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How is Zeffy free?
How is Zeffy free?
Zeffy relies entirely on optional contributions from donors. At the payment confirmation step - we ask donors to leave an optional contribution to Zeffy.
Online auction software is a tool designed to manage and organize silent auctions. It seamlessly and efficiently handles item listing, ticketing, bidding, and the whole silent auction process.
When it comes to choosing the right online auction platform, there are some essential features that you should look for to bring your silent auction ideas to life.
1. Mobile Bidding
Automatic Bid Updates: Automatically list each online auction item's current winning bid, the following minimum bid, the fair market value (FMV), and the buy-now price where necessary.
Push Notifications: Inform bidders about being outbid. Most online auction software either provides in-app updates or sends them via text/email.
Ability to Pay in-App: Simplify the payment process for your donors by ensuring your platform can save payment information and offer smooth check-out.
2. Event Ticketing Features
Generate automatic tickets for multiple attendees
Ability to customize the ticket
Manage RSVP from silent auction guests
Collect seating requests and guest names
Track silent auction guest dietary restrictions
Send automatic reminders to silent auction guests about the events
3. Check-out and Donations
Secure Gateway: Regardless of your chosen software, ensure it uses a secure payment processing tool. Look for the payment card industry (PCI) compliance that ensures your donor's information is safe and your nonprofit reputation is intact.
Multiple Payment Types: Give your bidders the option to pay using various methods, including credit card and Apple Pay, and mark them as “paid” if they want to pay by cash or check.
Low Transaction Fees: Choose a platform that charges no or little transaction fees so that you receive a large proportion of your donations. Zeffy is a 100% free nonprofit tool that allows you to receive the total donation amount your guests submitted.
If you're planning virtual and hybrid events, consider auction software with gamification features to make your experience more exciting and inclusive for virtual guests.
Live leaderboards showing auction items with the most bids and fundraising progress thermometers are remarkable ways to build momentum.
Scoreboards and countdown clocks are incredible ways to speed up the bidding by sparking a feeling of urgency.
Quick Comparison of 8 Best Silent Auction Software
User-friendly and versatile mobile giving solution for auction events
Helps to organize and host auctions in the United States only
Not disclosed
1. Zeffy: Best Free Silent Auction Software for Nonprofits
G2 Rating: 4.9
Capterra Rating: 4.8
Zeffy’s silent auction software is a practical and straightforward tool with varied features to help you plan and manage your online auction from beginning to end.
Top Features
Optimal Bidding Experience: Organizers can create comprehensive silent auction fundraisers that include key details.
Automatic Payments: When the online auction closes, payments are automatically charged to the winning bidder's credit card on file.
Customizable Branding: To achieve a professional and cohesive appearance, tailor your silent auction form to your nonprofit's brand elements.
Automated Personalized Outreach: Customize the automated email sent to auction winners.
Bid Tracking Dashboard: Easily monitor incoming bids throughout the auction—filter by item to identify options with no bids and adjust your strategy to ensure a successful event.
Pros and Cons
Zeffy Payment Gateway for Nonprofits
Pros
Cons
Generate and share various types of tickets to auction events
Offer the option to pay in cash
Send customized donation emails to non-winning bidders
Automatically deducts the payment from the winning bidder
Track bids per items
Zeffy supports both online (including mobile bidding) and in-person auctions
Allows you to manage the entire event from start to end
Zeffy also offers access to a complete all-in-one fundraising software
Only available for registered nonprofits in the US and Canada
Pricing
100% free with no transaction or platform fee.
What Do the Users Say?
Zeffy surpasses other fee-free fundraising platforms, offering education on fundraising and a comprehensive donation dashboard for events and auctions. After nine years of using a different online payment site for our successful nonprofit, we discovered Zeffy could have saved us five digits annually. Despite initial skepticism about changing donor trust, Zeffy was the best decision. - Kendra C.
2. Silent Auction Pro: Best Dedicated Software For Silent & Live Auctions
G2 Rating: 4.9
Capterra Rating: 4.8
Silent Auction Pro is a powerful auction software for successfully planning and executing live and silent auctions.
Top Features
Outbid Texts: Bidders participating in silent auction fundraisers will receive automatic text outbid notifications throughout the email event, reminding them to bid again.
Self-Check-Out: Winning bidders will receive an email receipt listing their winning items, which they can use to make payment and self-check-out at the end of the event.
Display Sheets with QR Code: Create display sheets with a scannable QR code for the online auction site so bidders can view and bid right from their mobile devices in traditional auctions.
Monitor Bids: Monitor the bidder names and the corresponding donations placed in real time at silent auctions.
Pros and Cons
Auction Management Software Features
Pros
Cons
Support for both silent and live auctions
Manage the entire event from beginning to end
Online auction catalog with online/mobile bidding
Create various ticket types
Expensive option as the annual fee ranges from $449 to $899 plus 2% of event proceeds
Difficult to understand initially
Minor bug issues reported by users
Pricing
Mobile Pro: $899 per year
Mobile Plus: $749 per year
Bidsheet Pro: $649 per year
Bidsheet Plus: $499 per year
3. OneCause: Best Silent Auction Software For Large Nonprofits
G2 Rating: 4.7
Capterra Rating: 4.7
OneCause is a comprehensive event management tool particularly designed for large nonprofits. It helps with multiple donation campaigns, from silent auction to peer-to-peer and text-to-give.
Top Features
Item and Package Management: Streamline item procurement by generating solicitation letters to sponsors, tracking the status of your items, logging each one's location, and bundling multiple items into packages.
Gamification: Add some friendly competition to the bidding process to keep the energy level high and keep raising funds.
Event Management: You can access a full suite of event management fundraising tools and features, including the ability to sell tickets, create a fundraising microsite, manage RSVPs, facilitate contactless check-in with QR codes, and more.
Sponsor Management: Identify sponsors by their contribution with flexible logo grouping and resizing. It can easily track all in-kind and paid sponsorships as you increase fundraising revenue.
Pros and Cons
Features of Auction Software
Pros
Cons
Simple to set up and use
The customer service team is friendly and supportive
Intuitive auction site creation
Incredibly user-friendly for bidders
More inclined towards online auctions and not hybrid events
Pricing
OneCause offers various packages, such as Enterprise, Professional, and Essentials, with different features and fundraising tools to meet your unique silent auction event needs.
4. Clickbid: Best Silent Auction Software For a Virtual Fundraising Event
G2 Rating: 4.7
Capterra Rating: 4.7
Specializing in mobile bidding, Clickbid is ideally suited to organize and execute virtual auctions. It offers custom landing pages to centralize ticket sales, auction catalogs, registration, and donations in one place.
Top Features
Text-to-Register: Choose a keyword and then ask guests to text the word to register for the event.
Secure Payment Processor: Uses best-in-class payment processor Stripe to offer peace of mind to bidders and nonprofits regarding donations.
Mobile Bidding Software Solution: Simplifies silent auction management by instantly determining winning bids and check-out totals.
Mass Messaging: Using mass messaging, you can simultaneously remind winners to make payments, ask donors to add payment information, or send an update about fundraising events to guests.
Pros and Cons
Features Overview for Nonprofit Software
Pros
Cons
Easy to set-up
Payments are directly deposited into the nonprofit account
Live stream in-person events
Free trial offered
Limited customization
Problems with reporting
Pricing
Essentials: $759/per year
Enhanced: $1,295/per year
Full Suite: $2,295/per year
5. SchoolAuction.Net: Best Auction Software Designed For Schools
G2 Rating: 4.6
Capterra Rating: 4.7
SchoolAcution.net is a silent auction for nonprofits, primarily for schools. It has been in the fundraising space for a long time and is well-respected and deemed trustworthy in the charity auction industry.
Top Features
Unique Event Sites: Create a separate event site for each event with unique themes, settings, teams, and reporting.
Great Support: Getting started with auctions is easy with embedded tips, illustrated videos, and articles. The support team is available for prompt, personal support anytime.
Hybrid And Virtual Live Auctions: Bring live streaming, bidding, and chat together in one place to enable supporters to participate in the silent auction from anywhere – at the gala or at home.
Mobile Bidding: At-home bidders and guests can use their mobile devices to bid and receive outbid messages via email/text.
Pros and Cons
Comprehensive Auction Software Features
Pros
Cons
Extensive resources to plan online auctions
Build sponsorship packages to engage donors
Voting contests to find the fundraising event to run
Various choices available with credit card processing
The user interface is complicated and outdated
There are a few issues with post-event reports and guest receipts reported by users
Pricing
Acorn: $79/per event
Essentials: $1000/per year
Plus: $1500/per year
Professional: $2000/per year
6. BiddingOwl: Best For In-Person Auctions
G2 Rating: 4.7
Capterra Rating: 4.8
Run small, in-person auctions with bidding sheets for free on BiddingOwl. It offers remarkable customer support and a full-service management platform to ensure your traditional charity auction event operates smoothly.
Top Features
Ticket Sales: This feature makes generating and selling tickets for events easy.
Instant Notifications: This feature ensures that bidders and donors receive instant text or email notifications when they're outbid or win a silent auction item.
Proxy Bid: Sets a proxy bid that enables the system to bid on the donor's behalf up to the amount they set as max bid.
Multiple Payment Options: Donors can pay with all major credit cards (PayPal or Stripe) or pay directly via cash or check outside the system.
Pros and Cons
Event Auction Software Features
Pros
Cons
Quickly sets up charity auction events
Custom homepage and advanced picture upload for auction site
Livestream physical events
Run email and SMS campaigns for event promotions with ease
Takes 5% of the winning bids from online auctions
Non-PCI compliant security
Limited language support
Pricing
Online auctions: 5% from winning bids
Tickets and fund-a-need: Free
More support and fundraising tools: Free
7. Bloomerang: Best For Volunteer and Donor Management
G2 Rating: 4.7
Capterra Rating: 4.7
A successful silent auction relies on donors and volunteers. With Bloomerang, you can manage your constituent ecosystem, including donors, sponsors, volunteers, grantees, and more.
Top Features
Donor Management: Monitor campaign success, important donor data, donor retention rate, donor engagement, and incoming donations all in one solution.
Event Planning: Fundraising tools to plan fundraising events, including registration, ticketing, and attendance tracking.
Mobile Capabilities: Use Bloomerang's mobile donation app to instantly update donors' profiles and securely process credit card and cash payments.
Marketing & Engagement: Built-in email marketing tools to share personalized emails, letters, surveys, and acknowledgments to build relationships with donors that last.
Pros and Cons
Software Integration Features
Pros
Cons
Integrates with Quickbooks online
User-friendly interface
Greatly customizable
Highly intuitive and visually appealing
Limited options for tracking events
A bit of a learning curve with the reporting feature
Pricing
Starts at $83/per month under $250K funds raised yearly.
Starts at $125 over $250K funds raised each year.
8. Classy Live: Best Auction Software for Mobile Bidding
G2 Rating: 4.4
Capterra Rating: 4.3
Whether in-person, live, or hybrid, organize your charity auctions successfully with Classy Live.
With its mobile bidding solution, guests can watch and bid on items from anywhere, receive updates on bidding items, and receive detailed email receipts for self-checkout.
Top Features
Bidding Notifications: Send automated push notifications related to outbids to encourage participants to bid more.
Feature Items: This tag will highlight popular or big-ticket items that will grab the guest's attention and direct more funds toward your cause.
Item Sheets: Print out custom sheets for individual silent charity auction items, each with a unique QR code for in-person events.
Multiple Payments: Allow attendees to pay with check, cash, or credit cards and complete their donation with a self-checkout experience.
Pros and Cons
Enhanced Auction Features Overview
Pros
Cons
Add “fund-a-need” item alongside auction items to raise additional funds
UUpload and edit charity auction items in bulk
Enable “Buy Now” and set up automatic max bids
Send email messages or SMS to encourage bidding
Instantly acquire a real-time insight into all bidding and donation activity
Supports silent auction events hosted only in the United States
Pricing is not transparent
Pricing
Classy Live has not disclosed its price, so you have to contact them.
Leading With a Strong Online Auction Platform
Whether you're planning to host an in-person silent auction or a completely virtual one, Zeffy's 100% free auction software can help nonprofits minimize workload and create one-of-a-kind charity auctions!
Here's how you can set up a virtual auction on the auction software you choose:
Create your charity auction page and tap into your network to identify sponsors and partners.
Secure items and start uploading them with their descriptions.
Generate tickets and create registration forms.
Spread the word about your charity auction via social media channels.
Open the bidding and keep on monitoring the bid activity
Keep track of winning and payments, ensuring all transactions are processed securely
To create a bid sheet, focus on adding the given charity auction details:
Charity auction item title
Detailed and simple description of each item along with donor or sponsor name
Item number
Item's fair market value
Minimum starting bid
Minimum raise
Buy-it-now price of items
In today's digital age, running a silent auction online has many benefits. It is convenient, allowing donors to submit their bids straight from their smartphones on the go. Nonprofits can extend fundraising events by keeping the auction window open for a few days.
A silent auction also reduces time and effort. There is no need to collect and evaluate bidder data through bidding sheets. The software instantly and efficiently records all bidder data and informs the winner.
Silent auction software is also a cost-effective solution. It reduces the need to print bidding sheets, arrange clipboards, choose a venue, and seek volunteers.
Picking the prize for your silent auction is essential to secure results from your fundraising efforts. Some popular auction item ideas to consider are:
Look for people who attend related events, follow relevant Facebook groups, or subscribe to aligned newsletters.These aren’t just potential donors—they’re your future advocates.
Look for people who attend related events, follow relevant Facebook groups, or subscribe to aligned newsletters.These aren’t just potential donors—they’re your future advocates.
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