It's not uncommon for nonprofits to have difficulty finding funding, but the good news is, grants can help relieve these financial struggles. In fact, grants are one of the most effective strategies organizations can use to increase their funding sources.

GrantWatch is a tool that can help you find funding opportunities for your nonprofit—but is it worth the price? And are there better alternatives available?

We’ll answer these questions and more when we take a deep dive into GrantWatch’s pricing plans, tools, and features.

Let’s get started!

While you can discover grants on your own for free, GrantWatch can help you find grants if you're short on time or staff or don’t have a clue on where to begin searching for grants.

GrantWatch is an online grants database with over 7,000 active grants, funding opportunities, and awards from foundations, businesses, and federal, state, and local governments in the United States and Canada.

GrantWatch offers users a choice between two types of accounts—the free version, known as Member, and the paid version, known as MemberPlus+, with pricing starting at $18 a week.

GrantWatch MemberPlus+ has four pricing options, each offering instant access to thousands of live, pre-screened grant opportunities, with daily updates on grants and their status.
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We will explore GrantWatch’s pricing plans and key features in more detail below.

As previously mentioned, GrantWatch provides information on thousands of active grants to individuals, small enterprises, and charity organizations of various sizes.

GrantWatch’s features are mostly limited to their easy-to-read grants reports.

These reports include:

• Grant eligibility information
• Geographic focus
• Pre-application and workshop information
• Description of grant program
• Funding amounts and number of awards
• Funding source contact details
• Links to grant applications and documents

GrantWatch keeps the information in their grant reports updated and archives them when they expire so that you can easily locate active funding opportunities. You can also narrow down grant searches from 57 categories, including grants for women, arts and culture, community service, and more.

Another one of GrantWatch’s features is its weekly newsletter. GrantWatch sends updates to its users weekly so that they can stay on top of new funding opportunities.

While it does seem like GrantWatch offers users a calendar for organizing their grants, its overall grants management, tracking, and collaboration tools are extremely limited compared to other grant discovery platforms.

GrantWatch offers both free and paid plans. Let’s take a look at the features of both the Member (free) and MemberPlus+ (paid) plans and the key differences between the two.

Member plan (free account) features:

• Allows users to use the basic search filter for free to modify searches depending on the type of recipient, geography, and grant interests.
• Free trial of its grant archives without placing a credit card on file. This is a risk-free opportunity for users to examine grants that have already expired and become accustomed to how GrantWatch posts grants in their entirety.

Please note that while free members have access to a lot of features, some grants may restrict full access unless the user is a MemberPlus+. The free membership level is ideal for smaller organizations, newer organizations, and those with a limited budget.

MemberPlus+ plan features:

• Allows users to search grants by keywords, saving a lot of time and energy sifting through grants that don’t apply to their organization.
• Gives users access to the complete grant information. With this expanded knowledge, users can better determine grants they are eligible for and view past recipients and other key grant information.
• Perhaps the most significant advantage of the MemberPlus+ plan is having direct links to requests for proposals (RFPs.)

The MemberPlus+ plan is ideal for larger organizations, those who need access to grants year-round, and those who need more comprehensive grant access and foundation information.

 There are four GrantWatch MemberPlus+ options to choose from.

• The weekly tier, for $18/week, is a great option for organizations just wanting to get their feet wet or may only need a quick one-time grant or are just starting out.
• The monthly ($45/month) and quarterly ($90/quarter) options are wonderful fits for organizations that need a little more time and may need to submit several grants.
• Finally, the $199 annual subscription plan is ideal for established organizations that need continued funding, as it provides a consistent flow of new grants for review on a regular basis.

See below for an even deeper breakdown of the features offered for each membership plan:
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GrantWatch's cheapest subscription plan, which costs $18 for seven days, can be a good starting point if you're not sure if it's the right service for you yet. The seven-day trial period will be enough time to familiarize yourself with the grant discovery tools and potentially find grants that fit your organizational needs.

If you do not want it to renew your subscription after this time, just be sure to deactivate the auto-renew option.

GrantWatch offers resources to help you locate new and active grant opportunities. However, it can often become cumbersome to discover pertinent grants and while cheaper than other alternatives, it does not offer as many features as other grant databases.

In other databases, there are more advanced searching features, making the entire grant lifecycle process more efficient and easier to navigate. One of these databases is Instrumentl.

Instrumentl is an all-on-one grant fundraising platform that brings grant prospecting, grant tracking, and grant management all into one easy to use tool. Most other grant tools only support one or two of these three aspects of grant seeking. The thoroughness of Instrumentl is one of its key advantages.

Instrumentl is intuitive and user-friendly, making it ideal for even beginners.

One of the main features that sets Instrumentl apart is its Smart Matching tool which utilizes a unique algorithm to ensure only good fit funders are returned in your grants search.
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GrantWatch does not have a tailored or smart grant matching functionality, making it more difficult to quickly locate grants that align with your mission and need.

Instrumentl also offers comprehensive grant management, tracking, and collaboration tools. With Instrumentl, you can:

• Save prospects and notes
• Track your submissions and applications on a grants calendar
• Receive automatic deadline reminders
• Receive automatic updates when a funder changes a deadline or priority
• Collaborate with your team seamlessly
• Create and export CSV and PDF reports
• and more!

While GrantWatch’s annual price is low, it doesn't offer many helpful features like grant tracking or collaboration tools critical in developing a grant process.

Instrumentl also provides in-depth and detailed funder insights so that you can understand how open a funder is to new grantees, their geographical giving, or giving by category. This insight is incredibly helpful in determining your “fit” for a funding opportunity—upping your chances of success!

In addition to these features, Instrumentl offers a wide range of additional valuable resources, such as articles on best practices to assist you throughout the grantmaking process and free grant writing webinars.

Thanks to its intuitive design, newbies can become fluent in using Instrumentl in about an hour. Instrumentl is frequently chosen by nonprofits and grant writing consultants because of its excellent user experience, clear and practical data insights, and comprehensive grants capabilities.

Instrumentl offers a 14-day free trial so that you can check out how it works for free. With the free trial period, you also gain access to a staff member who offers ongoing customer support and a virtual "walk-through" of all its features.

We realize we may be biased, so don’t just take our word for it; we encourage you to conduct your own research and read what clients have to say about their Instrumental experiences.
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A more comprehensive comparison between GrantWatch and Instrumentl’s features and tools can be found here.

Grants are an incredible funding source that can help your nonprofit thrive. We hope this article helps you to decide on a grant discovery program that best meets your organization’s needs and budget.

If you are in the market for a more intelligent grant-matching process, we recommend you try out Instrumentl. Sign up for a 14-day free trial to start boosting your fundraising efforts today.