When it comes to online donation platform solutions for Salesforce, three big names come to mind. There are plenty of others beyond these three, but they often have less capacity to integrate with Salesforce and will not be as effective for your organization without this capability. Click & Pledge, Form Assembly + Paypal and Soapbox are reviewed in detail below by our excellent Salesforce consultant, Bill. Ultimately, the decision of which online giving platform to choose will be yours, but here are our thoughts on the matter:
Click & Pledge | Form Assembly + PayPal | Soapbox | |
Recurring Donations | Uses custom C&P object for recurring donations. | Needs a PayPal adjustment, cannot map payment info without custom code. | Uses NPSP Recurring Donations object. |
Setup: | Technical and complex to initially setup, better form building with Gravity forms ($39/yr.) for WordPress users | Drag and Drop. Forms have to be created from scratch, but easy to do so. | Pre-designed templates. |
Virtual Terminal | Allows for charging payments directly out of SF. | N/A | N/A |
Mobile giving | C&P both allows SMS giving and has integration with a mobile payment app. | N/A | N/A |
Peer to Peer | C&P is the only option that allows peer-to-peer giving. | N/A | N/A |
SF Integration | Native integration, temporary Contact records a plus. | Powerful mapping, albeit laborious and complex to initially set up. | Native integration and powerful mapping. |
Pros: | Powerful functionality, multiple payment platforms, only option for peer-to-peer and mobile giving. | Easy to create forms, approachable support, and nuanced SF mapping controls. Easier to id payment details with connector updates. | Provides other tools beyond Donations, such as Event management, mass marketing, and Salesforce Search. |
Cons: | Complex to setup, email support has been poorly reviewed. | Professional plan is limited to PayPal, hard to configure recurring donations. | Can’t charge payments from SF, mappings not as flexible to SF (single object). |
Monthly Price, Software Platform: | $39/year for Gravity forms, otherwise none | $39 (FormAssembly subscription) | $99 (Soapbox subscription) |
Transaction Fees: | $0 (Partner perk) plus 3.00% or 2.75% (dep on plan) | 2.9% + $.30 per (Paypal fees) | Dep. On transaction provider. Authorize.net is appx. $50/mo + 3% |
Which platform is right for your organization is, ultimately, up to you. There will be pros and cons with all three options, and which trade-offs you can make are completely dependent on your nonprofit’s needs. No matter how you choose, 501Partners will be able to maximize your choice.