Why we're publishing our prices

Today we're publishing our pricing on the website. Three plans, clear starting prices, and a cost estimator you can use without filling out a form or booking a call.

This is a small change to a page. It's a bigger change to how we think fundraising technology should be sold.

Why most software hides its price

If you've evaluated business software recently, you know the pattern. You read the product page. You like what you see. You look for pricing and find a Book a demo button instead. A week later you're on a call, answering qualifying questions before anyone will tell you what anything costs.

That model exists for a reason. It lets vendors price each deal to the buyer. It pulls every prospect into a sales conversation. It keeps competitors guessing.

It also wastes your time.

Fundraising teams are already stretched. Leaders are managing competing priorities, defending budgets, and trying to move fast inside slow procurement cycles. Asking them to sit through a discovery call just to learn if a product is in their range is a tax on the people least able to pay it.

We've watched prospects hit hard budget caps — $25,000, $3,000, sometimes a fixed line item that can't flex — before an evaluation even starts. A published starting price lets those teams self-qualify in seconds instead of weeks.

What we heard from buyers

A few themes came up again and again:

• "I need to build a business case, and I can't start without a number." Budget cycles are real. Leaders need a defensible range before they can bring a vendor to their CFO or board.

• "I want to know if we're even in the right ballpark before I invest time." Nobody wants to spend three weeks in an evaluation only to find out the product is priced for a different segment.

• "Opaque pricing makes me wonder what else is opaque." Trust is a buying criterion. If the price is hidden, what does that say about how the product works?

These aren't objections. They're reasonable expectations.

What we're publishing

On our new pricing page, you'll find:

• Three plans — Essentials, Growth, and Enterprise — with starting annual fees and per-active-donor rates.

• A cost estimator that returns a rough number based on your active donor count, up to 500,000. No form, no call. Above that threshold, or for Enterprise needs, we'll size pricing together.

• A feature comparison showing what's included at each tier, from predictive models to CRM integrations to data residency.

• Clear definitions of what we mean by "active donor," how onboarding works, and which CRMs we support.

Starting price is $15,000 per year. Enterprise deals are custom — complex data and compliance are different work. Everything else is on the page.

Why this fits how we sell

Dataro helps fundraising teams replace guesswork with clear priorities. Who to focus on. Who to engage right now. What to do next. If that's the product we sell, it would be strange to run a sales process built on guesswork.

Transparent pricing matches how we handle the rest of the buying process:

• We publish our security posture and data residency options.

• We explain what each predictive model does and which programs it supports.

• We don't promise outcomes we can't back up with customer results.

Price is part of the same story. Putting it on the website is the obvious next step.

What this doesn't change

A few things worth saying clearly:

• Demos are still the best way to evaluate Dataro. A scoped demo against your CRM and your fundraising goals will always tell you more than a price tag. The pricing page is there to help you decide whether a demo is worth your time, not to replace it.

• Enterprise deals — and very large programs — are still custom. Multi-entity structures, federated orgs, custom data warehouses, and complex compliance all need a real conversation. The same goes for programs above 500,000 active donors, where data volumes, infrastructure, and onboarding look different enough to warrant one. That's what the Enterprise tier and a scoping call are for.

• We'd still rather put you on the right plan than the biggest one. If Essentials fits your program, we'll tell you. You can upgrade later.

A small bet on respect

Publishing pricing is a small bet that fundraising teams would rather make decisions with more information than less. That leaders would rather spend 30 seconds on a pricing page than 30 minutes on a qualifying call. That trust, at the start of a relationship, matters.

If you've been curious about Dataro but didn't want to book a call just to find out the cost, the page is live now. Take a look. Run the estimator. Come back when you're ready. And if your program is above 500,000 active donors or you're sizing up Enterprise, reach out — that's a conversation worth having directly.

See the pricing page →