Handbid vs. Event.Gives: Features and Pricing Insights

Step into a comprehensive exploration of Handbid’s pricing and plan features within the dynamic world of fundraising technology. This in-depth blog juxtaposes the platform's capabilities and expenses with Event.Gives for a well-rounded comparison. Regardless of your experience level in fundraising, our intention is to provide you with the knowledge necessary to make a well-informed choice for your fundraising ventures. Join us on this journey as we navigate the nuanced terrain of Handbid’s pricing strategies and the spectrum of features available across its plans, arming you with valuable insights to navigate the fundraising realm with clarity.

Strengths of Event.Gives

When it comes to hosting live events, Event.Gives shines as a premier platform that seamlessly integrates technology for your attendees. Its user-friendly interface caters to all attendees, making bidding and donating comfortable and intuitive. This attendee-centric design ensures a confident experience, while its streamlined setup, professional appearance, and live-streaming capabilities contribute to a successful event, even accommodating remote guests. Event.Gives goes the extra mile with complimentary pre-event consultation and coaching, imparting valuable strategies to boost donations during your event. Additionally, their affordable day-of support options provide organizers with peace of mind, offering dedicated assistance for smooth event execution, both remotely and on-site.

Strengths of Handbid

Handbid presents a range of strengths that position it as a notable platform for silent auctions and fundraising events. One of its central advantages is its user-friendly interface, catering to both organizers and participants. This design simplifies the setup and management of auctions, providing an intuitive bidding experience. The platform's adaptable features offer organizers the flexibility to customize auction parameters, ensuring a tailored approach to various event requirements.A standout feature of Handbid is its seamless mobile compatibility, permitting bidders to engage through their smartphones from any location. This accessibility broadens event reach and encourages wider participation, potentially boosting fundraising outcomes.

Handbid's analytics and reporting tools equip organizers with valuable data on bidding patterns, popular items, and bidder preferences. This data-driven approach empowers organizers to refine strategies for more effective future events. In essence, Handbid's strengths encompass user-friendliness, adaptability, mobile integration, and data-driven insights. Collectively, these attributes contribute to an efficient platform that streamlines auctions, fosters engagement and enhances the potential for fundraising success.

Unique Features for Event.Gives

Event.Gives offers features closely aligned with Handbid’s Single Event plan, including capabilities for live and silent auctions. However, Event.Gives introduces distinctive elements:

1. Ticket Scanner

One distinctive feature that sets Event.Gives apart from Handbid for fundraising events is Event.Gives’ advanced ticket scanner capability. Event.Gives offers a seamless ticket scanning process, allowing event organizers to manage attendee entry and enhance the event experience effortlessly. This feature ensures a smooth and line-free check-in process, contributing to a more organized and enjoyable event for attendees and organizers.

2. Donation Designation

Event.Gives provides a seamless and efficient solution for donation designation within its platform. With its user-friendly interface, donors can effortlessly allocate their contributions to specific causes, projects, or funds. This feature empowers donors by giving them the agency to direct their support to areas that resonate with their values. Event organizers can customize and present various donation options, allowing donors to decide where their funds will have the most impact. By facilitating this level of personalization and transparency, Event.Gives ensures that the act of donating becomes a purposeful and meaningful experience, fostering a deeper connection between donors and the causes they care about.

3. Unlimited Managers

Event.Gives provides the practical feature of unlimited managers within its platform, enabling seamless event coordination and management. This functionality allows event organizers to assign numerous individuals the authority to oversee different event elements concurrently. With unlimited managers, teams can effectively delegate tasks, manage specific event components, and ensure a cohesive execution. This capability proves especially beneficial for events with multifaceted logistics that necessitate the involvement of diverse teams, facilitating smooth communication and coordination for a successful event outcome.

4. Zero Latency Streaming

Event.Gives brings a notable advancement to virtual events with its Zero Latency Streaming feature. This technology eliminates delays in live-streamed content, providing a seamless and real-time experience for participants. By minimizing latency, Event.Gives ensures that interactions during virtual events, auctions, and presentations remain fluid and authentic. Attendees can engage with the content without disruptions, fostering a sense of immediate participation. This feature enhances the overall quality of virtual events, allowing organizers to create engaging experiences that resonate with audiences who value real-time interactions.

5. Printable Items

Event.Gives has templated printables built to pull all the custom information you provide about your items or events to save you time and money. You can export item cards that pull the photo, QR code for the item, and item description from your event as a ready-to-print file. The platform also allows you to export paddle numbers using your brand color, including the name and table number for each guest and the QR code to the items and donate page again as a print-ready file. The Handbid software allows you to export the QR code, but you must make your own item cards and paddle numbers.

Unique Features for Handbid

The Handbid plans are robust options for live events and distinguishes themselves through the following features:

1. Max Bid

Handbid empowers bidders to set maximum bids, automatically placing new bids until they reach their specified limit. This is a strategic feature that increases engagement in silent auctions and can make an impact on funds raised. While Event.Gives is developing this feature, it's not yet available. 

2. Embeddable Forms

The Embeddable Forms feature by Handbid provides event organizers with a practical tool to integrate bidding capabilities seamlessly into their own websites or platforms. This feature enables the embedding of customized bidding forms directly onto web pages, streamlining the bidding process and ensuring a cohesive user experience. By utilizing Embeddable Forms, bidders can engage with auctions without being redirected to external sites, maintaining a sense of continuity within the organizer's branding and design. This functionality simplifies the user journey and facilitates a smooth transition from the organizer's website to the auction interface. In essence, Handbid's Embeddable Forms offer organizers the means to provide a unified bidding experience for participants while effortlessly incorporating auction activities into their existing online presence.

3. Peer-to-Peer

Handbid offers peer-to-peer functionality for donation pages and traditional peer-to-peer fundraising, where Event.Gives does not have the ability for supporters to create personal campaign pages to fundraise on an organization’s behalf. While Event.Gives does not have the full realm of peer-to-peer functionality, you can set up donation pages on behalf of your supporters to use as a campaign, and you can hold vote-to-donate events. 

Handbid Pricing Compared to Event.Gives Pricing

Nonprofit organizations invest unwavering efforts in fundraising to support their causes, and selecting the right fundraising software is of paramount importance, with platform costs taking center stage. As previously highlighted, Handbid’s Unlimited Event plan closely mirrors Event.Gives' platform, particularly because Handbid’s Single Event plan excludes consulting and 1:1 customer support.

The financial aspect of fundraising platforms carries significant weight in the decision-making process for nonprofits. Event.Gives' platform comes at no cost, but it involves fees tied to processed transactions, whereas Handbid’s approach entails a baseline fee in addition to credit card fees. Given the differing pricing structures of the two companies, understanding their comparison can be intricate. Valuable insights from pricing data shared by previous Handbid customers are accessible on galapricing.com, simplifying direct comparisons.

Here is an overview of the feature comparisons and a pricing breakdown shown on slide 3. 

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Both platforms have received praise from users and hold a strong reputation within the industry. As you consider the best platform for your upcoming event, your specific priorities will play a pivotal role in shaping your decision.

• If your organization utilizes extensive peer-to-peer fundraising, Handbid’s approach may be the best option.
• Event.Gives offers a robust option for enhanced support during the event preparation phase for a cheaper price than Handbid.
• For those interested in leveraging the max bid feature, choosing Handbid is a prudent choice until Event.Gives incorporates Max Bid capabilities into their platform.
• Event.Gives particularly excels with its offerings of a ticket scanner and printable templates, making day-of operations smooth.

When it comes to pricing, Event.Gives shines with its affordability and the flexibility of its fee structure, making it an attractive option for your fundraising event.

If you decide to work with Event.Gives, you'll have access to a team of event experts who will guide you through the planning process, from creating your event site to post-event reporting. With Event.Gives, you can rest assured that you have a team of experienced professionals supporting you every step of the way, ensuring that your fundraising event is a success!

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