If you’re looking to buy fundraising auction software, here’s a list of current vendors.
Software is helpful for managing and tracking ticket sales and sponsorships, organizing silent auction and live auction donations and packages, tracking fund a need / paddle raise donations, and more. And if you want to offer mobile bidding, I think nearly all of these vendors now offer that as a feature, too.
Larger organizations then dump the data from their auction software into their CRM or donor management systems.
It’s been five years since I last published a list of auction software vendors, so here’s the current list.
I’m offering this list without comment on any of the vendors. But if you’re a current client, I’m happy to give you my thoughts about which vendor is best for you, given their reputation for service.
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Listed in alphabetical order
- 32auctions (Madison, WI) https://www.32auctions.com/
- AuctionHarmony (Brooklyn Park, MN) https://www.auctionharmony.com/
- Auction & Events Solutions (AES) (Plano, TX) https://aaesauctions.com/
- Auction Frogs (Garden City, ID) https://auctionfrogs.org/ – acquired by Lumaverse Technologies in 2022 but still operating as Auction Frogs
- Auction Systems / Auction! (Colorado Springs, CO) https://www.auctionsystems.com/
- Auctria, formerly known as Charity Auction Organizer (Ontario, Canada) https://www.auctria.com/
- AuctionZoom / BidStation (Vancouver, Canada) https://auctionzoom.com/
- Benefit Events (Storrs Mansfield, CT) https://benefitevents.com/
- Better Unite (Austin, TX) https://betterunite.com/ – like some other on this list, this leans towards donor management/CRM software as its targeting more than just auctions
- BidCoz (Nashville, TN) https://causepilot.com/ – CausePilot is a division of Common Good Fundraising LLC
- Bidding For Good (Claymont, DE) https//biddingforgood.com/ – Acquired by FrontStream Holdings in 2015
- BiddingOwl.com (Gaylord, MI) https://www.biddingowl.com/
- Bid-Partner.com (Buffalo, MN) https://bidpartner.net/
- Charity Auctions Today (Chicago, IL) https://www.charityauctionstoday.com/
- ClickBid (Norton Shores, MI) https://clickbidonline.com/
- Event.Gives (formerly Bidr.com) (Charleston, SC) – affiliated with BlackBaud
- GalaBid (Blandford Forum, England; office in Stoneham, MA) https://www.crowdcomms.com/
- Givergy.com (London, UK; office in Atlanta, GA) https://www.givergy.com/ – formerly Daana.
- GiveSmart (St. Petersburg, FL) https://www.givesmart.com/ – owned by Community Brands. Community Brands bought 3 auction software vendors in 2017: 1) Gesture (formerly known as Auctions By Cellular, or ABC) in Westmont, IL. 2) GiveSmart in Atlanta, GA, and 3) 501Auctions in New York, NY.
- GreaterGiving (Portland, OR) https://www.greatergiving.com/ – owned by Global Payments
- Handbid App (Centennial, CO) https://www.handbid.com/
- iBidMobile.net (New York, NY) https://info.ibidmobile.net/
- MaestroSoft.com (Bellevue, WA) https://www.maestrosoft.com/ – owned by Arreva LLC
- MaxGiving LLC, formerly AuctionTracker (Boise, ID) https://maxgiving.com – On December 31, 2017 Northwest Software Technologies, Inc., the owner of AuctionTracker, was wholly acquired by and became a division of MaxGiving.
- OneCause (formerly Bidpal) (Carmel, IN) https://www.onecause.com
- PayBee (Menlo Park, CA) https://w.paybee.io/
- Points of Charity Software (Placentia, CA) – https://www.auctionabc.com/
- Qgiv (Lakeland, FL) https://www.qgiv.com/ – Qgiv is a company focused on peer-to-peer giving applications. CRM companies (like Bloomerang and DonorPerfect) partner with them for this functionality. Qgiv launched an auction component in late 2019. If your nonprofit already uses Qgiv, you might be inclined to use this component.
- QTEGO (Indianapolis, IN) https://qtego.com/
- RallyUp (Tucson, AZ) https://rallyup.com/
- Ready Set Auction / RSA (Fort Washington, PA) https://www.readysetauction.com/ – RSA is a division of SofterWare, Inc., which owns DonorPerfect, EZCamp, & other nonprofit/school software
- School Auction (Portland, OR) https://schoolauction.net/ – owned by Northworld LLC
- Salesforce (San Francisco, CA) https://www.salesforce.com/ – SalesForce is a CRM platform and other companies have designed programs to feed information into it. DJH Consulting has built a free app called “Auctions for Salesforce.” If your nonprofit already uses SalesForce, you might be inclined or required to use “Auctions for Salesforce,” but no nonprofit should buy SalesForce just to use the auction app.
- S3 One Goal (Bryan, TX) https://s3onegoal.com/ – from SWICO Software Solutions. Cloud based software for commercial and benefit auctions.
- Silent Auction Pro (Clearwater, FL) https://Silentauctionpro.com/ – owned by TahoePeaks, Inc
- Trellis, Inc. (Kelowna, BC CANADA) https://@trellis.org – licensed for raffles in most Canadian provinces
- We Do Charity Auctions (Indianapolis, IN) https://wedocharityauctions.com/
what are your thoughts on Maestrosoft? I have not had great customer service. thanks
The good news is that there are so many software companies, you can find one at a price and service level that work for you. If you’re unhappy with Maestro, you can shift easily. I don’t think you’d even need an expert’s opinion, because it’s your experience you’re basing this on. When visiting with my clients, I will ask them what they really want. EG: Some software companies have teams of people that they can send out to work your registration and checkout; others don’t. Some nonprofits want a thermometer; others don’t. It seems service ranks high for you, so I’d be asking about their support. Overall, I think software is great for assisting with checkout and maintaining the historical records of an event. About 60% of my clients also use the mobile bidding feature that is found in most software systems.