponsorship, a food pantry, or a fundraiser each have their own Advocate plan, priced by the individuals the program serves and billed annually. A program for up to 50 individuals is free. A program for up to 150 costs $100 a month, and one for up to 500 costs $249 a month.
Advocate counts individuals, not households, so a household of four in a pantry program counts as four. Households come in every size, and counting people keeps pricing fair.
How much of a program budget should go to technology?
A good rule is 4 to 6 percent of a program's budget. For a $100,000 program, that is $4,000 to $6,000 a year. On Advocate, that budget runs the whole program: applications, volunteers, messages, and live impact reporting, rather than software that only keeps notes on people.
What costs come on top of the subscription?
Ask every vendor about setup, migration, training, and usage fees before you compare prices. On Advocate, email is included in your plan. Text messages cost $0.02 a message, paid event tickets carry a fee of 0.5% of ticket sales plus card or ACH processing, and setup by the Advocate team is quoted for your program.
About Advocate
Advocate is nonprofit program software built by Reciprocity in Pontiac, Michigan, for nonprofits across the United States. Program managers use it to take applications, keep one record for each household, send email and texts, run volunteers and events, and run programs such as sponsorship, food pantries, and fundraisers. It counts the households and individuals each program serves while the work happens, and it is free to start.
