The best WordPress plugin for nonprofits
The best WordPress plugin for nonprofits is Nonprofit Manager, if you want members, donations, newsletters, and events in one free system on your own site. The real alternative isn’t another WordPress plugin. It’s hosted nonprofit software like Wild Apricot, Neon CRM, or Bloomerang. Same job, different deal: it rents itself back to you monthly and keeps your data on their servers. Here’s the honest comparison, including what you give up either way.
How we priced this: every figure below comes from each vendor’s own pricing or plans page, checked in July 2026. Where a vendor doesn’t publish a price and instead sells by quote, we say so instead of guessing.
Quick answer
- Best free, self-hosted option: Nonprofit Manager
- Best fully hosted, all-in-one platform: Wild Apricot
- Best for larger orgs that need deep donor analytics: Neon CRM
- Best dedicated donor CRM: Bloomerang
WordPress plugin, or hosted software?
Wild Apricot, Neon CRM, and Bloomerang aren’t WordPress plugins. They’re separate hosted platforms you log into. Each charges monthly, scaling with your number of contacts or your organization’s revenue. Nonprofit Manager runs as a plugin on the WordPress site you already have. Your member and donor data lives in your own database, not on someone else’s servers, and there’s no meter counting your contacts.
The gap compounds over time. Wild Apricot’s $66-a-month entry tier is $792 a year, and that’s before your contact count grows past 100 and pushes you into a higher tier. Five years in, a small nonprofit that started small and grew its list is often paying $150 to $200 a month. That’s somewhere around $10,000 total over that stretch, for a job Nonprofit Manager does on the hosting you’re already paying for.
| Tool | Where it runs | Starting price | Free tier? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nonprofit Manager | Your WordPress site | Free | Yes, full core |
| Wild Apricot | Hosted (their servers) | $66/month | No, 60-day trial only |
| Neon CRM | Hosted (their servers) | $99/month | No, demo only |
| Bloomerang | Hosted (their servers) | $125/month (CRM) | No, sales quote only |
What “your data on their servers” actually means
It’s not just a philosophical point. On a hosted platform, your member list, donation history, and email archive exist inside that vendor’s database, accessible through whatever export tools they choose to build. Most will let you export a CSV of contacts. Fewer make it easy to export full donation history, email engagement data, or event attendance in a usable format. If the vendor changes its pricing, gets acquired, or shuts down a product line, you’re negotiating from a weaker position than you’d like.
With Nonprofit Manager, that data sits in your own WordPress database from day one. A full site backup, the kind any competent host already runs, includes it. There’s no export step required to get your own data out, because it never left.
The options
Nonprofit Manager, best free and self-hosted
Free core covering members, donations, newsletters, and events. No per-contact fee, your data on your own site. Pro adds recurring donations, membership dues auto-billing, and automation at a flat yearly price, regardless of your list size. Best for small nonprofits and clubs that want to own their site and their data instead of leasing access to it. See the full feature list.
Wild Apricot, best fully hosted all-in-one
A polished, fully hosted platform with its own website builder, event registration, and member portal built in. Starts at $66 a month for 100 contacts and climbs from there as your list grows, with a 60-day trial and no permanent free plan. The website builder is a real advantage if you don’t already have a WordPress site and don’t want to build one. It’s dead weight if you do, since you’d be paying for a second website you don’t use. Want someone else running the servers, and don’t mind paying by the contact? This one’s for you. Nonprofit Manager compared to Wild Apricot.
Neon CRM, best for larger orgs
A deeper CRM starting at $99 a month, priced against your organization’s own revenue rather than a flat contact count. The sales quote tends to climb fast once you’re past a small budget. Sales-demo only, no free tier or self-serve trial, which also means no way to try it without a scheduled call. Its strength is in donor analytics and reporting depth, not in being simple to set up. Fits a larger nonprofit that has outgrown a simpler tool and has staff time to manage a more complex system. Nonprofit Manager compared to Neon CRM.
Bloomerang, best dedicated donor CRM
A donor-relationship-focused CRM starting at $125 a month, with fundraising and volunteer management sold as separate add-on products rather than included. Pricing by quote, no published free tier, so the number you actually pay depends on which add-ons your organization needs. Its core strength is donor history and relationship tracking, built by people who came out of the fundraising world rather than the WordPress world. Fits if donor relationship tracking is your main need and you’re ready for CRM-level pricing. Nonprofit Manager compared to Bloomerang.
Switching from hosted nonprofit software to WordPress
The moves in either direction are more mechanical than people expect. Coming from Wild Apricot, Neon CRM, or Bloomerang, export your contacts and donation history as a CSV, which all three support from their admin settings. Nonprofit Manager’s import wizard reads that CSV and maps the columns, name, email, join date, donation amount, to its own fields. It skips rows that already exist by email address, so re-running an import doesn’t create duplicates.
What doesn’t move automatically is anything tied to the old platform’s own payment processor. Say Wild Apricot or Neon CRM was charging recurring dues or donations through their built-in billing. Those subscriptions stay active there until you cancel them, and new recurring charges start fresh on Stripe once you set up Nonprofit Manager Pro. Most organizations run a short overlap, a month or a full billing cycle, so no one’s card gets charged twice or missed entirely during the switch. Test the new setup with a small donation of your own before pointing real traffic at it.
Our pick for the best WordPress plugin for nonprofits
Running a small nonprofit or club? Nonprofit Manager is the best value. The free core replaces roughly $800 a year in separate tools, with no monthly bill and no contact meter. Here’s the full cost breakdown. A larger organization with dedicated development or fundraising staff? The hosted platforms above earn their price with deeper reporting and dedicated support you’d otherwise have to build yourself.
Compare by category
See how Nonprofit Manager stacks up in other areas:
- Best WordPress plugin for donations
- Best membership plugin for nonprofits
- Best newsletter plugin for nonprofits
- Best WordPress plugin for churches
- Best plugin for clubs and associations
Frequently asked questions
Is there a truly free WordPress plugin for nonprofits?
Yes. Nonprofit Manager’s core is free with no time limit, no contact cap, and no credit card required, covering members, one-time donations, newsletters, and events.
Why not just use hosted nonprofit software instead of WordPress?
Hosted platforms like Wild Apricot, Neon CRM, and Bloomerang can be worth it for larger organizations. But they charge monthly, and your data lives on their servers. A WordPress plugin like Nonprofit Manager keeps your data on your own site and drops the recurring per-contact bill.
What does Nonprofit Manager Pro add?
Recurring donations, membership dues auto-billing, custom member fields, email automation, advanced segmentation, and list imports from Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or a spreadsheet, all for a flat yearly price instead of a monthly per-contact fee.
Can I move my data out if I switch away from hosted software?
Yes, all three hosted platforms let you export contacts and donation history as a CSV from their admin settings. Nonprofit Manager’s import wizard reads that file directly and skips duplicate rows by email.
Does Nonprofit Manager work if I don’t already have a WordPress site?
You need a WordPress site first, since it’s a plugin, not a standalone platform. If you don’t have one, a hosted option like Wild Apricot, which bundles its own website builder, may be simpler to start with.
Is Nonprofit Manager secure enough to replace a dedicated CRM?
For members, donations, newsletters, and events, yes, it’s built specifically for that. It isn’t a general-purpose CRM with sales pipelines or case management, so an organization that needs those should look at a dedicated CRM instead.
Prices are from each vendor’s official pages as of July 2026 and can change.