SmarterSelect Reviews & Product Details

SmarterSelect makes managing scholarships, grants, and awards a breeze. Our easy-to-use online platform helps you create applications, review submissions, and pick recipients – all in one place. Whether you're a small non-profit or a large foundation, we've got you covered. With features like custom forms, automated workflows, and team review tools, you'll save time and make better decisions. Over 2 million users trust us to keep things fair and transparent. Plus, our friendly support team is always ready to help. Want to focus more on making a difference and less on paperwork? That's what we're here for!

Seller

SmarterSelect

Discussions

SmarterSelect Community

Languages Supported

English, Spanish

Solution Type

Best-of-Breed

Overview by

Robert Davis

Pricing

Pricing provided by SmarterSelect.

Create

$2,000.00

500 Users Per Year

Enhance

$5,000.00

2500 Users Per Year

View More Pricing Information

Top-Rated Alternatives

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User Insights

Average based on 106 real user reviews.

Implementation Time

2 months

Perceived Cost

$$$$$

Typical contract price

$0k - $0k

Per Year

G2 reviews are authentic and verified.

Here's how.

Verified User in Higher Education

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4/24/2025

"Wonderful program, easy to use"

4.5/5

What do you like best about SmarterSelect?

The system is easy to use and straightforward. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SmarterSelect?

There's a lot of moving parts that are dependent of each other making it harder to do last minute changes Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Response from Robert Davis of SmarterSelect

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Thanks for your review and feedback. Please let our support team help guide you with any changes you need!

Karla Y.

Administrative Assistant

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

8/22/2024

"Automation is Great, but..."

3/5

What do you like best about SmarterSelect?

Online applications is a huge improvement over paper! Also, an online evaluation process gives our evaluators more flexibility in performing their role. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SmarterSelect?

The reporting! I would love to be able to copy a report across programs, or even run the same report across a set of programs. Also, the formatting of the exports is not paper-friendly and needs some revamping. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SmarterSelect solving and how is that benefiting you?

SmarterSelect allows us to make our scholarship application process accessible from our foundation website, and gives our applicants the flexibility to work on the application and save it before the final submission. Being able to email an applicant from within SmarterSelect is extremely helpful for us as well. The evaluation functionality has greatly simplified our decision-making process and allows our evaluators to collaborate with ease. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Response from Robert Davis of SmarterSelect

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Hi Karla, many thanks for your review and feedback! Check out our Cycles feature. It may help you with running reports across programs.

Ciarra J.

Executive Assistant

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4/24/2025

"User friendly"

5/5

What do you like best about SmarterSelect?

It was user-friendly. I love the sorting options. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SmarterSelect?

Application completion time could be faster. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Response from Robert Davis of SmarterSelect

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Hi Ciarra! Thanks for your review and feedback!

Lia B.

Senior Scholarship Coordinator

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

8/26/2024

"Not perfect but generally gets the job done"

2.5/5

What do you like best about SmarterSelect?

-Ability to send mass messages

-Ability to edit individual students (ie. extend deadline for one student)

-App rules

-Easy to search for both active and inactive programs

-Common application function

-Very responsive customer support Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SmarterSelect?

-Often runs very slowly

-Has crashed during peak moments in the past, creating issues and confusion for students

-Cannot copy or move questions in between different applications

-Evaluation interface is not easy--filters reset every time instead of sticking between evaluations, as one example

-Difficult to read and pull evaluation comments from evaluators

-Not currently able to pull higher level number reports (how many applications have been received by our org in a given time period, how many evals have been done in a given time period and/or by evaluator, etc.)

-Not able to easily embed links

-Not able to paste things from another place without resetting format

-Formatting doesn't always show the way it is input

-When you select the MM/YYYY date format, it still requires students to select a specific date, not just a month

-Program page times out when left open for a long time Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SmarterSelect solving and how is that benefiting you?

It is solving the problem of how to have an accessible scholarship application that is versatile and flexible enough to cover the varying needs of our scholarship organization, including streamlining the experience for students as much as possible through features like app rules and the common app function, as well as allowing for evaluation by people both inside and out of the organization. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Response from Robert Davis of SmarterSelect

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Hi Lia, many thanks for your review and feedback! Good suggestions that we will evaluate!

Chasity G.

Assistant Professor

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

1/30/2025

"Review 101"

1.5/5

What do you like best about SmarterSelect?

That my employer supplies it for free to users. It's easy to create a link. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SmarterSelect?

It's not incredibly user friendly for blind reviewing or automation. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Response from Robert Davis of SmarterSelect

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Hi Chasity, thanks for your review and feedback! Please reach out to our support team for assistance on blind reviewing.

Verified User in Utilities

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

4/24/2025

"Works but confusing to use"

2.5/5

What do you like best about SmarterSelect?

Simple interface and easy to filter based on topic and content Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SmarterSelect?

Not enough support documents when we couldn't find something Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Response from Robert Davis of SmarterSelect

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Thanks for your review and feedback. Feel free to let our support team know when you cannot find the info you need.

Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

2/28/2025

"Excellent grants management system"

5/5

What do you like best about SmarterSelect?

Help us track and build our grants comprehensively. Easily customizable. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SmarterSelect?

Users would appreciate the ability to jump back and forth in their applications. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Response from Robert Davis of SmarterSelect

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Hello. Thanks for your review and feedback. If the user needs to jump around within their app, they can click on the app "tree" navigation on the right side of the page. Stay tuned for an improved applicant and evaluator experience later this year!

Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

2/14/2025

"The software is okay, especially for a small organization with limited funds"

2.5/5

What do you like best about SmarterSelect?

Takes a learning curve coming from more advanced systems, but it's a good software for beginners. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SmarterSelect?

Overall the features in SmarterSelect are not as advanced as other systems i've used; so going downward to a more essentialized software takes an adjustment Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Response from Robert Davis of SmarterSelect

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Hello and thanks for your feedback. Please share your thoughts on our features with our support as they will send to our Product Management team.

Verified User in Non-Profit Organization Management

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

8/27/2024

"Flexibility and value"

4/5

What do you like best about SmarterSelect?

SmarterSelect helps us streamline our grants and awards programs, making it easy to collect complete applications, review them internally, and assign guest reviewers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SmarterSelect?

So much about SmarterSelect is not intuitive. It can be confusing to figure out how to do the simplest things. Customer support has always been great, but for some reason, we can no longer receive help via chat as we could in the past, and I've never been able to figure out how to access "how to" information otherwise. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SmarterSelect solving and how is that benefiting you?

SmarterSelect replaced our old system of collecting fillable pdf applications and attachments via email. It has eliminated lost emails, late submissions, and incomplete applications. It cuts down on staff time and staff stress in dealing with collecting and organizing grant applications, award nominations, and scholarship applications. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Response from Robert Davis of SmarterSelect

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Hello, thanks for your review and feedback!