SchoolAuction.net vs GiveSmart

WinningBidder.com

Givebutter

Auctria

WinningBidder.com provides low cost online auction software for nonprofits. Our software is simple to use, allowing organizers to launch an auction in minutes.

Givebutter is a cloud-based, all-in-one fundraising platform for student organizations, sports teams, companies, and nonprofits which offers a range of tools for collecting donations online, running social peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns, selling tickets to fundraising events, and more

Auctria: a budget friendly web solution to run your entire event from tickets to receipts; traditional auctions or online fundraisers.

SchoolAuction.net is a web-based service designed to manage volunteer-driven auctions and other fundraising events for schools, churches, and nonprofits.

Payment Processing

Billing & Invoicing

Silent Auction

Inventory Management

Alerts/Notifications

Live Auction

Buy Now Option

Absentee Bidding

Watch List

Proxy Bidding

Most reviewers indicate that SchoolAuction.net delivers strong value for money, praising its reasonable flat fee, lack of transaction fees, and affordable pricing. Some users feel the price is steep for smaller organizations, but still worthwhile.

Value for money

By industry, SchoolAuction.net reviewers are most commonly professionals in education management (38%). The most frequent use case cited by reviewers is auction (100%).

Proprietary

SchoolAuction.net

Web-based

GiveSmart

OneCause

Silent Auction Pro

Acorn

 Essentials

Plus

Professional

Owner

I have been utilizing SchoolAuction.net for over a decade, for a variety of events presented by a number of nonprofit organizations.

Director

Liked that started bid was already placed on bid sheet and pictures with donors were on there made it nice with lots of items on the table.

Founder

I am just tryin to enter the option to buy a beverage and there are 20 boxes to fill out.  

I didn’t realize that if we actually had a gift card to be picked up that they should be under pick up item not gift card because we didn’t need a gift card created.

The user interface is also incredibly intuitive, very easy to follow without unnecessary complexity or confusing terminology.

There was a lot missed when baskets where getting loaded in so double checking at the end to correct those took a lot of time.

Volunteer

The customer service is great - responses to my questions arrive in a short time!  

Technology Specialist

It is easy to bring a crew of volunteers up-to-speed to make the event go smoothly, especially when checkout time comes along.

It would have been nice to have another zoom meeting with someone a couple of weeks before the auction to go over the day of features to make sure we had them.

I'm signed up for their next two as a refresher.

I just attended their Zoom introductory session and it was very helpful ~ an hour well spent.

It was nice that multiple people could be running multiple computers at once

Auction Co-Chair

Easy to use, great help guides, great polished website/user experience for bidders, great reporting functionality

Parent Volunteer

The fact that we can have multiple users concurrently connected to the system, making changes with different access.

Excellent experience both in digital only and live events.

I found it so easy to self-learn the software with the quality of their help guides.

We use this software for all of our fundraising events throughout the year.

Additionally, the fact that we can have multiple users doing dead entry on the night of our event is wonderful.

Executive Director

Not being able to upload multiple item images at once into either the individual catalog listings, or into an in-software image library that is easily accessed from catalog. But that is a MINOR thing!

Initially, we struggled with the way to customize the software.

It also helps us reach a bigger audience by making information available to online users who cannot attend an in-person event.

DIRETOR

my evolution in English, my improvement in pronunciation.

As a volunteer that has an FT job, it was my responsibility to select, implement and use a product for our school auction.  

Teacher

This made our online auction do-able and simple.

Technology consultant

Sofware is geared to set up for a live auction event with bid sheets, etc. Have to manually change each item and ended up missing one.

Silent Auction Team Lead

The other thing that was a challenge was  when I'd enter info and pictures, if I wanted to see how itlooked on the "bidders" page, I'd have to log out and get back into School Auction and go to the Auction tab to see the item.  

Development Director

The ability for folks to bid directly from their device while watching the live-stream makes it easy for guests to bid from anywhere they have wi-fi.

Director of Advancement

Our race software does that. Once you register, it asks if you want to set up a fundraising page and then asks if you want to share that to social media.

Fundraising Chair

Not very customisable for different types of organisations.

PTA Volunteer

Fund Development Chairperson

The software is a bit clunky and not overly intuitive or fast.

Really is created to run school auctions.

The flowchart in the dashboard is somewhat useless; clicking on the steps only referenced help videos that I don't have time for; would be better to jump to the referenced setup menu.

Research Assistant

I think it is a bit expensive, yearly it is starting from  $1000 up to $3000.

School Receptionist and Registrar

Great software if you're in the business to have an online auction.

We might convert one of our other fundraisers into this system.

Uploading auction items and photos is super easy.  

There is a lot to learn & understand when you first set things up, and to really utilize all the features.

Development Coordinator

Catalog searches could be improved if somehow the search included not just the title of the item but the donor as well.

Most attendees would prefer to go to the registration to check out so that they could add a donation easily to their order, but that is not the case.

Admin Asst.

Also, guests should be able to say whether they want to put a max bid in OR choose to do increments; not either or option.  

We leave lots of money on the table because the checkout table is too slow and online does not ask for donations.

Fundraising & Volunteer Engagement Specialist

We like that the video stream, bidding, and chat exist on the same screen.

I wish you could use either logos or text for the sponsor block on the silent auction page.

One example is that they contacted our administrator before the auction started because we had too many items listed as "priceless".  

President/Owner

To have a tool like this during a quarantine period is remarkable and, in my opinion, likely saved some organizations from being forced out of business.

Auction Management

Fundraising Event

Data Entry

Ease of Use

Web Access

Event Management

Customization

Check-In and Check-Out

Customer Support

Pricing

Mid-size Business

Small Business

Large Enterprises

Freelancers

Most reviewers indicate that SchoolAuction.net offers strong value for money, highlighting its reasonable flat fee, lack of transaction fees, and affordability compared to competitors. They appreciate the uncomplicated pricing structure, the ability to use their own payment gateway, and the inclusion of robust features suitable for multiple events and non-profits. Some users feel the price can be steep for smaller organizations, but they find the investment worthwhile due to the software’s ease of use and time-saving benefits. A few reviewers mention that the upfront cost feels high, but most still consider it a good value overall.

Northworld

Zeffy

Zeffy is the first and only zero-free fundraising platform. Sell tickets for your fundraising events, create donation and peer-to-peer campaigns, and manage donors and even memberships from an intuitive all-inclusive fundraising platform.

DonorPerfect

DonorPerfect helps nonprofits of every size streamline fundraising and centralize donor data in one flexible, all-in-one platform.
A CRM that empowers teams to collaborate, stay organized, and make data-driven decisions from anywhere, so your mission keeps moving forward.

GiveSmart is a mobile bidding and event management solution for fundraisers of all sizes, including foundations, nonprofits, and schools. GiveSmart’s key features include a ticketing portal, guest and event management, as well as online donations and silent auction tools.

Customizable Branding

Mobile Access

Contact Management

Reporting/Analytics

Ticketing

iPad

Android

iPhone

Handbid

Basic

Adv Ops Coordinator

The platform's flexibility allows each school to manage its own campaigns while ensuring a consistent system across the organization, which is a significant advantage.

Cost is the biggest factor. While the platform is user-friendly for participants, the backend can feel a bit complex at times, particularly when setting up more customized campaigns, auctions and events.

GiveSmart is a strong all-in-one platform for fundraising events, especially auctions, galas, and other large-scale events.

President of Friends of Atlantic Beach Elementary

GiveSmart has been unreliable, poorly supported, difficult to integrate, slow to resolve critical issues, and has forced us to create our own workarounds despite paying thousands for their platform.

Our PTO has had an incredibly frustrating experience with GiveSmart, and I want to share our story so other nonprofits can make an informed decision.

As a PTO raising money for important school needs, this delay put us in a really difficult position.

The mobile bidding and overall guest experience are excellent and easy to use, which helps drive family engagement and revenue.

Critical steps were missed by their team, and we’ve consistently had to chase them just to make the platform functional.

For a platform marketed to nonprofits—many of which rely on volunteers—that alone was discouraging.

Communication was slow, unclear, and unhelpful throughout the entire process.

Based on our experience, I cannot recommend GiveSmart to any nonprofit or organization looking to raise money.

consultant

The customer service is AMAZING--the chat support has walked me through a myriad of questions and helped me in real time set up campaigns and avoid mistakes.

Director of Development

There are less expensive options available that offer many of the same features.

Donor Relations and Events Director

I liked the ability to manage event registration, seating, and event fundraising in one place.

I think they could provide more training with the annual subscription.

Director of Athletic Development

We chose to cancel our year-to-year deal this year and provided over 30 days notice of cancellation as per the terms of the original and annual agreement.

They would reach out to me a few weeks before my event to see if I was using all the software features available and push me to integrate them that late in the project.

Founder/Director

Their tasks were to welcome guests at the front door, take their tickets and most importantly RUN THE FUNDRAISING VIA TEXT DURING THE EVENT, Thereby helping us to raise upwards of $10,000.00 by speaking to the guests, encouraging them to donate and shouting out funds raised in real time.

Training could be a lot better. When asked if we could get help setting up an auction for the first time, the GiveSmart rep sent a video for us watch instead of personally helping us.

Executive and Office Assistant

I would definitely recommend it to others and believe that most of our problems were user issues.

The software has no value without the package of benefits namely the TEXT TO DONATE feature while at the event which is what is supposed to help your company raise funds.

This product is the luxury line and its pricing reflects such - we utilized it because we often ran 10-12 events/year and could easily replicate data, but it would not have been cost effective for a single event.

I had to spend weeks if not months requesting very simple changes to the giving forms.

GiveSmart provides a relatively easy to use auction and ticketing platform that looks good on desktop and mobile.

It does not look appealing or feel easy-to-shop for an attendee who is immersing in the software during the event.

We signed up on a year-to-year annual renewal and did for 3 years in a row.

volunteer

A drawback for us has been the ability to create and send a personalized thank you identifying the object and tax information to donors as I upload their donation.

Development Associate

We love being able to customize many aspects of the platform to fit our fundraising needs and like that we have endless possibilities and uses for the platform.

Tech Support

We usually have a large Fundraiser set up each year with Sponsor Recognition, Silent & Live Auctions and we have GiveSmart provide us with 6 GiveSmart support.

Co-Chair and Board Member

One is when adding sponsors even though there are two categories, premium and standard, if you add a premium sponsor after adding other sponsors they show up in random orders.  

With endless access to the platform during the subscription period, we are able to come up with unique ways to fundraise and know the platform will help make them happen.  

Development Manager

Some of the back end features such as table assignments and ticket purchasing do not always function together smoothly. If a person purchases tickets or donates offline it is not always easy to get that plugged in nicely on the event site.

Managing Director

The best feature is the text-to-give as well as the live thermometer that you can use at an event to encourage people to help meet the goal!

The woman that scheduled our event was no longer in the same position in the company so she never even assisted us in the mess.

GiveSmart used to send staff to help run your events and we are told this is no longer the case.

Marketing Volunteer

Anytime you share a link, be it to donate, or to view an item, etc., it just links to your general campaign and not to a specific component of that campaign.

Customer service is tough to track down and not highly responsive for cost of product.

We  had approximately a month before our annual auction and we were able to pivot from a live event to a virtual event DIY style.

Development Director 

I especially like that they highlight other clients events and work so you can see possibilities on other / different types event you can utilize platform for.

You cant update the subject lines either to get rid of the "NOTIFICATION" verbiage and thus the emails keep going to SPAM.

The Customer Service is right by your side in setting up your site and they provide a great "help" base with written and video information. Once you get the hang of uploading your donations it's quite easy.

Especially in a year with so many unknowns and endless virtual events, this software made it easier and less stressful to pivot, be creative, and fundraise for our cause.

Development Officer

We run a large silent auction with 300+ works of art - I wish there was a way to upload the artworks all at once, rather than individually.

Special Events Manager

There are some glitches in entering donation items and I had some photos disappear after loading them, but they were minimal.

Auction Coordinator

The software glitched or froze on several volunteers and myself during our event, which caused some headaches and time delays.

This has made our auction seamless to run, and the checkout is simple to use.

The mobile bidding is easy for users for our silent auction and this year being virtual for our "live" auction as well.

In addition, their support teams and their resources provide tools for organizations looking for ways to improve and grow.

SchoolAuction.net vs GiveSmart Comparison (2026)

SchoolAuction.net

GiveSmart

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives