Free base auction. About $170 per event for the Most Popular package. Skip a year? Pay nothing. No annual contract. The platform 130,500+ causes have chosen since 2008.
"Almost double last year." — Sarah, PTA Pres.
The phrase "fundraising auction platform" describes a product category dominated by annual-subscription pricing — typically $2,000-$25,000 per year — built on the assumption that your organization is running enough events per year to justify it. For some organizations that's true. For most, especially small to mid-sized nonprofits, schools, churches, and sports teams, it isn't. You run one big event a year, maybe two. Annual subscription pricing leaves money on the table that could fund your actual mission.
32auctions inverts that model. The base auction is free forever — you can build, publish, and run a full auction without paying us a dollar (with the trade-off that we display our house ads on the auction page). The Most Popular package costs about $170 per event, which is the standard combination of upgrades most organizers pick (no ads, full branding, expanded items, text notifications). There's no annual subscription, no auto-renewal, no commission on what you raise. You pay only when you actually fundraise.
This page covers the platform itself — how the auction tooling works, the features that drive successful fundraisers, the pricing model in detail, how we compare to annual-subscription platforms like Handbid and OneCause, and the answers to the questions organizers ask before switching from annual contracts to per-event pricing.
Every painful step of a silent auction, rebuilt for how organizers actually run them.
Paper bid sheets. Midnight recounts. The runner who lost the form.
Every bid lands on every device in real time. Auto-bidding, outbid alerts, and a live leaderboard drive the final-minute frenzy. Final totals reconcile themselves the second the auction closes.
Praying donors show up. Praying they brought a checkbook.
Your custom URL is the only thing donors need. No app, no account, no friction. Outbid texts and emails keep them in the auction until the final minute.
Chasing winners for payment for the next three weeks.
When your auction closes, every winner gets their invoice. Most pay by card within an hour through your own Stripe or PayPal account — we never sit in the middle of your money.
Not a kitchen-sink feature list. The capabilities that consistently separate auctions that work from auctions that flop.
Most fundraising auction platforms charge you whether you run zero events or twelve. 32auctions doesn't. Free base auction. About $170 per event when you want the Most Popular upgrade package. Run one auction a year, pay $170 a year. Skip a year, pay $0. Add a second auction one year, pay $340 total. No commission on what you raise. No annual contract that auto-renews while you're not paying attention. No "talk to sales" gate before you can see the price.
Your auction lives at a custom URL — something memorable like 32a.com/your-event — from the moment you create it. Share via email, social, group chats, printed materials. The Apply Your Brand upgrade (included in the Most Popular package) lets you upload your logo, set a custom color scheme, add a banner image, reorder page sections, and customize section headings. The result looks like your organization built the auction, not a SaaS template.
Bids update instantly across every device. Auto-bidding lets engaged donors set a max and walk away while the platform incrementally outbids competitors on their behalf. Outbid alerts (email free, text on upgrade) pull casual bidders back at the moment they're most likely to bid again. Live leaderboard creates final-minute urgency. These engagement mechanics are why fundraising auctions on 32auctions consistently see steady bid distribution across multi-day windows.
When you add the Online Payment Collection upgrade, winner payments process through your organization's own Stripe or PayPal account. Funds deposit on the standard schedule (typically two business days for US accounts). 32auctions adds 2.9% + $0.40 per online payment on top of Stripe/PayPal's own fees. Or use self-managed payments at no 32auctions transaction fee. We never sit in the middle of donations.
Item management with photos, descriptions, starting bids, and bid increments. Bulk-import items from a spreadsheet if you have one from last year. Donor records carry forward across auctions. Treasurer-ready CSV exports cover every line your finance person needs — item, FMV, winning bid, winner contact, payment status. The duplicate-auction feature copies last year's auction whole for relaunch, so multi-year auction programs preserve institutional memory through volunteer and staff turnover.
32auctions has been independent, family-run, and profitable since 2008. The nonprofit software industry has consolidated heavily in the last decade, and that consolidation has produced predictable price increases and feature deprecation at competitor platforms. Our incentives stay aligned with yours: do the auction job extremely well at a price small and mid-sized organizations can afford. Through three recessions and four major industry consolidations, we've kept the platform running at the same affordable price model.
The end-to-end workflow most organizers follow on 32auctions, in the order they follow it.
Create your account. No credit card. Three minutes.
Name it. Pick start and end dates. Choose privacy settings.
Upload photos, write descriptions, set starting bids and bid increments. Import from a spreadsheet if you have one from last year.
Free base supports 20 items with house ads. The Most Popular package (about $170) removes ads, adds branding, expands items and images, unlocks text notifications.
Link your Stripe or PayPal account for automatic winner invoicing, or use self-managed payments at no 32auctions transaction fee.
Share your custom URL via email, text, social media, and printed materials. Auction goes live at your scheduled time.
Real-time insights, live leaderboard, automatic outbid notifications — the platform handles engagement automatically.
When the auction ends, winners are invoiced. Funds deposit. Export your treasurer reports. Send thank-yous.
The full pricing model, plainly stated. Use this to compare against any competitor — we publish ours; most of them require you to talk to sales to find theirs.
Free base auction (free forever): Up to 20 items, 1 image per item, custom auction URL, real-time mobile bidding, outbid email notifications, real-time auction insights, proxy/Buy Now bidding, basic donor and sponsor promotion, unlimited bidders, email support. Funded by house ads displayed on the auction page.
Optional upgrades, à la carte or as packages:
The Most Popular package — about $170 per event: The pre-built combination most organizers pick. Removes house ads, adds your branding, expands items and images, unlocks text notifications.
The Works package: All upgrades bundled, for organizers who want everything.
Transaction fees on payment collection: When you use the Online Payment Collection upgrade, 32auctions adds 2.9% + $0.40 per online payment, on top of whatever Stripe or PayPal charges. Or use self-managed payments (cash, check, your own processor) and pay no 32auctions transaction fee.
What we never charge: No annual contract. No commission on what you raise. No platform fee on donations. No minimums.
Honest, sourced comparison. Pricing changes — verify with each vendor before purchase.
| 32auctions | Handbid | OneCause | GiveSmart | Bloomerang Fundraising | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free (base auction) | From $1,396/yr | From $200 + 5% on funds raised | Custom (no public pricing) | Bundled with CRM (~$3K+/yr) |
| Pricing model | Pay per event (~$170 package) | Annual subscription | Subscription OR pay-as-you-go | Annual subscription | Annual subscription |
| Free tier? | Yes — base auction free forever | No | No | No | No |
| Bidder requires app? | No — web-based | Yes — native iOS/Android app | No — web-based | No — web-based | No — web-based |
| Bidder requires account? | No | Yes (in-app) | Yes (registration) | Yes (registration) | Yes |
| Transaction fee on online payments | 2.9% + $0.40 (32a) on top of Stripe/PayPal — OR $0 with self-managed payments | 3.5% + $0.30 per transaction | 5% pay-later on pay-as-you-go; varies by plan | Custom (sales-led) | 2.9% + $0.30 (standard processing) |
| Years in market | Since 2008 (17+ years) | Since 2010 | Since 2008 | Acquired by Community Brands | Auction tools via Qgiv acquisition |
| Best for | 1-4 events/yr, schools, churches, small/mid nonprofits | Mid-to-large nonprofits with annual gala budgets | Larger nonprofits running multiple events/yr | Large nonprofits, schools, associations | Existing Bloomerang CRM customers |
Pricing and feature data sourced from each vendor's public pricing pages and verified third-party listings on G2, Capterra, and GetApp (Nov 2025-Apr 2026). Pricing changes — always confirm current rates directly with vendors before purchase. 32auctions transaction fees apply only when using the Online Payment Collection upgrade; self-managed payments carry no 32auctions transaction fee.
Stories from preschool PTOs to verified G2 reviewers. The metric we care most about: did they use 32auctions again the next year?
So easy, so smooth, and so fun. Our preschool has used them for many, many years for the biggest fundraiser of our school year — and every year it just works. Entering items is simple. The presentation to our families is great. Wrapping it up is easy.
No marketing-speak. Just the truth about how the platform actually works for fundraising auction platform.
Why per-event pricing instead of an annual subscription?
Because most fundraising organizations don't run events year-round. School PTAs run one big auction a year. Churches run a fundraiser for a specific cause maybe twice a year. Small nonprofits run one annual gala. For those organizations — the majority of the market — annual subscriptions priced for year-round operations don't make sense. Per-event pricing aligns the cost with the actual fundraising activity. You pay $170 when you raise money. You pay $0 when you don't.
What's the catch with the free base auction?
House ads on the auction page. That's the entire catch. The free base auction is fully functional — custom URL, mobile bidding, item gallery, outbid email notifications, real-time insights, proxy bidding, Buy Now, sponsor promotion, unlimited bidders, email support. We display our house ads on the page, and that's how we fund the free tier. If you want those ads removed (most organizers eventually do, because a clean branded page converts marginally better), the Most Popular package at $170 per event removes ads and adds branding, more items, more images, and text notifications.
How does the per-event price stay flat over time?
We've maintained roughly the same pricing model since 2008. The per-event packages have evolved (we've added upgrades like Text Notifications and Premium Donor & Sponsor Management as we built them), but the base economics — free auction with house ads, around $170 for the Most Popular package — have stayed remarkably stable. The reason: we're independent and family-run, not optimizing for quarterly growth pressure. Competitor platforms acquired by private equity or rolled into larger fundraising software suites tend to increase prices 10-15% per year; we don't operate on that model.
Can we run multiple simultaneous auctions on one account?
Yes. There's no limit to the number of auctions in your dashboard. Each auction is priced separately when you add upgrades. Schools that run a fall auction and a spring auction, for example, run both as separate auctions in the same dashboard. Returning organizers often use the duplicate-auction feature to copy the previous year's auction and relaunch it for the new year.
Is there a discount for nonprofits, schools, or churches?
The standard pricing — free base, about $170 per event — is already priced for nonprofit-scale spending. There's no separate nonprofit discount because the standard pricing is already designed for nonprofits, schools, churches, and small organizations. No special application, no nonprofit verification, no "contact sales for nonprofit pricing" gate. Sign up and the pricing you see is the pricing you pay.
What happens to my data if I don't renew (since there's nothing to renew)?
Your data stays in your 32auctions account permanently. There's no annual renewal because there's no annual subscription — your account is yours indefinitely whether you ran one auction last year or none. Sign back in at any time and your past auctions, donor records, and reports are still there. The duplicate-auction feature works on auctions from years ago, so if you skip 2026 and come back in 2027, you can still copy your 2025 auction and relaunch from where you left off.
Do you offer multi-event discounts?
Not in the traditional sense — there's no annual contract to discount. But the per-event pricing is already so much lower than competitor platforms that multi-event organizations save dramatically without needing a discount. A nonprofit running four auctions a year pays about $680 in software costs on 32auctions Most Popular package; on Handbid or OneCause the same four auctions would cost $5,000-$15,000 per year. The savings exceed what any multi-event discount could provide.
Name it now. Set it up tonight. Share it tomorrow. Free base auction. No credit card. No commitment.