--- description: Review of CiviCRM Software: system overview, features, price and cost information. Get free demos and compare to similar programs on Software Advice New Zealand. image: https://gdm-localsites-assets-gfprod.imgix.net/images/software_advice/og_logo-55146305bbe7b450bea05c18e9be9c9a.png title: CiviCRM | Reviews, Pricing & Demos - SoftwareAdvice NZ --- Breadcrumb: [Home](/) > [Grant Management Software](/directory/644/grant-management/software) > [CiviCRM](/software/4796/civicrm) # CiviCRM Canonical: https://www.softwareadvice.co.nz/software/4796/civicrm Page: 1 / 3\ Next: [Next page](https://www.softwareadvice.co.nz/software/4796/civicrm?page=2) > CiviCRM is the leading open source constituent relationship management solution built exclusively for the nonprofit / civic sector and association-based organizations. Because CiviCRM is open-source, it’s highly customizable, free to use and develop. CiviCRM offers all the tools you need such as online and offline fundraising, grant tracking, event planning, donor and member management, advocacy campaigns, case management, email and SMS communications and more. CiviCRM stores all your data in one central place and offers comprehensive reporting with more than 40+ reporting templates to create your custom reports. CiviCRM software integrates directly with WordPress, Drupal and Joomla content management systems, and is localized in over 20 languages, including Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Swedish. Above all, CiviCRM is backed by a strong community all around the world to do more good. > > Verdict: Rated **3.9/5** by 41 users. Top-rated for **Likelihood to recommend**. ----- ## Quick Stats & Ratings | Metric | Rating | Detail | | **Overall** | **3.9/5** | 41 Reviews | | Ease of Use | 3.5/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Customer Support | 3.3/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Value for Money | 4.0/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Features | 3.9/5 | Based on overall reviews | | Recommendation percentage | 70% | (7/10 Likelihood to recommend) | ## About the vendor - **Company**: CiviCRM - **Founded**: 2005 ## Commercial Context - **Starting Price**: US$0.00 - **Pricing model**: Flat Rate (Free version available) (Free Trial) - **Pricing Details**: the basic plan is $10, the standard is $25, and the pro plan is $50 a month, with each one sequentially suited for larger organizations. - **Target Audience**: Self Employed, 2–10, 11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000, 1,001–5,000, 5,001–10,000, 10,000+ - **Deployment & Platforms**: Cloud, SaaS, Web-based - **Supported Languages**: Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese - **Available Countries**: Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, United Kingdom, United States ## Features - ACH Payment Processing - API - Access Controls/Permissions - Accounting Integration - Activity Dashboard - Activity Tracking - Alumni Management - Assignment Management - Attendance Tracking - Attendee Management - Badge Management - Barcode/Ticket Scanning - CRM - Campaign Analytics - Campaign Management - Communication Management - Conferences/Conventions - Contact Database - Contact Management - Content Management ## Integrations (4 total) - PayPal - Stripe - authorize.net - iATS ## Support Options - Email/Help Desk - FAQs/Forum - Knowledge Base - 24/7 (Live rep) - Chat ## Category - [Grant Management Software](https://www.softwareadvice.co.nz/directory/644/grant-management/software) ## Related Categories - [Grant Management Software](https://www.softwareadvice.co.nz/directory/644/grant-management/software) - [Advocacy Software](https://www.softwareadvice.co.nz/directory/3810/advocacy/software) - [Membership Management Software](https://www.softwareadvice.co.nz/directory/4395/membership-management/software) - [Association Management Software](https://www.softwareadvice.co.nz/directory/447/association-management/software) - [Event Management Software](https://www.softwareadvice.co.nz/directory/4734/event-management/software) ## Alternatives 1. 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The CiviCRM volunteers/engineers I had contact with were very friendly and helpful, but given you don't pay for it you also can't expect and will not get enterprise support. It has a good API to retrieve and update data. > > **Cons**: It's buggy. After every update there are things that break. We have a customer that has a lot of data (~1 million contacts) stored in CiviCRM and updates are always a nightmare which is why we only do it once per year. It takes me a couple of days to actually update the system and fix all of the bugs that occur during the upgrade and after the upgrade. The update takes a couple of hours and it never runs through without issues. With smaller instances the update usually works better and is done in a couple of minutes. You will need to to be a software engineer to maintain CiviCRM because you will need to be able to go into the code and analyze and fix issues yourself. I've also contributed back a fix to the CiviCRM core. There are few automated tests that catch bugs so old features get broken with updates on a regular basis without anybody noticing. That it integrates with CMSes is a nice feature but it is also a major concern. If you run it behind your website it means your customer data stored in CiviCRM can get stolen if your website is hacked. This is not an uncommon thing to happen to Wordpress and Drupal sites. Also because of the bugs as I said we avoid updating more often than once a year so we also don't get security fixes. This is why we moved our CiviCRM away from the website to a separate server that is not accessible to the internet. > > It's a tradeoff between being free and customizable and stability \& security. If you just need something simple to get up and running this is probably not the best tool for you. If you need something very customizable and you have the technological knowledge to customize and maintain it or you can pay somebody to do it for you it is a nice tool. For most small companies it is probably overkill. ----- ### "A great option for a CRM if you have the staff to maintain the software" — 4.0/5 > **Richard** | *11 September 2020* | Nonprofit Organisation Management | Recommendation rating: 6.0/10 > > **Pros**: I liked that it was open source and maintained by volunteers. It was fairly easy to add to our Wordpress website and very flexible as far as customizations and shaping it to match our processes. > > **Cons**: It was hard to upgrade if too many releases went by since you were supposed to do one at a time. I almost had a database disaster during one of the updates and lost a couple days to recover the data. Since that point, we had to just run with the last working version. Also, it doesn't integrate with QuickBooks Online, so there was double bookkeeping involved. > > Overall, CiviCRM is a great choice for those organizations that have the qualified staff to maintain the backend intricacies along with those who can perform the customizations and those to enter the data. ----- ### "Unusable product. Don't do it." — 1.0/5 > **Bethany** | *14 October 2024* | Fund-Raising | Recommendation rating: 0.0/10 > > **Pros**: This CRM has lots of capabilities, but honestly none I particularly like. No features are better than any other CRM I've used. > > **Cons**: I genuinely dislike just about everything about this product--the UX and UI are awful. There is a completely unreasonable expectation that users will have time and expertise for extremely complicated customizations and processes. There are frequent errors that render the system unusable and are often unfixed for weeks. Do not choose this product. > > This is an absolutely awful product. Its not worth considering. If you're looking at it, I recommend looking at products former CiviCRM users have switched to\! ----- ### "High functionality at low costs" — 4.0/5 > **Shirley** | *26 July 2017* | Environmental Services | Recommendation rating: 9.0/10 > > **Pros**: Cost -- our volunteer run organization could afford it (we pay for hosting which includes administrator and user coaching) Highly functional and generally very easy to use Very flexible with extensions that are much more advanced than found in cost-comparable products -- membership, events, etc. Very good API Ability to fully get all data out of it > > **Cons**: Import of large quantities of data using supplied import procedures is painful at best. That said, a person who understands the database can bypass the worst of it -- however, we could do this, and the closest competing product priced itself out of our reach by an excessive import fee. While existing reports are easy to use, creating truly new ones is nearly impossible (need to create a new extension) Sadly lacking documentation on creating extensions > > Very functional so long as you don't need something new ----- ### "Great general use database" — 4.0/5 > **Verified Reviewer** | *20 August 2019* | Architecture & Planning | Recommendation rating: 6.0/10 > > **Pros**: Super flexible, can be used with nearly any type of data > > **Cons**: it is not very user friendly / self explanatory > > Still learning it, but it is a great tool for managing our volunteer and client database ----- Page: 1 / 3\ Next: [Next page](https://www.softwareadvice.co.nz/software/4796/civicrm?page=2) ## Links - [View on SoftwareAdvice](https://www.softwareadvice.co.nz/software/4796/civicrm) ## This page is available in the following languages | Locale | URL | | en | | | en-AU | | | en-GB | | | en-IE | | | en-NZ | | ----- ## Structured Data