Run the gala fundraiser. Keep your bidding platform.
Everything called "gala software" is really auction software — bidding and donations for the night itself. Nobody builds for the six months before: the committee, the sponsors, the table sales, the seating politics, the run-of-show. That's the part that actually makes the night work. That's this.
Tables, captains & donor-grade seating
Paddle raise pinned in the run-of-show
Your bidding platform's fees — already budget lines
Your auction platform is great for the last four hours. What about the six months before?
OneCause, Handbid, GiveSmart — genuinely good at bidding and checkout on the night. But none of them touch the committee's real work: recruiting sponsors, selling tables, seating donors next to the right people, and printing a program with the live-auction order. PlanFlow is the operations layer under your bidding platform — not a replacement for it.
OneCause, Handbid, and GiveSmart are trademarks of their respective owners; PlanFlow Planner is not affiliated with any of them.
Sponsor money that reconciles
Tiers, benefits, logo status — and committed vs received, per sponsor. When the board asks "did Acme's $10K land?", you answer from the screen, not a shoebox.
Tables, captains, seating
A captain per table, assigned right on the seating card, and a floor plan where a declined guest frees their own chair. Priced table packages — "Gold Table of 10" vs "Single Seat" — with sold counts rolled up.
The night, beat by beat
Cocktails → silent close → dinner → paddle raise → live auction → checkout. The auctioneer runs long? Shift dinner 15 and everything after slides — the pinned paddle-raise moment holds.
Silent, live, online — or none
Pick the auction format and the plankit reshapes around it: the auctioneer and bidding-platform vendors appear, the procurement and platform-fee budget lines open, the catalog and device-test tasks land on your checklist, and the silent-close, live-auction and checkout blocks drop into the run of show. Name your bidding platform right in the plan — here it's a field, not a competitor.
The six months, in pictures.
These are unretouched screenshots of a sample plan we built end to end to show you exactly what it does. Click any of them to look closer.
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CLICK TO EXPANDWhat "gala software" costs — and what it doesn't do.
None of the bars above include planning. They're all auction-night tech. Your $299 covers everything they skip — and their fees are already line items in our budget tool, because we assumed you'd keep them.
Pricing from published price sheets, review-site reporting, and category pricing research as of July 2026. OneCause, GiveSmart, Handbid, and Auctria are trademarks of their respective owners; PlanFlow Planner is not affiliated with any of them.
Auction platforms and PlanFlow — different jobs, honestly compared.
| Auction / giving platforms | Spreadsheets + email | PlanFlow Gala | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile bidding & donation processing | ✓ their whole job | ✗ | Keep yours. Their fees are already budget lines in the plankit |
| Committee planning & task arc | ✗ | where it lives today, badly | ✓ a six-month arc, committee-first |
| Table packages with sold counts | partial (tickets) | a tab someone forgot to update | ✓ priced, tracked, rolled up |
| Table captains | ✗ | text messages | ✓ a captain per table, on the seating card |
| Sponsor receivables (promised vs received) | ✗ | the treasurer's nightmare | ✓ per sponsor, confirmed & logo-received flags |
| Seating + floor plan | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ donor-politics-grade seating; declines free seats |
| Run-of-show w/ paddle raise & lot order | partial | a Word doc | ✓ printable program included |
| Donor data out to your CRM | varies — users cite CRM gaps | copy-paste | ✓ clean export shaped for donor databases COMING SOON |
| Pricing | $1,400–$3,000+/yr, often quoted | free + volunteer burnout | $299 once · Business $199–299/mo · public |
Comparison covers free and paid alternatives using published pricing and product documentation as of July 2026. We compare jobs honestly: the auction platforms are good at auctions — that's why we integrate instead of imitate.
Built for the committee of six doing this on top of their day jobs.
The committee works together
Guest list, seating, day-of check-in, vendors, budget, timeline — each helper gets a secure link scoped to just their lane. No shared passwords, no version-17 spreadsheet.
The door, on the night
Search a name, tap check in — per part of the evening, so the VIP reception, the dinner and the afterparty each count separately. Walk-ins get added on the spot, badge sheets print, and a volunteer can hold a link that opens check-in and nothing else. Attendance lands in the morning-after report.
The goal number, rolled up
Table sales + sponsor money roll up against the fundraising goal live, with the thermometer bar right on your overview. A scoreboard, not a register: we never touch the money. The paddle-raise line and a full-screen ballroom-projector mode are next. BALLROOM THERMOMETER — COMING SOON
"Print the run of show. Always."
Every gala guide says it. Ours prints the evening order, the live-lot sequence, and the paddle-raise cue — the sheet your emcee and auctioneer actually want.
The morning-after report
Raised vs goal, attendance, budget vs actual — one click, board-ready. Development directors renew on this alone.
Your donors land in YOUR database
Clean export shaped for donor CRMs — the loop the auction platforms famously leave open. COMING SOON
A named human answers
Beta-scale support means the founder reads your email. The big platforms' users cite support queues; ours cite a first name.
Ask your gala anything. It drafts — you approve.
Names are scrubbed before anything leaves the Service, and every action is logged.
This year's gala: $299, once.
Every year's events: Business from $199/mo.
Gala plankit $299 (founder $229 — first 25 galas or September 1, 2026, whichever comes first). The whole six months plus the printed program. Running the gala, the golf outing, and the donor dinner? Three plankits are $687 at founder pricing against $2,189 for a year of Business Lite — so on price alone, buy the plankits. The subscription is the lane when you want client portals, ten events open at once, and handoff books across the whole business line: Business Lite $199/mo or Business $299/mo — founding pricing, locked for life; the founding window closes September 1, 2026. Monthly, cancel anytime, prices public.
Start your galaFounder pricing applied at checkout.
30-day money-back on the plankit · yours through the event + 12 months after · print-ready PDFs & CSV reports anytime · your bidding platform stays yours
What development directors ask.
Does this replace OneCause / Handbid / GiveSmart?
No — and that's the point. They run bidding and donations on the night; we run the six months that get you to the night. Your bidding platform's fees are already line items in our budget tool because we assumed you'd keep it. One night-of exception is coming: a live raised-vs-goal thermometer for the ballroom screen — everything up to the money, which stays proudly somebody else's problem.
Can it track padrino-style sponsorships and in-kind gifts?
Sponsors carry tiers, benefits, committed and received amounts — plus a confirmed flag and a logo-received checkbox. In-kind items ride the auction-procurement checklist.
Our gala committee is six volunteers. How do they all work in it?
Team links — each person gets a secure page scoped to their lane: timeline, guests & RSVP, seating, check-in, vendors, or budget. No shared logins — every helper link scoped, expiring, revocable.
How does donor data get back to our CRM?
A clean export shaped for donor databases (names, contact, amounts, item/fund, date) — coming soon, built because "it doesn't talk to our CRM" is the most common complaint about the auction platforms.
We only do one big event a year. Plankit or subscription?
The $299 plankit. If you later add a golf outing or donor dinners, any plankit works as a one-time Event Pass on your account — or Business Lite covers everything at $199/mo. Honest math: Business Lite is $2,189 a year and this plankit is $229 founder, $299 list — so buying plankits stays cheaper until you're running about eight events a year — ten at founder pricing. One gala, or a gala plus an outing? Buy the plankits. We'd rather tell you that than sell you a subscription you don't need.