Beacon
Beacon is a paid CRM built especially for charities.
What Beacon is
Beacon is a paid CRM built especially for charities. Headquartered in Shoreditch, London, and founded in 2017, it combines fundraising, memberships, events, and case management. Fundraising tools include branded donation forms, grants, major gifts, legacies, recurring payments, and Gift Aid. Organizations can create membership and event ticketing forms, track attendance, and follow service enquiries and activities over time. Workflow automation and AI tools help filter data, draft emails, and create database logic. Listed integrations include Mailchimp, Dotdigital, Sendgrid, Xero, JustGiving, Stripe, GoCardless, PayPal, and Zapier, alongside a documented REST API. Ultimate pricing is custom. There is no free plan, but a free trial is available. Implementation is separate from plan pricing.
Good
- Built specifically for charities
- Branded donation and membership forms
- Recurring payments and Gift Aid support
- Workflow automation and AI tools
- Advanced reporting and donor segmentation
Watch out
- No free plan
- Implementation costs are separate
- Ultimate plan has custom pricing
Who it suits
Beacon suits charities managing fundraising, memberships, events, and service cases in one CRM. It is also suited to teams needing donor segmentation, advanced reporting, integrations, or a REST API.
Verdict
Beacon brings charity fundraising, membership, event, and case workflows into one CRM. Its starting price, separate implementation, and plan limits should be checked against team size and contact volume.
Plans and prices
From Beacon's own pricing page, checked 15 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | £37 a month | 500–2,000 contacts · 3 users · 10 read-only users · 0% platform fees · £37/mo monthly; £33.50/mo annual |
| Standard | £127 a month | 2,500–50,000 contacts · 10 users · unlimited read-only users · 0% platform fees · £127/mo monthly; £114/mo annual |
| Premium | £325 a month | 10,000–100,000 contacts · 100 users · unlimited read-only users · unlimited custom fields · enhanced onboarding · £325/mo monthly; £292/mo annual |
| Ultimate | Priced on request | 100,000+ contacts · 100+ users · unlimited read-only users · sandbox accounts · BI and data warehousing · dedicated success manager · Custom quote |
The facts
Each one read from Beacon's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- API
- Beacon provides an open REST API for reading, adding and deleting account data; API access is included on Standard, Premium and Ultimate plans.checked 15 Oct 2026
- API documentation
- Developer documentation is automatically generated from each customer database configuration and requires login; supplementary guides cover validation, filters, file uploads and CSV exports.checked 15 Oct 2026
- API limitation
- The relationships feature is not currently available through the API, although point-to-another-record fields are supported.checked 15 Oct 2026
- API limits
- The API allows up to 300 requests per minute, or 60 per minute for bulk requests.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Automation and AI
- Beacon offers workflow automation and AI tools for filtering data, drafting emails, and creating database logic.checked 9 Oct 2026
- Backups
- The service performs daily CRM backups and retains records for 30 days.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Case management
- Case management stores enquiries, ongoing service use and activities in one place.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Customisation
- Users can create custom fields, record types, views and dashboards, with dashboards updated in real time.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Data import
- CSV import supports up to one million records in a single import.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Data residency
- Beacon says its infrastructure and customer data are hosted in the UK.checked 9 Oct 2026
- Documentation
- The help centre contains articles covering data management, forms, reporting, payments, Gift Aid, integrations, security, automation, account administration and developers.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Beacon lists Mailchimp, dotdigital and Sendgrid integrations for bulk communications.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Events
- Event tools track attendance and sell tickets through branded forms with availability limits, time slots and group tickets.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Exports
- Beacon says its export system can retrieve 10 million records in 20 seconds.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Finance
- Finance features include Xero integration, reporting, income allocation, batch entry and payment-provider payout tracking.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Founders
- Beacon says Chris and David founded the company in 2017 after working in technology startups.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Fundraising
- Fundraising tools include branded donation forms, grants, major gifts, legacies, funds, recurring payments, Gift Aid and JustGiving integration.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Grantmaking
- Grantmaking tools manage grants and bursaries from enquiry through evaluation.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Hosting
- Beacon says its infrastructure and customer data are hosted in the UK on AWS and Google infrastructure, with private-cloud servers.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- The integration directory lists Stripe, GoCardless, PayPal, Mailchimp, Gmail, Outlook, Gift Aid, JustGiving, Enthuse, Xero, QuickBooks, WordPress, Wix, Drupal, Joomla and Zapier among others.checked 15 Oct 2026
The company
- Company facts
- LinkedIn lists Beacon CRM as privately held, founded in 2017, headquartered in London, with 51–200 employees.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Company identity
- The pricing page identifies the legal entity as Beacon Apps Ltd.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Founded
- 2017checked 28 Sep 2026
- Headquarters
- Shoreditch, London, United Kingdomchecked 28 Sep 2026
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- 1
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CharityEngine
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