At a high level, Crowded offers nonprofit bank accounts*, which allow nonprofits of all sizes to securely store their money, maintain transparency within their organization, collect payments & donations, issue debit cards, stay compliant with IRS regulations, and make payments to individuals.
On the other hand, Billhighway is a chapter management software provider that provides services for multi-chapter nonprofits around chapter banking, event management, collecting payments, and website management.
There are ways where Crowded and Billhighway’s services overlap, but overall Crowded offers more financial services than Billhighway. They both offer nonprofits a way to bank* and collect money and a way to spend that money, but Crowded offers more features, flexibility, and financial security.
Let’s take a look at how Crowded and Billhighway stack up
Crowded | Billhighway | |
Multi-Chapter visibility | ✓ | ✓ |
Fee per member and/or per chapter | X | ✓ |
Credit card charge on collections | 2.99% | 3.5%+ |
Storing collected funds in an FDIC pass-through, insurance-eligible accounts* | ✓ | X |
Spending Cards | Free unlimited Visa digital debit cards that work internationally | Prepaid cards that only work in the USA. |
ATM Withdrawals | ✓ | X |
Sub-accounts for discretionary spending | ✓ | X |
Contract required | X | ✓ |
Incorporation services for new nonprofits | ✓ | X |
Annual tax reporting services | ✓ | X |
Billhighway vs. Crowded: Pricing
What is noticeable from the above comparison table? Billhighway is more expensive than Crowded. Where Billhighway has a fee per member or chapter for multi-chapter organizations, Crowded does not. Crowded accounts can have an unlimited amount of contacts for no additional charge.
Also, when it comes to collecting payments, a very important aspect of both companies’ products, Billhighway is again more expensive than Crowded. For credit card payments, Crowded charges 2.99% with a minimum of 60 cents, while Billhighway charges at least 3.5%. This may seem like a small difference, but taken together with the fee per member/chapter the difference adds up, and every penny counts!
Another difference between Crowded and Billhighway’s pricing is their clarity and consistency about it. Crowded’s pricing is consistent across all customers and featured clearly on our website. Billhighway on the other hand, doesn’t list pricing on their website, and each organization that they work with gets custom pricing. This makes it hard for organizations to know if they are being overcharged.
How do Billhighway and Crowded’s features compare?
Online payment collection
Billhighway’s payment collection
Billhighway offers simple payment collection for multi-chapter nonprofits for dues and donations. For the members paying their dues with a credit card, there is a 3.5% or more charge, depending on the contract. For paying with ACH, there is also a variable fee. The system is built mostly for collecting dues, with payment tracking, text/email reminder capabilities and a mobile application for in-person payments.
Crowded Collect
Crowded Collect allows nonprofits to be ultra-flexible when asking for money from their community. Collections can be used for donations, membership dues, events, cookie sales, and more. These collections can be created in less than a minute and can be shared with anyone. When someone receives a collection link, they can choose to pay for the collection as many times as they want (i.e. buying multiple boxes of cookies.) Like Billhighway, track who has and hasn’t paid the collection, send reminders to those who haven’t, and accept payments in person with the Crowded app.
Spending Cards
Billhighway spending cards
Any organization that collects money from dues, donations, event tickets, needs a way to spend it! Both Crowded and Billhighway offer cards that allow the organization to spend their money, but they approach the situation differently.
Billhighway offers a physical prepaid card solution, essentially a gift card. There is a charge for each card, and it can be used wherever Mastercard is accepted only within the United States. Each transaction is tracked and there is transparency over how organization funds are being spent.
ATM withdrawals are not supported, so there is no easy way to get cash as an organization. All decisions about spending must be made with advanced notice, as the cards take 7-10 business days to arrive. If there is an awkwardly small amount left on the card, there’s no way to redeem that money left on the card back to the organization’s main account.
Billhighway’s card solution allows an organization to spend their funds transparently, but the restrictions around waiting for the physical card to arrive, paying a fee for each card, and managing it make it a less-than-ideal solution for nonprofits looking to spend their funds
Crowded debit cards
Crowded’s card payment solution, on the other hand, offers transparency as well as flexibility when it comes to spending for a nonprofit. Crowded offers two types of spending options: spending cards and per diem cards. Both are Visa digital or physical debit cards that can be used globally, anywhere Visa is accepted.
When an organization wants to allow a contact to make purchases on behalf of the organization, they issue a spending card to a contact. These cards are created digitally, instantly, and for free! All the purchases show up in the organization’s transaction history, with digital receipts. Once the contact is done making their purchases, the funds can be repatriated to the primary checking account instantly. These cards allow for transparency and accountability for the necessary purchases for a nonprofit.
Per Diem cards allow for more freedom while spending for contacts within an organization. They can be used to pay out per diems, stipends, grants, or even salaries. The contact has more discretion with how they spend these funds. They can initiate an ACH transfer to an external bank account, or make a free and instant internal transfer to another member in their organization. An organization can create as many per diem cards as they need.
Crowded’s flexible digital and physical debit card solutions allow for an organization to spend their funds as flexibly and transparently as needed.
Banking
Billhighway’s “Chapter Banking”
Billhighway offers “chapter banking” to their multi-chapter customers, but not a real bank account. It’s not an independent bank account in the nonprofit’s name, rather it exists under the Billhighway umbrella. As a result, nonprofits’ funds are not FDIC-insured, and they lack the autonomy of having a dedicated bank account with unique account and routing numbers. Billhighway has visibility features for multi-chapter nonprofits. The HQ level can access financial data from their chapters, and track the health of each chapter.
Crowded’s Nonprofit Bank Accounts*
Crowded’s banking* solution is enabled by a partner brick-and-mortar bank. Each nonprofit has a FDIC pass-through, insurance-eligible*, dedicated account. They can do any action as they would in a regular bank account like ACH transfers, wire transfers, sending and depositing checks, and checking their account balances.
Multi-chapter organizations benefit from specific multi-chapter features. When an HQ and their chapters are all banking with Crowded, transferring funds between the accounts is free and instant. Depending on how the nonprofit is structured, the nonprofit’s HQ can see each chapter’s financial data, and even step in if an officer handover goes wrong, or reclaim funds from an abandoned account. Also, filing their yearly group-exemption update to the IRS is made easy with all of the chapter information available on Crowded, as well as Crowded’s Form 990 filing services.
Crowded’s additional features: Compliance
Every nonprofit must have its tax compliance top of mind. Whether you’re a new nonprofit needing an EIN (Employer Identification Number), to incorporate and apply for tax-exempt status, or an established one that needs to file their annual Form 990, compliance is always relevant.
Luckily, Crowded offers affordably priced compliance services for EINs, incorporation, and annual 990 Form filings. Groups who are looking to become nonprofits can easily do so with Crowded, and existing nonprofits can maintain their tax-exempt status for the long term too.
Billhighway vs Crowded: Which is right for your organization?
As you can probably tell, there is a lot of overlap between Billhighway and Crowded, as they are both great ways to manage multi-chapter nonprofits.
If your organization is looking for a financial solution, with lots of features around banking, collecting funds, and expenses, Crowded is the more logical choice.
Crowded’s pricing is more affordable across the board. With no fees per member or chapter, no minimum balances or monthly fees, as well as a lower charge on collections (2.99% compared to 3.5%+), Crowded will leave your nonprofit with more money left in the account.
Now that you have all the information about the differences between Billhighway and Crowded, which do you think is best for your organization? If you think Crowded is the right way to go, don’t waste another moment, sign up for a demo or get started on our platform!
