TL;DR

• GalaBid is a solid mobile silent-auction platform, and plenty of charities are happy on it.
• Most people searching for a GalaBid alternative are chasing one thing: keeping more of what the room raises.
• GalaBid’s free plan is funded by donor tips, of which the platform keeps the large share, or you pay a transaction fee or flat fee to switch tips off.
• The Generosity Works platform is free with no tip prompt at all, and pays out by direct Stripe into your own account.
• If you want to keep 100%, the model that never asks your donor for a tip is the one to look at.

I run charity auctions for a living. I have stood at the front of enough rooms to know that the difference between a good night and a great one is often not the bidding, it is how much of that bidding actually reaches the cause. That is the lens I use when someone asks me for a GalaBid alternative, and it is the lens I would ask you to use too.

Let me be fair from the start. GalaBid is a genuinely capable platform, mobile-first, well reviewed, and used by thousands of fundraisers. If it is working for you, I am not here to talk you out of it. But if you have landed on this page, you are probably weighing the cost of keeping it against the money it costs you, and that is a conversation worth having honestly.

What does GalaBid do?

GalaBid is a mobile fundraising and silent auction platform. Guests bid from their phones, there are live leaderboards, and a good chunk of bidding happens before the event even starts. It also handles live auctions, raffles, donations, ticketing and check-in, plus paddle raise and buy-it-now formats. It is a well built tool for running a phone-based auction.

Importantly, GalaBid uses Stripe and states that funds go straight from Stripe to your bank rather than sitting with the platform (galabid.com). That is the right way to handle money, and I give them full credit for it.

What does GalaBid actually cost?

This is where a GalaBid alternative starts to make sense for some charities. At the time of writing, GalaBid’s published pricing runs on three plans, and you should always check their current page because these can change and are quoted in US dollars (galabid.com/pricing):

• A free plan, funded by tips. Guests are shown a suggested tip at checkout. Tipping is optional, but on the free plan the platform keeps the large majority of any tip, with a small revenue share passed back to the fundraiser.
• A paid plan that removes the tip prompt in exchange for a per-transaction fee on funds raised.
• A flat-fee plan aimed at large events, paid upfront per campaign.

None of that is dishonest. It is disclosed, the tip is voluntary, and the Fundraising Code allows a clearly presented voluntary contribution. But look at what the “free” plan really means: it is free to you because your donors are asked to pay for it, and most of that tip does not stay with your cause. To make the platform truly quiet on tips, you move to a paid tier. Either way, something is coming off the top.

What does “keep 100%” really mean?

When I say keep 100%, I mean the money the room gives goes to the cause, minus only the unavoidable Stripe payment processing that every card transaction incurs anywhere on earth. No platform commission. No tip that mostly feeds the software. No licence fee.

That is the promise of the platform I built. It is free when you book me as your auctioneer, or £497 per event if you would rather run it yourself. There is no tip prompt shown to your donors, because there is nothing to fund. And the money pays out by direct Stripe transfer into the charity’s own account, so I never hold or touch your funds. You can see the mechanics on the how this works page.

GalaBid alternative compared at a glance

What matters	GalaBid	My free platform
Free plan funding	Donor tips, platform keeps the large share	Genuinely free, no funding needed
Tip prompt to donors	Yes on free plan, off on paid plans	None, ever
Removing the tip	Paid transaction fee or flat fee	Nothing to remove, always off
Payouts	Direct via Stripe	Direct via Stripe into your own account
Auction types	Silent, live, raffle, paddle raise, buy-it-now	Silent, live, sealed, raffle, games, tickets, pledges
App to download	No, mobile bidding	No, runs in the phone browser
Auctioneer on the night	Not included	Me, included when you hire me

The two platforms are closer than you might think on features. Both are mobile, both use Stripe, both run silent and live formats. The real divide is the funding model. One is paid for, one way or another. Mine is not.

Why I care so much about the skim

I did not build software for fun. I built it because I kept seeing the cause come last. The worst version is an external auction company that brings its own lots with inflated reserve prices, so the charity only keeps whatever is bid above the reserve. The gross looks big. The charity’s share is small.

Here is a real one. With MS UK, the year before I got involved, an external company grossed around 13,000 pounds and the charity kept only about 1,300. The year I ran it, the auction grossed about 3,500, but the live pledge I ran raised 8,300, and every pound of it went to the charity. That gap is the entire reason I do not take a cut and do not let the software take one either.

A donor tip is a gentler version of the same idea. It is not villainous, but it is still money leaving your donor’s wallet that does not reach your cause. If I can build a tool that removes the question entirely, why would I not?

Moving to a GalaBid alternative

Switching is straightforward. Connect your Stripe account, load your lots with clear photos and honest descriptions, set sensible opening bids, and open the auction. If you have run a GalaBid campaign, none of this is new to you. The skills carry straight across.

If you want a hand deciding, I have written more widely on free silent auction software and put together a broader ranking in best charity auction software in the UK. If mobile bidding is your main reason for using GalaBid, that piece explains how the phone-browser approach works without an app.

One planning note on tax, true for any platform: auction lots are purchases, so they generally do not attract Gift Aid, while straight donations and pledge asks often can (gov.uk). That is a strong argument for running a proper pledge moment on the night, which The Generosity Works platform supports out of the box.

Will guests trust bidding on a free platform?

This comes up a lot, and it is a fair worry. The honest answer is that trust comes from the payment rail, not from a monthly fee. The Generosity Works platform runs card payments through Stripe, the same processor GalaBid and countless others use, and the checkout looks and feels exactly as secure because it is. Guests bid from their own phones, see the lot, see the price, and pay through Stripe. Nobody has ever hesitated because the tool was free. If anything, telling the room that every pound stays with the cause makes people bid harder, not softer.

Who suits which?

GalaBid suits a charity that is happy with either the tip model or a paid tier and wants a polished, established mobile platform. That is a perfectly reasonable choice.

The Generosity Works platform suits the charity that wants to keep 100% with no tip and no commission, run the night from phones with no app, and either drive it themselves or have a real auctioneer read the room. If keeping every possible pound is the priority, the maths is not complicated.

If you would like to talk it through, or you want me to run your auction and bring the software along for free, call me on 07596 851647. Book me as your auctioneer and the platform is included, with no tip and no cut, so the room’s generosity lands where it should.