--- title: Blackbaud Luminate Online Reviews meta\_title: 'Blackbaud Luminate Online Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta\_description: Filter 65 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Blackbaud Luminate Online works for a business like yours. aggregate\_rating: rating\_value: 3.1 review\_count: 65 scale: '5' date\_modified: '2026-08-07' parent\_category: name: Nonprofit url: https://www.g2.com/categories/nonprofit --- # Blackbaud Luminate Online Reviews & Product Details Claimed ###### Profile Status This profile is currently managed by Blackbaud Luminate Online but has limited features. Are you part of the Blackbaud Luminate Online team? [Upgrade your plan](https://sell.g2.com) to enhance your branding and engage with visitors to your profile! Luminate executes your online strategy with integrated campaigns for digital, social and mobile channels, so you can engage more effectively with your supporters to raise more money for your mission. * * * Seller [Blackbaud](https://www.g2.com/sellers/blackbaud) Discussions [Blackbaud Luminate Online Community](https://www.g2.com/products/blackbaud-luminate-online/discuss) Solution Type All-in-One Overview by Kaney Steele Show More ## Value at a Glance Averages based on real user reviews. ### Time to Implement 5 months ### Perceived Cost $$$$$ [ View More Pricing Information ](https://www.g2.com/products/blackbaud-luminate-online/pricing) ## Top-Rated Alternatives [ ![Bloomerang CRM](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Bloomerang CRM") Bloomerang CRM 4.6/5(914) ](https://www.g2.com/products/bloomerang-crm/reviews) [ ![DonorPerfect](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "DonorPerfect") DonorPerfect 4.4/5(566) ](https://www.g2.com/products/donorperfect/reviews) [ ![Neon CRM](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Neon CRM") Neon CRM 4.2/5(438) ](https://www.g2.com/products/neon-one-llc-neon-crm/reviews) [ View All Alternatives ](https://www.g2.com/products/blackbaud-luminate-online/competitors/alternatives) ## User Insights Average based on 65 real user reviews. Implementation Time 5 months Perceived Cost $$$$$ [Log in to unlock pricing and user insights](/login) ![Verified User in Religious Institutions](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Religious Institutions") AR Verified User in Religious Institutions Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 12/13/2017 "Implementation Woes" 2.5/5 What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online? It integrates with other Blackbaud offerings, specifically the Raiser's Edge. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online? Development is slow. The training offerings are slim and were not catered to our organization. The current integration with RE is clunky and needs a wholesale update. During the sync process with RE, the Blackbaud team incorrectly linked the two systems which caused the system to spuriously create new ID numbers for each of our constituents. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online: Ask more questions than you see as necessary. The Luminate offering over-promised and under-delivered. In addition, their training package (the GO! program) did not adequately meet our needs. It would be the right offering for some, but LO did not care enough to know our organization well enough to advise otherwise. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you? We have seen benefits when it comes to reconciliation between two of our software systems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management") AN Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 12/12/2017 "Definitely Could Be Better " 2.5/5 What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online? I'm not sure we use Luminate Online the same way that others use it, but I like that the software is totally custom to your needs. Luminate Online provides a lot of options as far as fundraising software goes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online? Because the system is custom to our needs, I really don't like that everything seems to cost extra. Because we are a nonprofit, we are constantly looking for better ways to do things and with Luminate Online, all of the better ways cost money. There really isn't a beneficial way for cost-effective solutions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online: It definitely give you the option to customize your needs. What you get is literally what you pay for. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you? We definitely use this to house a lot of donor information. It's good for tracking donations and such. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management") AN Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 10/19/2017 "Often the bane of my existence" 1/5 What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online? Luminate offers a lot of reliable tools to help your org's fundraising efforts. They're just really terribly out of date. Their services are pretty diverse and once you get through the learning curve (which is kinda high), you start to connect the dots in how to use them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online? It's horribly outdated. Oh my god. When is the last time you used Netscape? I'm not talking about `navigator.appName`. I'm talking about the browser I used in elementary school. The forms they offer have "netscape fixes" within the HTML. It is pretty crazy how crappy these are. Many years ago these were acceptable, but now it looks and feels ancient. I'm surprised there aren't animated GIFs all over the page. The ways you need to manipulate TeamRaisers (fundraising event pages) are incredibly frustrating. Here are the steps to make a change to the HTML: Navigate to teamraiser section in portal. Search perfect terms to find it (you may have well over 10,000 to search through). You cannot search for the ID which is extremely frustrating. Click through manage, click through edit, click through page wrapper to identify which page wrapper it uses. Repeat process for page wrapper section within user portal Unpublish page wrapper to edit. Find version, click edit, make change. Go to publish section, click publish. No quick changes. ugh. Next, browser compatibility. Things like file uploads, click and drag features, open window, CSS styling of the luminate UI, ALL may or may not work based on which browser you're using. Mozilla is best for some tasks, internet explorer of all things is often best for a lot of the file upload features. Chrome will get me by for most of it, but when something just doesn't work, I have to open all my tabs in another browser and hope it will work there. THE SYNTAX FOR THEIR S:TAG LANGUAGE. oh my god what is the ugliest language you can come up with? Did they do this on purpose? It is literally a bunch of colons and brackets. It is extremely messy and difficult to work with. I dread projects that use it. It is a joke to me. I've sent screenshots to my friends to show how ridiculous it is. Can you tell how I feel about it? If not, let me just say again, that it's the ugliest thing I've seen in a text editor. I'm not sure if this review can include the CMS, so I won't get into it in detail. Just gonna say--don't use it if you don't have to. You will be much happier. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online: Many non-profits use Luminate with good reason. It covers most of the bases that you need. It is not without struggle though. Luminate is run by Blackbaud which seems too busy trying to acquire any and all competitors to improve the software itself. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you? My org uses it for constituent communication, surveys, fundraising, reporting, and email marketing. We achieve all of this, but often with frustration. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management") UN Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 4/24/2018 "Why Luminate is a great system " 4.5/5 What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online? I am currently interning and have found that convio’s luminate system has a great training program which has really helped me learn a lot and be able to work with my team to create a strong media presence. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online? The training sessions are pretty lengthy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online: This service is really beneficial! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you? It helps us communicate internally and externally Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerSource: Organic ![Verified User in Individual & Family Services](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Individual & Family Services") AI Verified User in Individual & Family Services Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 7/26/2017 "Online platform for nonprofits" 3.5/5 What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online? I like how donation transaction pages, emails, and transaction history are all on one platform. It easy to navigate through the portal and see how everything intertwines with each other. It is also great that it is compatible with Raiser's Edge and it easy to output and input donor data information. You are able to pull donor giving reports. You are able to create and track emails. And you are able to create donation pages that work with your organization's website. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online? The email platform is very finicky. It sometimes takes a long time to get a simple email created. While in mail chip it is easy to move text and picture block around, it is not that easy in Luminate. The options that are available for fonts are very little and making edits is very touchy as well. If you don't make separate tables for everything, it kind of all gets bundled together. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you? An online platform that houses donor data that we can easily pull reports from. They do a good job providing a lot of ways we can capture donor data whether it is transactional data, email opens/clicks, what campaigns they are answering to and bio information. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Museums and Institutions](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Museums and Institutions") AM Verified User in Museums and Institutions Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 3/3/2018 "Luminate ultimately gets the job done. " 2.5/5 What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online? The modern look and capabilities. It is more advanced than our last system and allows us to do a lot of things at once. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online? The user interface is difficult to maneuver if you don’t know what you’re doing and there is a large learning curve. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you? We are solving the problem of needing multiple systems do do what we are doing with just LOM and gained the benefit of being able to simplify our processes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in International Affairs](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in International Affairs") AI Verified User in International Affairs Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 3/28/2018 "A little finicky, but easy to use" 3/5 What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online? Everything happens in real time - no need to wait for things to refresh. It's very straightforward and intuitive. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online? Searching for things can be difficult - some search fields are very particular and require exact wording and correct spelling Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you? It is easy to manage customer information and transaction history, making it easy to provide excellent customer service Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Joshua S.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Joshua S.") JS Joshua S. Multimedia Marketing Manager Non-Profit Organization Management Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 10/25/2017 "This CRM Take A Lot of Work" 1.5/5 What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online? While this CRM has everything you need it to do, it does none of them well. It will do email, donation forms, landing pages, and advocacy tools. But it is overpriced and too complicated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online? I dislike most things about Luminate. It has everything you need for a non-profit CRM, but it is more difficult to use then any other product on the market. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Blackbaud Luminate Online: I would recommend looking elsewhere. This product is not moving forward, it is staying stale. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you? Again, it fits the bill but is too complicated and far too overpriced. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management") AN Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 12/14/2017 "Love this program " 5/5 What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online? What don’t I love about this program. It allows our participants to register for our event, gives them a platform to raise funds on, i an able to send out mass emails to different groups, and pull reports! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online? There is nothing that I don’t like about this program. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you? We are giving a participants a way to take charge of their fundraising! It also gives us managers a way to manage what our participants are doing and the funds they are raising! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Thomas V.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Thomas V.") TV Thomas V. Associate, Digital Marketing Non-Profit Organization Management Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 10/19/2017 "Works well enough but there is a lot of room for improvement" 3.5/5 What do you like best about Blackbaud Luminate Online? I enjoy the email interface. It gets the job done and gives you some options for the customization of the emails. You can do A/B testing, send different messages based on constituents locations etc. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Blackbaud Luminate Online? The reporting feature is very clunky. Trying to create a custom report with only the information you want can be difficult and in some instances impossible. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Blackbaud Luminate Online solving and how is that benefiting you? We're solving our email marketing, constituent database, donations, and our CMS. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ## Questions about Blackbaud Luminate Online? Ask real users or explore answers from the community Get practical answers, real workflows, and honest pros and cons from the G2 community or share your insights. [ Ask about Blackbaud Luminate Online ](https://www.g2.com/products/blackbaud-luminate-online/discussions/new) GU Guest User What is Blackbaud Luminate Online used for? 0 Upvotes 0 [ Join the conversation ](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-blackbaud-luminate-online-used-for) [ View all Discussions ](https://www.g2.com/products/blackbaud-luminate-online/discuss) ## Pricing Insights Averages based on real user reviews. ### Time to Implement 5 months ### Perceived Cost $$$$$ [ View More Pricing Information ](https://www.g2.com/products/blackbaud-luminate-online/pricing) Blackbaud Luminate Online Comparisons ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_f45992247dd07f6985ff3c5e60ede1a5/blackbaud-raiser-s-edge-nxt.png "Product Avatar Image") Raiser's Edge NXT 3.9/5(640) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/blackbaud-luminate-online-vs-blackbaud-raiser-s-edge-nxt) ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_38bb83e5f2ed81b8ec4462d274ff04fd/blackbaud-online-express.jpg "Product Avatar Image") Blackbaud Online Express 3.4/5(27) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/blackbaud-luminate-online-vs-blackbaud-online-express) ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_f45992247dd07f6985ff3c5e60ede1a5/blackbaud-teamraiser.png "Product Avatar Image") TeamRaiser 3/5(22) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/blackbaud-luminate-online-vs-blackbaud-teamraiser) ##### Categories on G2 [Nonprofit CRM](https://www.g2.com/categories/nonprofit-crm)[Fundraising](https://www.g2.com/categories/fundraising) ##### Explore More [Best customer success platform for growing software companies](https://www.g2.com/discussions/best-customer-success-platform-for-growing-software-companies)[Wiz vs Orca Security for a security team evaluating cloud workload protection that wants full coverage without deploying agents on every workload?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/wiz-vs-orca-security-for-a-security-team-evaluating-cloud-workload-protection-that-wants-full-coverage-without-deploying-agents-on-every-workload%20)[What are some enterprise information archiving platforms supporting seamless capture from Teams, email, and social media?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-are-some-enterprise-information-archiving-platforms-supporting-seamless-capture-from-teams-email-and-social-media%20) [Most recommended audit software for service industry](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-s-the-most-recommended-audit-software-for-service-industry)[digital asset management platforms](https://www.g2.com/discussions/digital-asset-management-platforms-what-s-your-favorite)[Pros and Cons Details](https://www.g2.com/products/blackbaud-luminate-online/reviews?qs=pros-and-cons) [Show MoreShow Less](javascript:void(0);)