15 Questions to Ask Before Choosing Donor Management Software

Software demos are designed to show the best parts of a product. That is normal. Your job is to find out what the demo does not show, and the right questions to ask donor management software vendors are how you do it.

Before founding Orthoplex, our three founders worked as engineers at companies like Magna International, Samsung, Otto Motors, and Zebra Technologies, and later consulted for organizations including Boston Dynamics, Ford, and Walmart. Evaluating software systems, and the companies behind them, was part of the job. When we started working with nonprofits, we noticed that small teams were often asked to make big technology decisions with far less support, and sometimes after a single demo.

So here is the list we would bring to any demo, including ours. For each question, we have included what a good answer sounds like and what should make you pause.

Before the demo: agree on what you need

Before you talk to any vendor, spend an hour with the people who will use the system every day: your treasurer, office lead, development coordinator, and a board member. Agree on:

• Your must-haves, such as CRA or IRS receipts, recurring giving, and online forms on your website
• Your nice-to-haves, such as volunteer management, email campaigns, or AI insights
• Your deal-breakers, such as a percentage of donations or donor tips
• Your budget range, based on total cost, not just the subscription
• Your timeline, ideally switching well before year-end

Write it down on one page. It keeps every demo focused on your needs instead of the vendor's highlights.

Who should attend the demo

Bring the people who will use the system, not only the people who will approve it. A good demo group is small: your executive director or development lead, the person who records donations and issues receipts, and one board member or finance volunteer. Ask each of them to note one thing they liked and one concern. Their notes will be more useful than any feature list.

Before the demo: prepare three real scenarios

The most useful thing you can do is bring your own situations instead of watching a scripted tour. Pick three things your team does often and ask the vendor to show them live. For example:

• "A donor gave $500 by e-Transfer. Show us how it gets recorded and receipted."
• "A monthly donor's card was declined. Show us what happens next."
• "Here is a sample of our spreadsheet. Show us how it would be imported."

A vendor who can show these confidently is a vendor whose software fits real work.

The 15 questions to ask donor management software vendors

Pricing and fees

1. Do you take a percentage of our donations?

This is the most important question on the list. Ask about every transaction type: one-time, recurring, event tickets, and peer-to-peer.

Good answer: "No." Or a clear percentage, in writing, with an explanation of when it applies. Pause if: The answer is vague, or the fee is described as "small."

Over several years, this single fee can become the largest line in your software budget.

2. Do you ask our donors for tips?

Good answer: "No," or "Only if you choose to turn it on." Pause if: The tip is on by default, or cannot be removed on your plan.

3. What happens to our price as we grow?

Ask for the price at your current size and at your three-year goal. Growth should not come with a penalty.

Pause if: The vendor cannot tell you how your price changes.

4. Do you charge per user?

Volunteers, board members, and part-time staff add up. See our case for an unlimited users nonprofit CRM.

5. What is not included in this quote?

Ask specifically about receipting, recurring giving, events, email campaigns, a donor portal, volunteer management, and AI features. For AI, ask how it is priced. Credit-based AI pricing can be very hard to predict.

Payments

6. Can we use our own payment processor?

If you have negotiated a charity rate with Stripe or PayPal, you want to keep it. Our guide to payment processing fees for nonprofits explains the options.

Pause if: You must use the vendor's own processing, at their rates.

7. Which payment methods can our donors use?

Cards, bank transfers, and digital wallets are standard. If you receive e-Transfers or other payments that arrive as email notifications, ask how they get into the system without someone typing them in.

Data and migration

8. Is migration included, and who does the work?

We ask this first in every conversation, because it is the question organizations worry about most. In our experience, the biggest thing stopping a nonprofit from switching platforms is not features. It is fear of the migration: how long it will take, how much it will cost, and whether data will be lost.

Good answer: A clear plan, a timeline, and a named person on the vendor's side. Pause if: "Migration" means a CSV upload tool and a help article.

Our FAQ on setup and migration shows how we handle it at DonorsBase.

9. Can we export all of our data at any time?

Your donor data belongs to you. You should be able to take it with you if you ever leave.

10. How do you handle duplicates and data quality?

Ask to see how the system prevents or merges duplicate donors. Clean data is the foundation of good reporting.

Receipts and compliance

11. Do your receipts meet our country's rules?

In Canada, compare a sample receipt with the CRA's requirements for official donation receipts. In the US, check against IRS acknowledgment rules. Our guide to CRA donation receipt requirements includes a checklist.

12. Can we send year-end summaries in bulk?

Good answer: A live demonstration of generating and emailing summaries for every donor in minutes.

Security and support

13. Who builds and maintains the software?

Is there an in-house engineering team, or is development outsourced? When something breaks at year-end, who fixes it, and how fast?

14. How do you protect donor data?

Ask about access controls, individual logins, encryption, and how payment data is handled. The PCI Security Standards Council is a helpful reference for what payment security involves. You can see how we answer these questions on our security and compliance page.

15. What does support look like after we sign?

Is there training? A named account manager? A response time you can rely on? Support during your first year-end is especially important.

Red flags during the demo

Watch for these moments. Each one is worth a follow-up question.

• The presenter will not show your real scenarios and keeps returning to a script
• Pricing questions are deferred to "after the demo" and never answered in writing
• Receipts are shown only as a screenshot, not generated live
• "Migration" turns out to mean a self-service upload tool
• Nobody can explain who builds the software or where the engineering team is
• Features you need are described as "on the roadmap" with no date

After the demo: check references and test

• Ask for references. Request one or two organizations similar to yours in size and type. Ask them how the migration went, what surprised them in the first year-end, and how quickly support responds.
• Ask for a trial or sandbox. If possible, have your treasurer or office lead try the tasks they do every week. The person who will use the software every day should have a say in choosing it.
• Involve your board early. Share your scorecard and total-cost comparison with your board or finance committee before you decide. It makes approval faster and protects the decision if questions come up later.
• Get everything in writing. Pricing, what is included, migration scope, and support commitments should all be in the agreement, not just the demo.

A simple scorecard

After each demo, score each vendor from 1 to 5 on these areas, then compare:

Questions about the company, not just the product

Software is a long-term relationship. Before you sign, ask a few questions about the company behind it:

• How long have you been building software, and who funds you? You want a partner who will be around for years.
• Who owns our data? The answer should be you, clearly, in the contract.
• What is the contract length, and how do we cancel? Watch for long lock-ins and automatic renewals with price increases.
• How are price changes handled? Ask how much notice you get and whether increases are capped.
• How do you decide what to build next? A good vendor listens to customers and can give examples of features built from their feedback.

We ask ourselves the same questions. Two of our most-used features came straight from customer requests: Donation Magnet, because organizations were tired of copying e-Transfers from their inbox, and automatic QR codes for every donation form and event, because almost every organization we worked with kept asking us to make them.

How we answer these questions

We built DonorsBase because we kept hearing the wrong answers to questions 1 through 5. So here are ours:

• Pricing: We take 0% of donations and never ask donors for tips. Pricing is flat and based on donors managed, with unlimited donations and unlimited staff seats.
• AI: Instead of selling credits, we let you connect your own LLM API key if you want AI insights, so you control and see your usage directly.
• Payments: You connect your own Stripe, PayPal, or Authorize.net account. Donation Magnet turns payment notification emails, such as Interac e-Transfers, into a log where your team assigns donors and records the gifts.
• Migration: Free migration of all your data, easy templates for bulk data entry, and full support until you are up and running.
• Receipts: Bulk year-end tax summaries in CRA and US formats.
• Engineering: DonorsBase is built and maintained in-house by Orthoplex, a software development and cybersecurity company with about a decade of experience.

You can review our security and compliance page and our features before your call. For a broader comparison framework, see our 2026 buyer's guide to donor management software.

When you are ready, book a demo and bring this list, and your three scenarios. We would welcome the questions.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most important question to ask a donor software vendor?

Whether they take a percentage of donations or ask donors for tips. It has the biggest effect on long-term cost.

Should we request a written quote?

Yes. Ask for a full written quote that includes all fees, add-ons, and pricing at your growth goal.

How many vendors should we compare?

Two or three is usually enough to see the real differences without slowing your decision.

What should we bring to a software demo?

Three real scenarios from your daily work, a sample of your data, and this list of questions.