Neon CRM Reviews

“CRM works great for small to medium nonprofits

Pros

I really like Neon's pricing model as they base it on a nonprofits income rather than the number of contacts. The onboarding process was smooth too. Plus our consultant was very friendly guiding us through every step and always available to asnwer our questions. It was one of the smoothest software onboarding experiences I have had. Also I like their monthly webinars covering new system updates along with detailed training to help me continuously improve my skills. The best part is the reports as they are so easy to access and pull. And I can quickly gather all kinds of data and present it to my boss, board members, potential major donors etc. Our previous CRM had awful reporting which is the main reason we switched.

Cons

Building system emails is not easy and they do not look very appealing. Also, there are limitations on which integrated fields can be used so there have been times when I have wanted to pull specific client data into an email and couldn't. That said I have noticed improvements in the email system and it seems like they are aware of the issue and working on it.

“Disappointing and misleading!

Pros

It is pretty simple to enter new donations but there are times when the gifts seem to get lost afterward. Honestly there is not much I like about this system. We were misled when we upgraded to the $210/month level.

Cons

I really don't like this system. Data often gets lost like donations entered a week ago suddenly disappearing. I inherited a database with multiple versions of the same account and attempts to merge them never seem to work. The automatic emails sent to donors are unreliable and modifying them feels overly complicated as you would think you need a computer science degree to make changes. Plus switching between email templates is also a hassle. After reviewing years of notes from different employees, the recurring feedback is that this system is clunky. It often feels like the easiest way to get things done is manually. We upgraded to a higher software plan about a year ago, paid a huge fee and saw our costs increase by 250%. When we reached out to Neon they said we could cancel or downgrade but when we tried, they told us we could not cancel until 12/31/2025 like 20 months after the upgrade. Highly disappointed!

“what I like least about it is Everything!

Pros

Neon Fundraiser is meant for peer fundraising for nonprofits but it is terrible.

Cons

Simply setting up a peer fundraiser is confusing, difficult and nothing but a big hassle. The links did not work consistently and the page was down for days. Now I cannot even log into my fundraising page on any device no matter what I try, including clearing the cache, rebooting and even resetting my password. Honestly there is nothing I like about it at all. The system is inconsistent, unreliable and difficult to navigate for both fundraisers and potential donors. Due to these issues I am $2,000 below my fundraising target and continue to hear complaints from potential donors. t

“Convenient and Practical

Pros

It is a very convenient CRM compared to most. I like how they are always rolling out major updates at every service level and the support team is generally quick to respond to any issues and works fast to resolve them.

Cons

This software has higher processing fees than most other payment processors. It works great for processing payments, so its a bit frustrating that the fees are so high. Plus, some cool new features like event management are only available at the higher service levels

“Simple though could use some improvements

Pros

I do like some of the features especially the monetary tracking and reporting tools as they are quite handy.

Cons

The data is not consistent because of the required suffixes and I find the site difficult to navigate when setting up things like events.

“User friendly but limited features

Pros

This platform's CRM reporting is easy to use and quick to learn which made switching systems fairly simple. Also I am a fan of their marketing tools and on top of that being able to send emails, use mail merge and print thank-you letters allows me to focus more on strategic thinking. Their workflows are great too saving me time by automating checks for new gifts, overdue pledges and new users entering the CRM system. The integration with Constant Contact has also helped us collaborate better with the communications team to keep our lists updated which has been very useful.

Cons

Reporting features are a bit limited. They do offer several pre built reports to help work around these limitations however this simplicity often comes at the cost of functionality. Also they have features like event tracking and grant recording but these do not always integrate well with the financial side of the system. Additionally there is no integration with the auction system my nonprofit uses. We were told we could upload gift data in bulk but we later found out that if guests used a different email for the auction or did not manually add Neon's ID to the spreadsheet, their profiles would be duplicated.

“Loved it, looking forward to more updates

Pros

I really enjoy how user friendly the platform is and how knowledgeable the staff is.

Cons

There is no invoicing function for constituents which I feel like would be helpful for optimizing the system.

“Works fine but needs improvements

Pros

The think I like about it is that it syncs well with QuickBooks and navigating through the profile is really easy.

Cons

Running reports is a bit troubling and not very simple. I also wish the criteria input was more user friendly.

“Terrible, probably the worst!

Pros

The fact that I was able to export some of my data when we moved on was the only plus point

Cons

Well the company is misleading about what they offer and the customer support was initially taking 5 to 7 days to respond but they improved to 2 days though the answers were still vague. They sold us 3 slots of custom support then told us it would take 3 to 4 months before any support was available. They lock you into an annual contract, log you out every two hours and recently announced that we would have to go through two factor authentication to log back in. Also the features just do not work well and are not integrated. For example their email marketing does not show which subscriptions a constituent has chosen on their profile and they have a store but no way to track who bought what. We paid for them to import our data but they refused to import years of one to one emails we had collected which results in lost customer interactions. After 14 terrible months we decided to leave.

“Don't waste your time on this!

Pros

I honestly cannot think of anything positive about this tool.

Cons

There is no integration with popular POS systems like Square or PayPal. If you want to use these POS systems for recurring memberships or donations it is not possible.they also forced us to use Neon Pay which does not even support NFC tech or work on iOS or Android devices.