Small UK charities under roughly £500k income or 10,000 contacts do not need a marketing stack. They need one fewer tool.
- Zeffy is the free all-in-one default: donations, events, Gift Aid, supporter records, and email in one platform at £0, with no per-contact billing.
- Beacon and Donorfy are the UK fundraising CRM benchmarks: worth the monthly subscription only when a dedicated fundraising staffer owns the data.
- Mailchimp and MailerLite are the marketer-grade ESPs: real upgrades, but only when someone's job is to run them and the list size justifies the price curve.
- Gift Aid handling is the UK-specific criterion most roundups miss: every £1 from a UK taxpayer becomes £1.25, and a platform that handles the declaration in-flow means you do not lose the 25p to a manual reconciliation step.
If you are at a small UK charity under roughly £500k income or 10,000 contacts, running on a separate email tool, a separate donation platform, and a spreadsheet that ties them together, this guide is for you. The same person sends the appeal, thanks the donor, and pulls the Gift Aid report. There is no dedicated marketing hire. There is a CSV.
Most 'best charity marketing software' lists dodge the only question that matters at your size: do you actually need a marketing stack, or do you need one fewer tool? For a small charity, 'marketing software' is really donor communication, and it belongs next to the giving record, not inside a per-contact billing curve. The honest answer for the majority of small UK charities is one platform that handles donations, supporter data, Gift Aid, and email together at £0. Not a six-logo screenshot of Semrush, Canva, Grammarly, and Animoto.
The real UK stack the brief is written against: JustGiving for donations, Mailchimp for email, a spreadsheet for Gift Aid reconciliation, and Eventbrite or Ticket Tailor for events. That is four bills and three CSV exports. Zeffy consolidates the fundraising and email side of that stack for £0.
So this guide is structured as an honest split:
- The donor-communication-tool side: one all-in-one platform that already includes email, Gift Aid, and donor records. Zeffy is the honest first choice here because it is genuinely free.
- The marketer-grade side: Mailchimp, MailerLite, and similar. Worth their price curve only when you have a dedicated marketing staffer and a list that justifies it.
Every tool below gets a small-charity fit verdict: ✅ realistic for a budget-constrained charity, or ❌ skip unless a specific condition is true. The lens is attainability, not aspiration.
In this article:
Quick comparison: all-in-one vs. marketer-grade platforms
Read each row as a fit verdict for a small UK charity, not a feature-by-feature parity claim. Pricing reflects published rates as of mid-2026; verify Beacon and Donorfy prices live before committing.
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| Zeffy | All-in-one | Drag-and-drop builder, segmentation, open/click/donation tracking, up to 11,000 recipients per send, unlimited contacts | Donations, events, raffles, auctions, memberships, peer-to-peer, Gift Aid declaration capture | Yes, donor record, tags, smart filters, saved segments, automated receipts | £0 forever. No platform fee, no transaction fee | ✅ Default when budget is the binding constraint and one person is doing everything |
| Beacon CRM | All-in-one (fundraising-first CRM) | Email included; integrates with Mailchimp | Donation pages, Gift Aid claim submission to HMRC Charities Online natively, event registration | Yes, full fundraising CRM, modern UI | From £33.50/month (verify live on beaconcrm.org/pricing); scales by active supporter count | ❌ Unless you have a fundraising or data lead who owns the CRM and can justify the monthly cost |
| Donorfy | All-in-one (mid-tier CRM) | Integrates with Mailchimp; basic email | Donation pages, Gift Aid, events; broad integrations (JustGiving, Enthuse, GoCardless, Stripe) | Yes, free up to 500 constituents | Free up to 500 constituents; from ~£50/month above that (verify live on donorfy.com/pricing) | ❌ For sub-£100k charities (free all-in-one wins on cost); ✅ once you need the integration ecosystem |
| Enthuse Fundraising and Events | All-in-one (events + P2P focus) | Fundraiser and donor communication built in | Branded P2P pages, event ticketing, donation forms; exclusive platform for TCS London Marathon and Great Run to 2034 | Yes, supporter records and fundraiser pages | 0% platform fee on donations; 1.9% + 30p card; 5% on Gift Aid value; events 3.5% + 75p per ticket; optional subscription from £29.99 + VAT/month | ✅ Only if you have London Marathon or Great Run places (functionally mandatory); ❌ outside those events for a budget-constrained small charity |
| CAF Donate | Donation platform only | None | Donate button, Direct Debit, Gift Aid | Basic donor records | No monthly subscription; staggered fee by donation type (verify on cafonline.org) | ✅ If you only need a donate button and Gift Aid; ❌ if you also need email, events, or memberships |
| MailerLite | Marketer-grade ESP | Builder, segmentation, automation, landing pages, 250 subscribers / 2,500 emails/month free (as of 16 June 2026; verify live) | None, pair with a fundraising tool | No | 30% charity discount on paid plans with verified registration | ✅ Only with a marketing staffer and the right list-size maths; ❌ the free tier is very tight |
| Mailchimp | Marketer-grade ESP | Best-in-class builder, A/B testing, automation, integrations | None, pair with a fundraising tool | No | 15% verified-charity discount (verify on mailchimp.com); per-contact billing escalates as your list grows | ❌ For most small UK charities; ✅ only when a dedicated marketer needs Mailchimp-specific automation |
For a small UK charity: if your contact list is under 10,000 and you do not have a marketing hire, the all-in-one side answers the question. The marketer-grade side is a real upgrade path, but it earns its bill only when someone's job is to run it.
1. Zeffy: the free all-in-one default
Verdict: the honest first choice for a small UK charity consolidating from a multi-tool stack.
Zeffy is a free fundraising platform. No platform fee, no transaction fee, no credit card fee. Ever. The model is funded by voluntary contributions from donors, and the fee to your charity is zero whether donors contribute or not. Over 100,000 charities use it globally, and more than £2B has been raised through the platform.
For a small UK charity, 'marketing software' almost always means donor communication: the appeal, the thank-you, the Gift Aid claim, and the report on who gave. The real UK stack is four tools, Ticket Tailor for the summer fete, JustGiving or CAF Donate for the autumn appeal, a small-society-lottery workflow for the Christmas raffle, and a CRM for the follow-up. That is four bills and three CSV exports. Zeffy consolidates the fundraising and email side of that stack into one free platform.
Gift Aid handling. Under Gift Aid, a UK-taxpaying donor's £100 becomes £125 to your charity: you reclaim 25p for every £1 from HMRC (Gift Aid, HMRC). Zeffy captures the Gift Aid declaration at the point of donation (donor name, home address, charity name, and taxpayer confirmation, as HMRC requires) and stores it against the donor record for the six-year retention window. The data your treasurer needs for a Charities Online claim is in the platform, not in a spreadsheet.
No default tip prompt on your donors. Zeffy charges your charity nothing whether or not a donor leaves an optional contribution. There is no default 17% tip prompt of the kind that has attracted sustained criticism across the UK fundraising press. You can see exactly what your donors paid and what reached the cause.
Email and newsletters. Zeffy's free charity newsletter and email tool includes a drag-and-drop builder, templates, scheduled sends, contact filters and lists, open/click/donation tracking, native Mailchimp import, unlimited contacts, up to 11,000 recipients per send, and embeddable sign-up forms. There is no per-contact billing curve.
Supporter management. The free supporter management built into the same platform gives you tags, smart filters, saved segments, email-from-dashboard with open and click stats, donor history, offline-gift tracking, and automatically issued donation acknowledgements. It covers what a small charity actually needs to segment a list, send an appeal, and see what came back.
How it consolidates. Donations, ticketing, raffles, auctions, memberships, peer-to-peer, and the online shop all feed the same donor record. Your email lists are built from the same data that records who gave, who attended, and who lapsed. The spreadsheet in the middle goes away.
For the vast majority of small and mid-sized UK charities, Zeffy's built-in email covers the real job: segment the list, send the appeal, see what came back, and reclaim the Gift Aid, with no per-contact bill. The genuine gap is narrow. It only matters for a charity with a dedicated marketer running multi-step automated journeys, and even then it is worth pricing that need against what Zeffy already does for free.
Small-charity fit verdict: ✅. The default when budget is the binding constraint and one person is doing everything.
For CICs, unincorporated associations, and community groups that are not yet registered charities, Zeffy is often the only option below JustGiving-tier fees. Most UK CRMs and platforms reserve their free or discounted tiers for HMRC-recognised charities.
2. Beacon: the UK fundraising CRM benchmark
Verdict: the premium UK CRM choice when supporter-database depth and native Gift Aid claim submission are the deciding factors, and you have a fundraising staffer to use them.
Beacon is UK-built and has been rated the number one fundraising CRM in Fundraising Magazine's UK CRM survey six years running (per the Zeffy UK competitor-positioning research). It is built around the fundraising workflow: donor journeys, native Gift Aid claim submission directly to HMRC Charities Online, retention reporting, and a modern UI that onboards quickly.
Pricing. Beacon starts from approximately £33.50/month, scaling by active supporter count. Verify the current figure live at beaconcrm.org/pricing before committing; UK CRM pricing drifts.
Strengths. Native Gift Aid claim submission (no separate file export), modern UI, fast onboarding, strong fundraising reporting, and a Fundraising Regulator-aware workflow. A strong fit for an established charity where someone owns the supporter data.
Tradeoffs. Fundraising-first means the platform is limited beyond that: no case management, no grant management, no ticketing. Without a person to interpret the analytics, you are paying for a dashboard nobody opens.
Small-charity fit verdict: ❌ unless (a) you have a fundraising or data lead who owns segmentation and reporting, and (b) you have clearly outgrown the donor database built into a free all-in-one. For a charity under £100k income with one generalist member of staff, the right test is whether the reporting depth is genuinely the binding constraint. Most often it is not.
3. Donorfy: the cheaper UK CRM entry point
Verdict: a UK-built all-in-one CRM with a genuine free entry tier, and the better choice when broad integrations matter more than reporting depth.
Donorfy is UK-built and now owned by The Access Group. It bundles supporter management, Gift Aid, donation pages, event tools, and email integrations into a single product. The entry point is meaningfully cheaper than Beacon, and the integration set is broader.
Pricing. Free up to 500 constituents; from approximately £50/month above that (verify live on donorfy.com/pricing before committing; the Access Group ownership may have changed the tier structure).
Strengths. Cheaper entry than Beacon; free at small scale; broad integrations with GoCardless for Direct Debit, Enthuse, JustGiving, Mailchimp, and Stripe. Good fit for a charity that already has JustGiving relationships and wants a CRM that talks to them.
Tradeoffs. Reporting is more basic than Beacon. Often paired with a separate service-delivery tool for charities that need both fundraising and case management.
Small-charity fit verdict: ❌ for a sub-£100k charity where the free all-in-one model already covers donations, email, and basic segmentation at £0; ✅ once your list is above 500 active supporters, you need the GoCardless Direct Debit integration, and you can justify a monthly subscription.
4. Enthuse: branded fundraising with a monthly subscription
Verdict: the option to take seriously when your charity has TCS London Marathon or Great Run places. Outside those flagship events, the subscription plus Gift Aid processing fee eats margin for a budget-constrained small charity.
Enthuse is UK-built (London, FCA-regulated). It puts the charity's brand front-and-centre at checkout rather than the platform's, and generates fundraising pages automatically at event registration. It is the exclusive online fundraising partner for TCS London Marathon Events and the Great Run series until 2034: if your charity has official London Marathon or Great Run places, you will be directing fundraisers to Enthuse regardless of your other platform choices.
Pricing. 0% platform fee on donations (tipping default); 1.9% + 30p card processing; 5% on Gift Aid value; events fee 3.5% + 75p per ticket. Optional Enthuse Fundraising and Events subscription from £29.99 + VAT/month. Verify current fees via the Zeffy vs Enthuse compare page, which is the canonical source for verified UK fees.
Strengths. Branded pages (fundraisers see your charity, not Enthuse); near-100% fundraiser-page adoption at London Marathon and Great Run events; strong P2P infrastructure.
Tradeoffs. The 5% Gift Aid processing fee is a real cost at scale. The subscription model adds up for smaller charities running occasional events. Outside LME and Great Run the value proposition is significantly weaker.
A note on raffles. If a charity raffle is part of your fundraising mix, the platform matters less than the licensing route. Raffles sold in advance to the public are legally small society lotteries and must be registered with the local licensing authority (£40 initial fee, £20 annual renewal, £20,000 single-draw cap per Gambling Commission guidance). Gift Aid does not apply to raffle ticket purchases. Zeffy supports raffle workflows; JustGiving and CAF Donate do not.
Small-charity fit verdict: ✅ only if you have TCS London Marathon or Great Run places (functionally mandatory for those events); ❌ outside those flagship events for a budget-constrained small charity.
5. CAF Donate: the trust-first UK donation platform
Verdict: the option to consider when a trustee-recognised donate button and Direct Debit are all you need, and you already have separate tools for everything else.
CAF Donate is built by the Charities Aid Foundation (itself a registered charity), and is used by over 8,000 UK charities. The positioning is deliberate: low flair, high trust, no monthly subscription. Trustees and donors who recognise the CAF name will be reassured by the URL.
Pricing. No monthly subscription; staggered fee by donation type (card, Direct Debit, cheque). Verify current fees directly on cafonline.org before committing; CAF publishes them by payment method.
Strengths. Low fees, no subscription cost, name recognition with trustees and established donors, solid Gift Aid processing, and a strong Direct Debit workflow via CAF Bank's infrastructure.
Tradeoffs. No ticketing, no memberships, no raffle tools, no auctions, and no email or CRM. Reporting is basic compared to commercial platforms. If you need more than a donate button, you will still be stitching a stack around it.
Small-charity fit verdict: ✅ if all you need is a donate button, Direct Debit, and Gift Aid, and the CAF trust signal matters to your trustees; ❌ if you also need event ticketing, raffles, memberships, or an integrated email tool. That is where Zeffy consolidates.
6. MailerLite: marketer-grade email on the budget end
Verdict: a real marketer-grade email platform with a friendly price, paired with a separate fundraising tool.
MailerLite sits on the marketer-grade side of the split. The builder, segmentation, automation, and landing-page tools punch above their price point, and the product is a credible Mailchimp alternative when your needs are list-and-campaign rather than donor record.
Free tier. As of 16 June 2026, MailerLite's free plan covers 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails/month (mailerlite.com/help/free-plan-update-faq). That is tighter than older articles report. The free tier was 1,000 subscribers before September 2025, and 500 subscribers through mid-2026 before the most recent cut. List growth puts you on the paid curve quickly. Verify the current figure live on mailerlite.com/pricing before committing; these limits change frequently.
Charity discount. 30% off all paid plans for verified charities, with documentation required. For a UK charity, the standard evidence is your registration number from the Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR (Scotland), or CCNI (Northern Ireland), or your HMRC charity recognition letter. Details on mailerlite.com/pricing.
Integration with fundraising. MailerLite does not handle donations or Gift Aid. You will pair it with a separate fundraising tool, which means CSV exports, tagging conventions, and a manual sync, exactly the friction the all-in-one side of the split removes.
UK GDPR note. MailerLite is UK GDPR-compatible, but you still need a lawful basis (consent or legitimate interest under PECR) before adding donors to a marketing list. Record the consent basis on each contact record and honour any Fundraising Preference Service requests.
Small-charity fit verdict: ✅ only if you have a marketing staffer running the list AND you have done the maths at the list size you expect in 12 months, not the list size you have today. Otherwise ❌: the free tier is now very tight at 250 contacts, and the bill still climbs with your contact count.
7. Mailchimp: when the per-contact bill is worth it
Verdict: the mature default on the marketer-grade side, but its strengths only pay back when you can use them.
Mailchimp's builder, automation, A/B testing, and integration surface are best-in-class. Verified charities receive a 15% discount on paid plans (verify the current rate for UK charities at mailchimp.com/pricing before committing; the EN source cites 15% as of mid-2026). The catch is the same as MailerLite's, only steeper: the per-contact pricing model means the bill climbs with your donor list, and your donor list is supposed to grow.
For a small UK charity reading this, the practical question is whether you have someone whose job is to run that workflow. If yes, Mailchimp earns its price curve. If no, you will pay for capabilities you do not use, on top of a separate fundraising tool (JustGiving, Ticket Tailor, or Zeffy for the donation and event side), with a CSV in between.
UK GDPR note. Audience import must respect the donor's original consent basis under UK GDPR and PECR. A Mailchimp import of your donor list is not a shortcut around consent. Verify your lawful basis before sending.
Small-charity fit verdict: ❌ for most UK charities. Mailchimp's per-contact pricing means your bill climbs as your list grows, so the better you do at fundraising, the more you pay for email. The charity discount does not change that curve. ✅ only if you have a dedicated marketer who needs Mailchimp-specific automation and has budgeted for the per-contact cost at the list size you expect 12 months out, not today.
How to choose: the decision
Skip the flowchart. The decision usually collapses to four conditions.
- 1. Budget is the binding constraint AND you have under 10,000 contacts AND you need Gift Aid handled in-flow. Pick Zeffy. You are on the donor-communication side of the split, and the all-in-one free fundraising platform covers donations, Gift Aid declarations, supporter records, and email together at £0.
- 2. You have a dedicated marketing staffer AND a list size that justifies the per-contact bill. Keep your fundraising tool, and add ONE marketer-grade ESP (Mailchimp or MailerLite) on top. Not five tools. One.
- 3. Supporter-database depth and Gift Aid claim automation are the deciding factor AND you have £400+/year AND a fundraising staffer to run it. Look at Beacon or Donorfy.
- 4. You have TCS London Marathon or Great Run places. You will be on Enthuse for those specific events (the platform is contractually exclusive until 2034). Use Zeffy or another platform for everything else in your fundraising programme.
If none of conditions 2 through 4 is unambiguously true, condition 1 is true by default. That is the honest answer for most small UK charities, and it is the one most roundups will not give you.
A note on the Fundraising Regulator. Whichever platform you choose, check it aligns with the Code of Fundraising Practice (Section 9 on online platforms, in force since 1 November 2025). If your charity spends over £100k annually on fundraising, you should already be registered with the Fundraising Regulator.
Key features to look for
If you are on the donor-communication side of the split, here is what to test in any platform before committing. These are the features where small charities lose the most time when a tool does not have them.
- Gift Aid declaration captured at the point of donation. The platform should collect the donor's full name, home address, charity name, and taxpayer confirmation as HMRC requires, store it for the six-year retention window (Gift Aid guidance), and export the data your treasurer needs for a Charities Online claim without a separate spreadsheet step. If Gift Aid lives in a manual process, you will leave 25p in every £1 on the table.
- UK GDPR-ready consent capture. The platform should record the lawful basis (consent or legitimate interest) on each supporter record, timestamp that consent, and honour Fundraising Preference Service requests. UK VoC confirms charities ask 'Are you GDPR compliant?' before adopting new tools (Code of Fundraising Practice). Small trustees ask it of their own staff.
- Donor segmentation built on giving history. Can you send an email only to donors who gave in the last 12 months and have not given this year? If segmentation lives in a separate ESP, you will be exporting CSVs every send.
- Automated thank-you emails on every gift. One-time, recurring, event ticket, shop purchase: every transaction should trigger an immediate, branded donation acknowledgement without you touching it. Manual thank-yous at small-charity scale is where donor relationships go to die. Automated follow-up materially improves retention.
- Regular giving management. Cards expire, donors update their details, monthly Direct Debits fail. The platform should handle retries, expiration reminders, and updates without a spreadsheet.
- Event registration with email follow-up. Tickets, attendee lists, pre-event reminders, and a post-event thank-you path should sit in the same tool that holds the donor record. If your event tool and your CRM are different products, the post-event re-engagement step is the one that breaks.
- Reporting that connects email engagement to giving. 'Who opened the appeal AND gave AND is Gift Aid eligible' is the single most useful report a small fundraiser can run. If it requires joining two CSVs, it will not get run.
For a small UK charity: every one of these is standard inside an all-in-one tool, and every one of them is a separate integration to maintain when you are stitching a marketer-grade ESP to a separate fundraising platform.
Concluding thought
The right number of tools for a small UK charity is the smallest number that still answers the question. For most readers of this article, that number is one. The all-in-one side of the split exists for you, and the genuinely free option on it exists for you specifically. The marketer-grade side is a real upgrade path, but it is an upgrade path, not a starting point.
Consolidate before you shop. Then shop only for the gap that remains.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free marketing tool for a small UK charity?
For most small UK charities, the best free tool is one that handles donations, Gift Aid, supporter records, and email in a single platform. Zeffy does exactly that at £0, with no per-contact billing and no platform fee. If your charity already has a separate CRM and only needs email, MailerLite's free tier (250 subscribers as of mid-2026; verify live on mailerlite.com) is worth considering, but the free tier is now very tight and list growth will put you on a paid curve quickly. The honest starting point for a budget-constrained charity is to ask whether the tool that handles your donations can also handle your email before adding a separate one.
How do I migrate from Mailchimp to an all-in-one platform?
Start by exporting your Mailchimp contacts as a CSV (including tags, groups, and consent data). Import them into your new platform using the native import tool, Zeffy has a native Mailchimp import that maps tags and lists. Before you import, reconcile your contact list against your donor records: anyone who is in Mailchimp but not in your donor records is a gap in your reporting. After import, set up one automated thank-you sequence and run it alongside Mailchimp for 30 days before switching fully. This gives you a safety net and lets you compare open rates on the same audience. The migration itself takes a few hours; the payoff is a single platform where email engagement and giving history live on the same record.
Can I use Zeffy just for email without fundraising?
Yes. Zeffy's email and newsletter tool is available independently of the fundraising features. You can import an existing contact list, build and send newsletters, and track opens and clicks without running any donation forms or events through the platform. That said, the consolidation benefit, where your email lists are built automatically from the same data that records who gave, who attended, and who lapsed, only applies when fundraising and email sit in the same platform. Using Zeffy for email only is a valid starting point; most charities find the fundraising side follows naturally.
What is the difference between supporter management and an email marketing tool?
supporter management platform (such as Beacon or Donorfy) is built around the giving relationship: it records donation history, Gift Aid declarations, communication preferences, and supporter journey data. Email is one output of that record. An email marketing tool (such as Mailchimp or MailerLite) is built around the campaign: it manages lists, segments, sends, and open/click tracking. It has no giving record unless you connect one via integration. For a small UK charity, the difference matters most at the point of segmentation: 'send only to donors who gave last Christmas' is a one-click filter in a supporter management platform and a CSV export plus manual list-build in a standalone ESP. Beacon and Donorfy are the UK-built fundraising CRM benchmarks; Zeffy combines the supporter record and the email tool in one free platform.
Does Zeffy handle Gift Aid?
Yes. Zeffy captures the Gift Aid declaration at the point of donation: the donor's full name, home address, charity name, and taxpayer confirmation, as required by HMRC. The declaration is stored against the donor record for the six-year retention window HMRC requires. Your charity must be HMRC-recognised (a separate registration from the Charity Commission, OSCR, or CCNI, yielding a Charities Reference Number) to reclaim Gift Aid. When those conditions are met, each £1 donated by a UK taxpayer becomes £1.25 to your charity via the HMRC Charities Online claim. Gift Aid does not apply to raffle tickets, event tickets sold at face value, or donations from anyone who has not paid sufficient UK Income or Capital Gains Tax in the year.
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