DonorPerfect and Little Green Light are both long-established donor databases for small and mid-sized nonprofits, and both are built for development teams rather than adapted from sales software. They take opposite approaches to pricing and packaging. Little Green Light (LGL) publishes one price ladder, puts every feature in every tier and asks for no contract. DonorPerfect sells three plans, Core, Plus and Pro, with features and support levels that step up by plan, and publishes a single starting price.
This page compares the two on price at your list size, what each plan includes, contract and cancellation terms, support, and how you get your data in and out. If you run either one today and what you mostly lack is a clear view of which donors need attention, Gratefully has a free plan: it connects live to Little Green Light and works from DonorPerfect exports, so you can try that before deciding to switch.
How we put this together. Prices, plan contents and terms were read on each vendor’s own pages on 18 September 2026, from India, and are shown as displayed. When we opened DonorPerfect’s pricing page in a browser from India it redirected to its Canadian pricing guide, which shows no figures, so the DonorPerfect prices here are from its US page. We have not used either system hands-on or migrated between them.
DonorPerfect vs Little Green Light at a glance
| Little Green Light | DonorPerfect | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $45 a month, up to 2,500 records | “Starting at $99/month” on its own site |
| Price ladder published | Yes, every tier to 50,000 records and beyond | No, one starting figure; plans quoted on request |
| Plans | One plan, priced by record count | Core, Plus and Pro |
| Users | Unlimited, no charge | Not published |
| Contract | “No contracts”, no cancellation fees | Subscription renews; 30 days’ notice to stop; prepayments nonrefundable |
| Support | Weekday office hours, most answers in one to two hours | Chat on Core and Plus; chat and phone on Pro |
| Email marketing | Built-in sending; Mailchimp and Constant Contact integrations | Constant Contact built in on all plans; Mailchimp integration |
| Data migration | Self-serve importer, or a consultant from LGL’s network | “Free data transfers from most CRMs” |
| Capterra (18 Sep 2026) | 4.8 from 317 reviews | 4.5 from 1,480 reviews |
What each costs
Little Green Light: every tier on the page
LGL’s pricing page sets a monthly rate by the number of constituent records, and it read like this on 18 September 2026:
| Constituent records | Per month | Per year, paid monthly | Per year, 12 months prepaid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 2,500 | $45 | $540 | $486 |
| Up to 5,000 | $60 | $720 | $648 |
| Up to 10,000 | $75 | $900 | $810 |
| Up to 20,000 | $90 | $1,080 | $972 |
| Up to 30,000 | $105 | $1,260 | $1,134 |
| Up to 50,000 | $135 | $1,620 | $1,458 |
Beyond 50,000 records it adds $15 a month per further 10,000, to a maximum of 200,000. Prepaying 12 months takes 10% off, 6 months 5% and 3 months 2.5%; the yearly totals above are our arithmetic from those published figures. There are no setup fees, no cancellation fees and no charge for users, and the first 30 days are free. LGL counts “any individual or organization for which you’ve created a record”, so each person in a household is a record. See our Little Green Light pricing guide.
DonorPerfect: one published number, and a disagreement about it
DonorPerfect’s pricing page gives one dollar figure: “starting at $99/month”. It does not publish the price of each plan, user counts or record limits; you request a quote. Here is the awkward part. Capterra, G2 and Software Advice all list DonorPerfect at $119 a month for its entry plan. We cannot tell you which figure a new customer is quoted today, only that the vendor’s own page says $99 and the review sites say $119, so use the vendor figure as the floor and ask for a written quote for your record count and plan.
What the page does show is what each plan adds:
- All plans: Constant Contact email marketing built in, Mailchimp integration setup, customisable donation forms, payment processing, automated receipts, volunteer tracking, grant management, the DonorPerfect Mobile app, chat support and live and on-demand training.
- Plus adds: QuickBooks integration, ReadySetAuction, crowdfunding, moves management and batch gift entry, with 5 scheduled reports.
- Pro adds: phone support, custom API access, enterprise direct mail segmentation, enterprise reports and graphs, and 100 scheduled reports.
So a nonprofit that needs QuickBooks and moves management is looking at Plus, not Core, and one that wants to phone support is looking at Pro. DonorPerfect also sells an Address Updater add-on for NCOA address changes, which we have previously recorded at $12 to $100 a month. Our DonorPerfect pricing guide covers the plan detail.
Where the gap is widest
Using the vendors’ own figures, a nonprofit with up to 2,500 records pays $540 a year for LGL, or $486 prepaid. DonorPerfect’s starting price is $1,188 a year at $99 a month, or $1,428 at the $119 the review sites show, before any plan upgrade. At 10,000 records LGL is $900 a year; DonorPerfect does not publish a figure for that size. The subscription gap is real, but so is the difference in what is included: DonorPerfect bundles Constant Contact, which LGL users pay Constant Contact or Mailchimp for separately if they want full campaign email.
Contracts, cancellation and your data
Little Green Light advertises “No setup fees”, “No cancellation fees”, “No contracts” and “No upsells”. You pay monthly or prepay for a discount and cancel from the billing settings. We did not find a published rule on refunds of unused prepayment, so ask before prepaying a year.
DonorPerfect’s terms of service, last updated 1 April 2026, say that if you do not want to renew, you must tell DonorPerfect at least 30 days before the renewal date. They also state that “Prepayments are nonrefundable”, and that termination includes deletion of all data in your account. Put together: diary the notice date, and take a full export before the account ends, because once it is terminated the data goes with it.
Features compared
Everyday donor management
Both cover the core: constituent records, gifts and pledges, households and relationships, receipts, tasks and reports. LGL’s giving summary on each record shows the total value of contributions, including gifts, in-kind donations, pledges, soft credits and matching gifts, plus first, most recent and largest gift. DonorPerfect’s reporting marketing lists over 70 standard reports and dashboards that track growth in giving, average gift and donor lifetime value. Our guide to donor lifetime value explains why a lifetime total and a lifetime value forecast are different numbers.
Major gifts, events and volunteers
LGL handles stewardship through a series of tasks for each prospect, and includes membership tracking, event invitations and attendance, and volunteer interests and hours in every tier. DonorPerfect includes volunteer tracking and grant management on every plan, and puts moves management, auctions and crowdfunding in Plus. If you run a structured major gifts programme, compare LGL’s task-based approach with DonorPerfect’s moves management in a demo, because that is where daily use will differ most.
Email and integrations
DonorPerfect includes a Constant Contact account in its plans and also integrates with Mailchimp. Its Mailchimp connection is two-way: it sends donor and gift details to Mailchimp, turns DonorPerfect flags into Mailchimp tags, and logs sends, opens, clicks and unsubscribes back on the donor record each night. DonorPerfect says a paid Mailchimp account is required. LGL sends email directly from the database, with published sending limits, and integrates with Mailchimp and Constant Contact, as well as QuickBooks Online, Zapier, Stripe and PayPal. Our Mailchimp integration guide compares the syncs in detail.
Online giving
LGL lists online giving at “starting at 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction paid to the payment processor (no fee to LGL)”, through Stripe or PayPal. DonorPerfect includes payment processing and customisable forms but does not publish its processing rates on its pricing page or its payment services factsheet. Ask for the rate card, and ask whether you can use your own processor.
Support and getting started
LGL’s support team works weekdays from 9am to 7pm Eastern and says it answers most questions within one to two hours. It does not handle your files: you import with its free Flex Importer, using its documentation and webinars, or hire someone from its consultant network. DonorPerfect advertises “free data transfers from most CRMs” on its pricing page, though its separate data transfer page says pricing varies, so confirm in writing what your transfer will cost. Its support is chat on Core and Plus and chat plus phone on Pro, and every plan includes live and on-demand training. Our CRM migration guide covers the questions to ask about any transfer.
What reviewers say
On Capterra, read on 18 September 2026, Little Green Light scores 4.8 from 317 reviews and DonorPerfect 4.5 from 1,480. LGL scores higher on value for money, 4.9 against 4.5, and on ease of use, 4.6 against 4.3; the two tie at 4.8 on customer service. On G2 both score 4.4, from 63 reviews for LGL and 567 for DonorPerfect. DonorPerfect has far more reviews, which reflects its longer history and larger customer base.
What to ask before you sign
With LGL most answers are on the page. With DonorPerfect they come from the sales conversation, so go in with a list:
- Which plan do I need, and what does it cost at my record count? Ask for Core, Plus and Pro side by side, in writing, and ask how records are counted, including households, organisations and inactive donors.
- How many users are included? DonorPerfect’s pricing page does not say. LGL includes unlimited users.
- What will the data transfer cost? The pricing page says free from most CRMs; the data transfer page says pricing varies. Ask which of your files, fields and years of history are covered.
- What are the processing rates? DonorPerfect does not publish them. Compare them with LGL’s pass-through Stripe rate of 2.2% + $0.30.
- What happens at renewal? Ask for the renewal price cap, confirm the 30-day notice rule, and ask whether a prepaid year can be refunded if you leave early. The terms say prepayments are nonrefundable.
- How do I get a full export? Ask for the export formats and whether attachments and notes come with it.
Moving between the two
Both directions are common: small organisations move from DonorPerfect to LGL to cut cost, and growing ones move from LGL to DonorPerfect for bundled email, moves management and a vendor-run transfer. Either way, three things need planning.
Recurring gifts. A monthly gift is an authorisation held by the payment processor against a stored card, not a row you can export. If you change processors, ask both sides in writing whether card tokens can be transferred, or whether monthly donors will need to sign up again.
History that does not map cleanly. Soft credits, household links, pledges, custom fields and notes are where imports break. LGL’s giving summary includes soft credits and matching gifts, so check they arrive in the right fields. Run a test import of a few hundred records and compare totals before the full load.
Merges you cannot undo. Clean duplicates before the move, not after. LGL lets you undo a merge from its merge history; DonorPerfect has no undo and relies on restoring from a backup. Our duplicate donor records guide covers the merge rules in each system.
Which one should you choose?
- Choose Little Green Light if cost matters most, you want to see the price at every size, you do not want a contract, and someone on your team can handle the import. It suits small shops and volunteer-led organisations well.
- Choose DonorPerfect if you want email marketing bundled, a vendor-run data transfer, structured moves management, and a path to phone support and a custom API on Pro. Get the plan price in writing and diary the 30-day notice date.
- Compare total cost, not the headline. Add what you would pay for email, processing and migration to each subscription figure before you decide.
For more on each, see our DonorPerfect review, Little Green Light review, DonorPerfect alternatives and Little Green Light alternatives. If Bloomerang is also on your list, our Bloomerang vs DonorPerfect and Bloomerang vs Little Green Light comparisons cover it.
Better donor insight without a migration
If the database is doing its job and the problem is knowing who to call, a switch will not fix that. Gratefully works on top of the CRM you have. Its product page lists a live connector for Little Green Light that syncs donor records, gift history and interactions automatically. DonorPerfect is not on its connector list, so DonorPerfect users bring data in through its CSV import with smart field mapping. Either way it ranks which donors need attention with a reason for each, and drafts outreach from their history for you to review. It is not a CRM and does not write back to either system.
Gratefully’s pricing page, read on 18 September 2026, has a Free plan that includes all integrations, and new accounts start with a 14-day trial of its Advanced plan with no card required before moving to Free. Paid plans start at $79 a month billed yearly. Our Gratefully vs DonorPerfect page explains how the two work together.
Disclosure: Zilwaris, the consultancy run by AI Tools Bakery’s founder, does paid advisory work for Gratefully. Gratefully did not pay for this placement, and it is assessed on the same criteria as everything else on this site.
Where the facts on this page come from
- Little Green Light: pricing, features and online donations pages, and help centre articles on billing, constituents, households and cancellation, read 18 September 2026.
- DonorPerfect: US pricing page, terms of service (last updated 1 April 2026), payment services factsheet and Mailchimp integration page, read 17 and 18 September 2026.
- Capterra, G2 and Software Advice listings, read 18 September 2026.
- Gratefully: product and pricing pages, read 18 September 2026.
The bottom line
Little Green Light is the transparent, low-cost choice: $45 to $135 a month for up to 50,000 records, all features, unlimited users and no contract. DonorPerfect costs more, from $99 a month on its own page and $119 on the review sites, but bundles Constant Contact, offers vendor-run data transfers and adds moves management and phone support as you move up its plans. Its terms need 30 days’ notice to cancel, keep prepayments, and delete your data at termination. Price your own list on both, ask DonorPerfect for a written plan quote, and export before you ever give notice.
Written by
FazFaz is the founder of AIToolsBakery. Some tools here are tested hands on. Others are assessed from vendor documentation and pricing verified on the live page, and every review says which one it is. Sponsors can buy a position in a guide. They cannot buy the score, the criticism, or silence about a better option.
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