Free base auction. About $170 per event for the Most Popular package. No annual contract. The platform behind 53,000+ nonprofit auctions since 2008.
"Almost double last year." — Sarah, PTA Pres.
An online auction platform for nonprofits has to clear three bars at once: it has to satisfy a board's expectations of professionalism (clean branded page, transparent pricing, fiscal responsibility), it has to satisfy a development director's expectations of features (mobile bidding, auto-bidding, outbid alerts, donor-CRM integration via export), and it has to satisfy a treasurer's expectations of clean reporting and direct payment flows (no platform commissions, treasurer-ready CSV exports, payments deposited directly to the nonprofit's own account). 32auctions clears all three at a price that doesn't require a board fight.
53,000+ nonprofit auctions have run on 32auctions since 2008. Customers include the American Cancer Society, Habitat for Humanity, United Way, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and the Honolulu Zoo Society — alongside thousands of small to mid-sized nonprofits that don't have an enterprise software budget. The platform was specifically built for nonprofits where the auction is a significant event and the budget for "auction software" is constrained.
This page covers what nonprofit boards, development directors, and treasurers each care about — and how the platform delivers on each. Plus transparent pricing, side-by-side comparison to enterprise platforms (Handbid, OneCause, GiveSmart, Bloomerang Fundraising), and the answers to the questions nonprofit teams ask before switching from enterprise platforms or paper-based auctions.
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.
Boards approve 32auctions on first review because the cost is straightforward and small. Free base auction. About $170 per event for the Most Popular package. No annual subscription. No commission on what you raise. No platform fee on donations. No minimums. The total annual software cost for most nonprofits running 1-3 auctions per year is $170-$510 — versus $2,000-$25,000+ on enterprise platforms. Board-meeting line item is straightforward to explain and easy to approve.
Auto-bidding, outbid notifications (email free, text on upgrade), live leaderboard, real-time insights, donor and sponsor management, item performance data. Everything a development director expects to drive successful auctions. For CRM integration with Bloomerang, Salesforce, Raiser's Edge, HubSpot, or other systems your nonprofit already uses, the auction export is a clean CSV that imports cleanly into any major nonprofit CRM. We don't replace your CRM — we feed it.
Payments process directly through your nonprofit's own Stripe or PayPal account when you add Online Payment Collection. Funds deposit on the standard schedule into your nonprofit's bank account. 32auctions adds a 2.9% + $0.40 transaction fee per online payment on top of Stripe/PayPal's own fees. Or use self-managed payments (cash, check, your existing processor) at no 32auctions transaction fee. Treasurer-ready CSV exports give you every line a typical nonprofit treasurer or auditor expects — item, FMV, winning bid, winner contact, payment status, fees.
Boards want auctions that look like the nonprofit, not like a generic platform. The Apply Your Brand upgrade (included in the Most Popular package) gives you custom logo, custom color scheme, custom banner image, reorder-able page sections, customizable section headings, and optional custom domain pointing. The result is an auction page that meets board expectations of professionalism — and that sponsors prefer to be associated with (which directly drives sponsor retention).
For nonprofits issuing tax-deductible receipts to donors, the auction export includes everything needed for compliant receipt generation: item, fair-market-value (FMV), winning bid, winner contact, and payment status. The portion of the winning bid above FMV is generally tax-deductible to the donor; the FMV portion is not (since the donor received goods or services of that value). 32auctions doesn't issue receipts on your nonprofit's behalf (we can't verify status), but the data flow supports your existing receipt-issuance workflow.
Enterprise 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. The platform's documentation, help articles, and email support handle every question we've heard a nonprofit ask. For larger nonprofits running their first 32auctions event, the 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 online auction platform for nonprofits.
Will our board approve a platform without an annual contract?
In our experience, yes — usually faster than for an annual-contract platform. The argument is straightforward: free base auction means we can test the platform with zero financial commitment. About $170 per event for the upgraded version means a board-meeting line item smaller than the catering budget for a single committee meeting. Compared to a $5,000-$25,000 annual contract that requires multi-quarter justification, $170 per event sails through approval. The lack of multi-year commitment is actually an argument in favor — the board can revisit the choice any time without contract liability.
How does payment processing affect our nonprofit's audit?
Cleanly. Payments go from donor to your nonprofit's own Stripe or PayPal account directly. We don't sit in the middle. Your treasurer sees Stripe/PayPal deposits that match auction winners exactly, with full transaction history available in your Stripe or PayPal dashboard. The 2.9% + $0.40 32auctions transaction fee shows as a separate line item in your Stripe records, making reconciliation straightforward. Most nonprofits using 32auctions report clean audits — the payment data flows match cleanly between the auction CSV, the Stripe/PayPal records, and the bank deposits.
Can we run a hybrid auction (online + in-person) on 32auctions?
Yes. Many nonprofit auctions run hybrid — online bidding opens 7-14 days before an in-person gala, and the auction closes at the gala itself with the leaderboard projected on venue screens. The Transition to Live Event upgrade specifically supports this workflow. Online bidders can keep bidding remotely while in-person attendees bid from their phones at the venue. The auction closes at the gala's final-minute climax.
How do we integrate auction data with our nonprofit CRM (Salesforce, Bloomerang, Raiser's Edge)?
Via CSV export. After your auction, export the donor, bidder, and winner data from your 32auctions dashboard as CSV. Import into your CRM via its standard import flow. We document the CSV format clearly. For nonprofits using Bloomerang Fundraising (formerly Qgiv), there's a more involved migration consideration — Bloomerang Fundraising has its own auction module, so you may choose to keep auctions there even at higher cost for tighter CRM integration. For nonprofits on Salesforce, Raiser's Edge, HubSpot, or other major CRMs, the CSV path is clean.
What if our nonprofit has a development team that wants enterprise-level features?
Be honest about which features they actually need. Most "enterprise features" requests boil down to: ticketing (use Eventbrite for $50 per event), peer-to-peer fundraising (use Givebutter or Classy), text-to-give (use Donorbox), livestreaming (use Vimeo or YouTube Live), white-glove event-day staff (hire from your event budget). Each of those tools, separately, costs less than the all-in-one platform that bundles them. If your team genuinely needs everything under one roof and the budget can support it, OneCause or GiveSmart are appropriate. For most nonprofits, the focused-tool stack is cheaper and works better.
How do we get sponsor logos onto the auction page?
Two ways. (1) The Premium Donor & Sponsor Management upgrade lets you display sponsor logos at the page level (up to 10 sponsorship levels with names like Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, or whatever your event uses) — sponsors love seeing their logos at the top of the auction page. (2) You can also tag specific items with up to 5 donor logos each, so individual item-donor recognition is supported. Both display formats are baked into the platform and don't require any custom design work.
How does 32auctions support fund-a-need (paddle raise) appeals during an auction?
The Online Payment Collection upgrade enables a "Donate Money" button on the auction page in addition to bidding on items. Configure suggested donation amounts ($25, $50, $100, $500, $1,000) and add a custom message explaining the specific need. This functions similarly to a paddle raise — donors give a flat amount directly to the cause without bidding on a specific item. For hybrid events, this works alongside an in-person paddle raise; for online-only events, it's the digital equivalent.
Name it now. Set it up tonight. Share it tomorrow. Free base auction. No credit card. No commitment.