Handbid: what it does, what it costs, and how it fits a UK charity

Every figure below comes from Handbid’s own pages, opened in October 2026, in the currency those pages show. I covered several US auction platforms side by side separately.

What does Handbid actually do?

Handbid runs the bidding side of an event from a phone. Its feature page lists mobile bidding with no download required, ticketing and registration that ties each sold ticket to a bidding account, tap to pay, white-label event sites and text-to-give. Formats are silent, live and hybrid, and the home page adds sealed bids, invite-only access and a Stripe integration. It is a proper feature set.

How much does Handbid cost?

Handbid does not publish a licence price. Its pricing page says the quote follows a short conversation, and that the number moves with “what you host, how many events you run, and the support you want”. What you raise does not move it.

Two lines there deserve a second read. The first is the term: “A license runs for a term, typically a year,” and licences “renew automatically; written notice is required before the renewal date”. Diary that notice date the day you sign.

The second is what the licence covers: unlimited items, guests and bidders, all three auction formats, ticketing and check-in, reporting, and a live person on the phone during your event at no extra charge. Onsite staff is a separate line in the quote.

What do Handbid’s guests pay to use a card?

The card rates are published, which is more than OneCause or GiveSmart manage.

No platform percentage is stacked on top, and Handbid takes no commission on proceeds. Set that against Stripe’s published UK rate of 1.5% plus 20p on standard UK cards, with 2% more where a conversion is needed, and you can see the gap somebody has to absorb.

Passing it on is the design Handbid suggests: a prompt asks bidders to cover processing at checkout, and the page reports take rates “north of 80%” where it is switched on. It works. It also means donors quietly fund the software, which is a question for trustees rather than the events team. Since 1 November 2025 the Fundraising Regulator’s code has required any platform charging a fee to show donors how that fee is calculated.

Connect your own payout account before you go live. Otherwise Handbid pays out “generally within three weeks” after invoices close and you sign a settlement report.

How does the Handbid paddle raise work?

Each giving level is built as an appeal item, then recorded as the room gives. Handbid’s fund-a-need guide walks through it: spotters feed paddle numbers into a mass-appeal screen that flags anyone with no card on file in red. Guests can give in the app or browser too, and a thermometer on screen fills with donor names.

The mechanics are sound. The mechanics are also not the hard part.

The generosity is already in the room. Ten lots in a room of two hundred means ten winners, and the other hundred and ninety reach the end of the auction having given nothing. At an OCU Group gala for Teenage Cancer Trust, a corporate room with a £40,000 target, the night raised £84,108. The software recorded that. The design raised it, and the total belongs to their team as much as to me.

Can you claim Gift Aid through Handbid?

Not on anything I could find. Gift Aid appears nowhere on Handbid’s pricing, feature or help centre pages, and the fund-a-need guide prices its worked example as a “$100 Donation”. Fair enough for software built around US tax rules, and still the biggest single gap for a British charity.

Gift Aid adds 25p per £1 on a qualifying gift from a UK taxpayer, and it lands on the pledge rather than the auction. HMRC allows a split payment on a winning bid only where the item is commercially available and the bidder knew its price. On a night like the one above, the declarations you miss are the most expensive thing in the room.

Why Handbid will not run your raffle

Handbid declines raffles and says so plainly, which I respect. Its help centre calls “the state-by-state laws governing raffles” too complex to manage on a do-it-yourself platform and points organisers at opportunity drawings instead. British law narrows it just as hard from a different direction: a raffle at your event is an incidental lottery, which the Gambling Commission says does not require a licence, but the tickets cannot be sold online or in advance, only at the event while it runs. A bidding app is the wrong tool for it either way.

Does Handbid serve UK charities?

It can take your money, but it is not built for your country, and its own pages show where that bites. Dollar signs run throughout and no other currency is named. ACH and Discover are American payment rails a British room will not reach for. The Stripe connection guide warns that without a connected account, “payout will take a minimum of 2-3 weeks to receive your check”. A cheque is not how a UK charity gets paid. Handbid’s terms are governed by Colorado law, with disputes going to binding arbitration.

Credit where it is due on data. Handbid’s privacy policy carries a section for the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, names its roles as processor and controller, offers standard contractual clauses on request, and points UK individuals to their own regulator. Plenty of US vendors have not done that work.

So: yes, with homework. Ask for the quote and the bidding in pounds, ask how a Gift Aid declaration gets captured, and read the renewal clause twice.

Where the Generosity Works platform fits

I built the Generosity Works platform around a British gala, so the gaps above are the ones it was designed against. Bidding, ticketing and the pledge in pounds. Gift Aid capture at the moment of giving. Silent auction and live bidding, with an offline event server for when the venue wifi folds. Payments through the charity’s own Stripe account, no percentage of what you raise, no tip prompt.

It is free when a charity books me as auctioneer and host, and my fee is the only money Generosity Works takes. The platform is not sold on its own; our pricing page explains why.

Do the sum before the term starts

Whatever you pick, apply its fees to the total you expect, and write down what the charity keeps.

If you have a number to hit this year, and you would rather have the platform, the plan and the night designed together for one fee agreed up front, book a discovery call. Let’s talk about your number.