We focus exclusively on silent auctions. No ticketing, no CRM, no peer-to-peer module — and that's why 130,500+ causes pick us. Free base auction, about $170 per event.
"Almost double last year." — Sarah, PTA Pres.
The term "fundraising event platform" usually means "all-in-one suite" — ticketing, table assignment, registration, peer-to-peer fundraising, live and silent auction, text-to-give, donor CRM, donation forms, livestreaming, mobile-bidder app, and a dozen other modules bundled into one product with custom enterprise pricing. For large nonprofits running year-round event calendars across multiple formats, those suites earn their price. For everyone else — the vast majority of organizations running 1-4 silent-auction-focused events per year — the all-in-one suite is paying for tools you don't use to subsidize the one tool you do.
32auctions takes the opposite approach: do silent auctions extremely well, integrate with whatever you already use for ticketing, CRM, and other tools. Eventbrite for tickets at $50/event. Mailchimp or your existing email tool for promotion. Your existing donor CRM (Bloomerang, Salesforce, Raiser's Edge, HubSpot) for donor records — fed by clean CSV exports from our platform. The focused-tool approach typically costs 80-90% less than the all-in-one suite while delivering equal or better quality on the auction part specifically.
This page covers what we deliberately don't build (and why), what we do build (and why we focus there), how to integrate 32auctions with the other tools in your fundraising stack, transparent pricing, and the answers to questions event organizers ask before choosing between focused tools and all-in-one platforms.
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.
Custom URL auction page. Mobile-first bidding with no app and no account. Real-time bid updates with auto-bidding, outbid alerts (email free, text on upgrade), and live leaderboard. Extended bidding to prevent end-of-auction sniping. Direct Stripe/PayPal payment integration with auto-invoicing. Treasurer-ready CSV exports. Apply Your Brand for full custom branding. Premium Donor & Sponsor Management for logo recognition. Duplicate-auction for multi-year operations. Item bulk import. Advanced insights and analytics. The features that matter for silent auctions, executed at the level you'd expect from a focused product.
We don't build ticketing (use Eventbrite for $50/event — better than any bundled ticketing tool). We don't build full donor CRM (use Bloomerang, Salesforce, Raiser's Edge, HubSpot, or whatever you already use — we feed it via CSV). We don't build peer-to-peer fundraising modules (use Givebutter, Classy, or specialized peer-to-peer tools). We don't build livestreaming (use Vimeo or YouTube Live — both free or cheap). We don't build text-to-give (use Donorbox or your existing donation form). We don't build mobile-bidder apps (we deliberately go app-free to maximize bidder conversion). Each thing we don't build, we don't build because either (a) better tools exist that do that one thing well, or (b) the feature would compromise the focused quality of the auction tooling.
After each auction, export bidder/donor/item/winning-bid data to CSV from your 32auctions dashboard. Import into your CRM via its standard CSV import. We document the export format clearly. For Bloomerang, Salesforce, Raiser's Edge, HubSpot, and other major CRMs, the integration is straightforward — typically 15-30 minutes of work after each auction. For organizations wanting deeper automated integration, the CSV format supports automated processing scripts. We focus on a clean, well-documented data interface rather than building dozens of native integrations that maintain themselves.
All-in-one platforms charge annual fees ranging from $2,000 to $25,000+ regardless of how many events you actually run. 32auctions charges nothing for the base auction and about $170 per event for the Most Popular package. Run one event a year, pay $170 a year in software costs. Run four events, pay $680. Run zero events one year, pay $0. The math works for small and mid-sized organizations where the all-in-one platforms don't.
32auctions has been independent and family-run since 2008, profitable through three recessions and the major industry consolidation wave of 2018-2024. The nonprofit software industry has consolidated heavily over the last decade — many former competitors are now subsidiaries of larger platforms, with predictable price increases and feature deprecation as a result. We're not optimizing for quarterly growth pressure or acquisition exit; we're optimizing for keeping the platform running at the same focused quality at the same affordable price model for as long as our customers need it.
All-in-one platforms typically require 4-8 week implementations with kickoff calls, training sessions, and onboarding consultants. 32auctions doesn't. Sign up, build your auction (30 minutes if your item list is ready), launch. Documentation, help articles, and email support handle every question we've heard a customer ask. For organizations running their first 32auctions event, typical timeline is: sign up Monday, build by Wednesday, launch the following Monday.
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?
The site was easy to set up and worked like a charm for our first fundraiser. The remote bidding features were the best part — administrators could post items in minutes and see who'd bid on what in real time. We raised more than I projected.
No marketing-speak. Just the truth about how the platform actually works for fundraising event platform.
How does 32auctions integrate with our event ticketing tool?
Most ticketing tools (Eventbrite, Greenvelope, RSVPify, custom registration forms) operate independently from your auction platform. Sell tickets via your ticketing tool to a specific event date. On the event date, send attendees the 32auctions auction URL via your ticketing tool's email feature (or a separate email). Attendees bid via the auction URL. No technical integration is required — the two tools coexist via your communication channels. For organizations wanting tighter integration, export attendee lists from your ticketing tool and pre-populate bidder records in 32auctions via the bulk-import feature.
Can 32auctions handle our entire fundraising event including ticketing?
No — ticketing is not built into 32auctions and isn't on our roadmap. We focus on silent auctions exclusively. For ticketing, use Eventbrite ($1.59 + 3.7% per paid ticket sold) or Greenvelope or your existing tool. The combined cost of Eventbrite for ticketing + 32auctions for the auction is dramatically lower than any all-in-one platform that bundles both.
How does 32auctions integrate with our CRM (Bloomerang, Salesforce, Raiser's Edge)?
Via CSV export and import. After your auction, export bidder/donor/item/winning-bid data from your 32auctions dashboard as CSV. Import into your CRM via its standard CSV import feature. For Bloomerang: use the constituent CSV import. For Salesforce: use Data Loader or the Salesforce-native import. For Raiser's Edge: use the Import module. The CSV format is documented in our help articles. Most CRMs handle this import in 5-15 minutes. For organizations wanting automated integration, the CSV format is consistent enough to support automated processing scripts via your CRM's API.
What if we need ticketing + auction + peer-to-peer + donor management all in one place?
Then 32auctions is not the right platform for you. Look at OneCause, GiveSmart, or Bloomerang Fundraising — they bundle everything into custom enterprise pricing, typically $5,000-$25,000+ per year. For large nonprofits running 6+ events per year with full-time development staff, the bundled approach can earn its price. For most other organizations, the focused-tool approach (32auctions for auctions + Eventbrite for ticketing + Givebutter for peer-to-peer + your existing CRM) costs 80-90% less and delivers equal or better quality on each specific tool.
How do you handle livestreaming for hybrid gala events?
We don't build livestreaming. For hybrid events that need a livestream component, use Vimeo Live or YouTube Live for the video stream and 32auctions for the auction. Display the auction leaderboard on the livestream's overlay graphics or as a picture-in-picture window. Online attendees watch the livestream while bidding on 32auctions. In-person attendees bid from their phones at the venue. This works well for nonprofits where livestreaming is occasional rather than core to operations.
Do you offer event-day staff support?
Email support is available, with typical response time of hours during business days. We don't offer on-site event-day staff or dedicated event consultants — that's a service model we deliberately don't operate (it would require pricing the platform much higher than $170/event). For organizations needing white-glove event-day support, OneCause and GiveSmart offer that service tier at their corresponding price point. Most 32auctions customers operate without dedicated event-day staff because the platform is designed to run autonomously.
Can our event combine an in-person live auction and a 32auctions silent auction?
Yes — many gala events do exactly this. The silent auction runs throughout the dinner program on 32auctions (cocktails through dessert), closing right before the live auction begins. The live auction is run by a professional auctioneer in person, with bids tracked on paper or by an in-house staff member (32auctions doesn't handle live auctions, but the silent auction integrates cleanly with whatever live-auction workflow you use). Total event revenue typically combines silent auction + live auction + paddle raise (fund-a-need) + ticket sales, all tracked separately.
Name it now. Set it up tonight. Share it tomorrow. Free base auction. No credit card. No commitment.