Software Comparison
Givebacks alternative for PTOs: SchoolRelay vs Givebacks
A lot of PTAs did not shop for Givebacks. Their state PTA partnered with it, membership dues run through it, and the platform arrived with the affiliation. The question that follows is whether it also has to be where your families go to find out when the book fair is.
Published September 2026 · Pricing and platform fees sourced from the Givebacks pricing page as of September 2026 · Editorial note: This page was written by the SchoolRelay team. SchoolRelay is one of the tools compared. Confirm current pricing with the vendor before deciding.
One collects money. One reaches parents.
Givebacks, which ran as MemberHub before the rebrand, is a membership and payments platform. Dues, an online store, donation campaigns, and fundraisers all sit in one account, and for PTAs it connects to state membership records. Its own pricing page describes the plans as an "all-in-one platform for PTAs, PTOs, Booster Clubs, and NPOs".
SchoolRelay does not touch money. It is the page families open to find out what is happening: announcements, the calendar, volunteer slots, and the links parents ask for every year. No account, no app, no membership status required to read it.
Those are different jobs, and a PTA that needs both is normal. What is worth examining is the assumption that the platform processing your dues should also be the front door for every family, including the two thirds who never bought a membership.
SchoolRelay vs Givebacks: at a glance
| Feature | SchoolRelay | Givebacks |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | ||
| Entry price | $0 | $499/yr |
| Paid tier | $99/yr | $599/yr |
| Platform fee on store sales | No store | 1.05% + $0.65 |
| Platform fee on percent model fundraisers | No fundraising | 7.5% |
| Platform fee on direct donations | No donations | 0% plus Stripe |
| Membership dues and rosters | ||
| State PTA membership integration | ||
| Online store and spirit wear | ||
| Public page readable without an account | Store pages only | |
| Announcement feed on a public page | ||
| Browseable event calendar | ||
| Volunteer signups with capacity limits | ||
| School links directory | ||
| Separate pages per committee |
Givebacks pricing and platform fees as published on its pricing page in September 2026. Stripe processing applies on top of platform fees. Plans and fees change; confirm with the vendor.
What each one actually costs a parent group
Givebacks publishes three tiers: Pro at $499 per year, Premium at $599 per year, and a Partner plan with custom pricing aimed at districts and multi chapter organizations. There is no free plan.
Subscription is not the whole number. Platform fees apply to money moving through the system, and they vary by type: 1.05% plus $0.65 on online store and point of sale transactions, 7.5% on fundraisers using the percent model, and 0% on direct donations and on fundraisers using the tip model. Stripe processing sits on top of all of them. Givebacks lets an organization "absorb transaction fees, pass fees on to the donor, or split fees with the donor," so whether your families see the fee is your board's decision rather than the platform's.
Run the arithmetic against your own numbers before the renewal. A PTA clearing $20,000 through a percent model fundraiser is looking at $1,500 in platform fees on that campaign alone, on top of the subscription. The tip model at 0% exists precisely because that is a large figure, and which model you pick matters more than which plan you are on.
SchoolRelay's Community plan is free and processes no payments at all. Pro is $99 per year for email digests, push notifications, analytics, and multiple committee pages. The comparison is not like for like, which is the point: you are not paying SchoolRelay to handle money, so there is nothing for it to take a percentage of.
What Givebacks does well
Membership is the real strength, and for a PTA it is not replaceable by a generic tool. Givebacks says it is "trusted by 40 state PTAs, over 14,000 volunteer-led organizations, and 5 million of their supporters," and where your state PTA is one of them, dues collected locally reconcile against state records without a treasurer rekeying a spreadsheet in February. Anyone who has done that by hand will pay real money to stop.
The commerce side is genuinely broad for the price: a store for spirit wear, donation campaigns, fundraisers with several fee models, and reporting that a treasurer can hand to an auditor. Keeping dues, sales, and donations in one ledger is worth something at audit time, and the financial controls guide covers why that matters more than most boards expect.
If your PTA collects dues, sells things, and runs online fundraisers, Givebacks is built for exactly that and SchoolRelay does none of it.
Where Givebacks falls short as your parent hub
It is built around members, and most families are not members
A membership platform organizes the world by who joined. Your announcements need to reach the families who did not, because those are the ones who have not shown up yet and the ones you most want at the fall festival. Publishing through a tool whose model is membership keeps pushing you toward addressing the people already on the list.
There is no free tier to start on
$499 is a budget line, a vote, and a treasurer who has to defend the renewal. A new PTO with $0 and no history cannot start here and grow into it. That matters most for the groups with the least capacity, which tend to be the ones that would benefit most from getting organized early.
Communication is the smaller half of the product
The money features are where the development goes, which is reasonable given what people buy it for. What a PTA gets for parent communication is competent rather than the reason to be there, and there is no public page with an announcement feed and a calendar that a family can open cold without signing in.
Fees scale with your success
A subscription is fixed and predictable. A percentage is not. The better your spring fundraiser performs on the percent model, the more the platform takes, and 7.5% of a good year is a number worth putting in front of your board before you commit rather than after. Check whether the tip model covers your campaign type first.
The renewal outlives the treasurer who chose it
Platforms at this price are usually championed by one capable volunteer. When that person's youngest moves up, the next treasurer inherits a $499 renewal for a system they did not pick and were not trained on. The officer transition guide covers handing over tools that cost money; the short version is to write down why you bought it while you still remember.
Most PTAs should run both
If your state PTA partnered with Givebacks, keep it for what it is good at. Dues, the store, and fundraisers live where the money and the reporting already are, and moving them to save a subscription is usually a bad trade.
Put the public face somewhere every family can reach without an account. SchoolRelay gives you one page with announcements, an event calendar, volunteer signups, and a links directory, then link from it to your Givebacks store and membership form when there is something to buy or join.
That order matters. Families who arrive at a public page and find out what you do are more likely to buy a membership than families asked to join before they have seen anything. Getting parents to join the PTA covers what actually persuades them once they are looking.
SchoolRelay is the better fit when:
- • You do not collect dues or sell anything
- • You want every family reading, not only members
- • Your budget this year is $0
- • You need a page parents open without signing in
- • The board turns over and the tool has to survive it
Givebacks is the better fit when:
- • Your state PTA partnered with it for membership
- • You collect dues and need them to reconcile upward
- • You run an online store or spirit wear sales
- • You need donations and fundraisers in one ledger
- • A treasurer will own it for more than one year
Keep the dues where they are. Move the front door.
SchoolRelay is free for the hub, the calendar, the links page, and volunteer signups. No parent accounts, no transaction fees, set up in under ten minutes.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Givebacks cost?
Givebacks publishes Pro at $499 per year and Premium at $599 per year, with a Partner plan priced on request for districts and multi chapter organizations. There is no free plan. Platform fees apply separately to money moving through the system: 1.05% plus $0.65 on store and point of sale transactions, 7.5% on percent model fundraisers, and 0% on direct donations and tip model fundraisers, with Stripe processing on top of each.
Is Givebacks the same as MemberHub?
Givebacks is the current name for the platform that operated as MemberHub, and the MemberHub login domain still appears in the sign in flow. It is a separate product from Membership Toolkit, which is a different vendor at a different price point. If you are comparing several at once, the Membership Toolkit comparison covers that one.
Can we use SchoolRelay if our state PTA uses Givebacks?
Yes, and it is the common arrangement. Membership dues stay in Givebacks where they reconcile with your state PTA, and your public announcements, calendar, and volunteer signups go on a SchoolRelay page that any family can open without an account. Link from the page to your Givebacks membership form so joining is one click from where parents already are.
Does Givebacks have a free plan?
No. The published plans start at $499 per year. A parent group that needs a no cost starting point will need something else for at least its first year, whether that is SchoolRelay's free Community plan or another free tool. Fundraising and dues collection are the features that justify the subscription, so a group not yet doing either is paying for capacity it is not using.
What is the cheapest Givebacks alternative for a small PTO?
If you do not collect dues or sell anything, SchoolRelay's free Community plan covers the communication half at no cost, and Pro is $99 per year. If you do need payments, compare Givebacks against Membership Toolkit on total cost including transaction fees rather than on subscription price alone, because fee structure usually moves the number more than the plan does.
Do parents need an account to see our Givebacks content?
Store and donation pages are reachable by link so a family can buy without joining, but the platform is organized around membership and there is no public announcement feed or calendar that a family can browse cold. For a PTA whose goal is that every family knows what is happening regardless of membership status, a public page covers the gap.
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