Submittable Review: Overview, Features, Pricing & Alternatives in 2025

Managing grants should not feel this complicated.

If you’re evaluating platforms like Submittable, you’re likely frustrated by scattered applications, clunky review processes, and the pressure to measure the true impact of your programs.

But here’s the thing: getting buried in emails and spreadsheets every grant cycle means less time for real impact and more chance for important details to slip through the cracks.

Submittable tries to fix this pain with a robust, customizable suite—grant management, CSR, employee giving, and collaboration—that actually brings your review, decision-making, and reporting into one organized space.

In this review, I’ll show you how Submittable helps your team streamline complex workflows so you spend less time on admin, and more on driving real results.

You’ll discover in this Submittable review how its key features stack up, what pricing to expect, and how it compares to other solutions—so you can make a call that fits your needs.

You’ll walk away knowing the features you need to run grants and programs confidently—no guesswork, just the clear insights you’re after.

Let’s dive into the analysis.

Submittable Overview

They’ve been around since 2010, based in Missoula, Montana, with a clear and practical mission. I’ve found they exist to simplify how your organization collects, manages, and reviews the entire lifecycle of social impact applications.

They specifically cater to foundations, corporations, and universities running grants, awards, or comprehensive CSR initiatives. What’s most impressive is their focus on a single social impact platform, which prevents you from having to juggle multiple, disconnected, and often costly tools for all your different programs.

The recent launch of their innovative “Impact Wallet” for employee giving shows a real forward-thinking and responsive mindset. Through this Submittable review, you’ll see how this move smartly deepens their already complete CSR solution, making them more competitive.

Unlike complex competitors like Blackbaud, which can feel genuinely overwhelming, Submittable is a much cleaner, out-of-the-box solution. To me, its key advantage is the user-friendly and no-code approach to workflows, making it incredibly accessible for non-technical teams.

I see them working with thousands of organizations of all sizes. These range from major foundations like Colonial Williamsburg and universities to well-known corporations who all need a better way to streamline their philanthropic and community engagement programs and report on their successes.

From my analysis, their entire strategic focus is on becoming that one integrated hub for all your social good activities. This is a very smart move that directly aligns with the growing market need for a unified, real-time impact dashboard to prove value.

Now let’s examine their core capabilities.

Submittable Features

Is managing your social impact programs a headache?

Submittable features offer an integrated solution suite for managing grants, CSR, and employee engagement. Here are the five main Submittable features that streamline your social impact initiatives.

1. Grant & Application Management

Drowning in grant applications and review paperwork?

Manual processes can make managing grant cycles inefficient, leading to delays and potential reviewer fatigue.

Submittable’s core offering provides a robust platform to launch, manage, and measure your grant programs. From my testing, the drag-and-drop form builder is incredibly intuitive for creating custom applications, while automated review tools simplify the entire process. This feature also supports financial tracking and fraud prevention.

This means you can streamline your entire grant cycle, ensuring a smooth and bias-free experience for applicants and reviewers.

2. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Platform

Struggling to engage employees in your company’s mission?

Disconnected CSR efforts can make it hard to foster a culture of philanthropy and track your true community impact.

This solution helps organizations build and manage comprehensive CSR programs, including employee giving, volunteering, and community investments. What I found impressive is how it helps companies track employee volunteer hours and manage matching gift programs effectively. This feature builds a more purpose-driven workplace.

So you can foster deeper employee engagement and measure the real impact of your corporate social responsibility initiatives.

3. Employee Giving (Impact Wallet)

Are unused corporate matching funds a persistent problem?

Traditional giving programs often have low engagement, leaving potential charitable contributions unclaimed and underutilized.

Impact Wallet transforms everyday work activities into donatable dollars, giving employees direct control over their contributions. This innovative feature helps integrate giving into the daily employee experience, ensuring that funds actually reach chosen causes. From my testing, it addresses the core issue of unused corporate matching.

This means your employees are empowered to give more meaningfully, maximizing your company’s charitable impact with higher engagement rates.

4. Customizable Forms and Workflows

Can’t tailor your application forms to gather specific data?

Rigid form templates limit your ability to collect precise information, leading to incomplete data and inefficient processes.

Submittable provides a highly customizable platform with a drag-and-drop form builder, allowing you to create sophisticated online forms without coding. The platform’s flexibility extends to workflow automation, letting you define rules for submissions and reviews. This feature ensures you capture exactly what you need.

What you get instead is the ability to tailor every application and automate routing, saving significant administrative time.

5. Collaborative Review Tools

Is team collaboration on reviews a chaotic mess?

Dispersed feedback and lack of centralized communication can make reviewing applications slow and uncoordinated.

The platform offers robust features for team collaboration, including in-app communication and custom review forms. This is where Submittable shines, allowing multiple reviewers to access and assess applications simultaneously with centralized notes and real-time updates. This feature makes group evaluations much more efficient.

This means your review committees can collaborate seamlessly, ensuring all feedback is organized and decisions are made faster and with greater transparency.

These Submittable features work together to create a comprehensive and integrated platform for managing your social impact programs efficiently. Now, let’s look at how Submittable is priced.

Submittable Pricing

What will you actually pay for Submittable?

Submittable pricing follows a custom quote model, which means you’ll need to contact sales but also get pricing tailored to your specific needs. This approach sets context for a detailed pricing analysis.

1. Pricing Model & Cost Factors

Understanding their cost structure.

Submittable’s pricing is subscription-based, without publicly listed fixed tiers; instead, they tailor quotes to your specific needs. Costs fluctuate based on factors like team size, the volume of submissions you anticipate, and which advanced features, such as custom integrations or funds distribution, your organization requires.

From my cost analysis, this means your monthly costs stay aligned with your operational scale and feature requirements.

2. Value Assessment & ROI

Is this an investment worth making?

While Submittable is perceived as a higher-cost solution, its comprehensive suite for social impact programs can significantly streamline processes, leading to substantial efficiency gains. What I found regarding pricing is that it targets organizations seeking robust automation and integrated solutions for grants or CSR, offering strong ROI through saved administrative time and improved program management.

From my cost analysis, the result is your budget gets better visibility and predictable expenses over time compared to manual processes.

3. Budget Planning & Implementation

Planning for the total cost.

Beyond the monthly subscription, consider implementation time, which averages two months, and potential payment processing fees. From my research, Submittable’s pricing aims to cover comprehensive features, but total cost of ownership should account for training and internal resource allocation for deployment to maximize your return.

So for your business, you can expect to allocate internal resources to ensure smooth deployment and long-term success.

My Take: Submittable pricing is built for organizations prioritizing comprehensive social impact management, offering customized solutions that scale with specific program needs rather than rigid tiers.

The overall Submittable pricing reflects customized enterprise software value aligned with your needs.

Submittable Reviews

What do real customers actually think?

I’ve analyzed various Submittable reviews to understand what actual users experience, helping you gain balanced insights into its strengths and weaknesses before making a decision.

1. Overall User Satisfaction

Users seem generally satisfied.

From my review analysis, Submittable users report high satisfaction, often highlighting its positive impact on efficiency. What I found in user feedback is how most users appreciate the short learning curve, allowing them to master the program quickly and seamlessly integrate it into their operations.

This indicates you can expect a smooth transition and quick adoption within your team.

2. Common Praise Points

Its ease of use consistently shines.

Users frequently praise Submittable’s intuitive interface and powerful customization options, which help streamline complex workflows. Review-wise, the platform’s collaborative review tools are highly valued, simplifying the collection, management, and review of submissions in one centralized place.

This means you’ll find it easy to manage applications and collaborate effectively with your team.

3. Frequent Complaints

Some limitations do exist.

While largely positive, I noted some common frustrations, particularly around advanced customization requiring extra effort. What stands out in user feedback is how reporting features could offer more flexibility, which some larger organizations might find limiting for deeper data analysis.

These issues are generally minor and don’t seem to be deal-breakers for most users.

The overall Submittable reviews show high satisfaction with minor functional limitations for advanced users.

Best Submittable Alternatives

Considering your other options?

The best Submittable alternatives include several strong choices, each better suited for different organizational sizes, budget considerations and specific program requirements.

1. SurveyMonkey Apply

Looking for extreme ease of applicant use?

SurveyMonkey Apply often stands out for its very user-friendly applicant portal, making submissions exceptionally straightforward. From my competitive analysis, it offers a highly intuitive applicant experience but can become less cost-effective for organizations running multiple diverse programs due to its per-program pricing.

Choose this alternative when applicant simplicity and program-specific needs are your top priority.

2. Blackbaud Grantmaking

Already deeply integrated within the Blackbaud ecosystem?

Blackbaud Grantmaking is an option if your organization is heavily invested in other Blackbaud products, seeking a suite solution. What I found comparing options is that it fits existing Blackbaud system users but may present integration challenges even within its own product family and is rated lower for ease of use.

Consider this alternative when ecosystem consolidation outweighs ease of use and faster launch times.

3. SmartSimple Cloud

Your workflows are highly complex and unique?

SmartSimple Cloud shines for organizations with intricate, highly specific workflows requiring extensive configuration and technical expertise. From my analysis, SmartSimple provides robust, configurable complex workflows but may require coding knowledge for certain capabilities and typically involves a longer program launch time than Submittable.

Choose this alternative for maximum configuration flexibility if you have in-house technical resources.

4. Foundant for Grantmakers

Exclusively focused on traditional grantmaking processes?

Foundant for Grantmakers is a strong choice if your organization’s sole focus is on traditional grant distribution, preferring a niche-specific solution. Alternative-wise, Foundant has a long-standing reputation specifically for grantmakers, though it lacks Submittable’s broader social impact and employee engagement platform capabilities.

Your situation calls for this alternative if pure grant management is your only program need.

The best Submittable alternatives depend on your specific business scenarios and unique program needs more than just general features.

Submittable Setup

Is Submittable setup a headache or a breeze?

This Submittable review will dive into what it truly takes to get the platform up and running in your business, setting realistic expectations for your team.

1. Setup Complexity & Timeline

Getting started is surprisingly straightforward.

Submittable implementation involves leveraging its intuitive design and drag-and-drop builder to configure forms and workflows quickly. What I found about deployment is that most businesses launch programs in 14 days or less, with an average implementation time of two months, rather than facing lengthy delays.

You can expect to launch new applications quickly, as the self-service flexibility empowers you without constant IT reliance.

2. Technical Requirements & Integration

Minimal technical hurdles to overcome.

Submittable is cloud-based, requiring only a stable internet connection and a compatible browser, with no specialized hardware or server installations needed. From my implementation analysis, the code-free platform minimizes IT burden, allowing users without programming knowledge to fully utilize its features.

Plan for seamless integration with existing CRMs, accounting, or fundraising software, as Submittable works well with hundreds of business applications.

3. Training & Change Management

User adoption is remarkably smooth.

The platform’s user-friendly interface and short learning curve mean most users quickly become proficient with core functionalities. From my analysis, the intuitive design significantly reduces training time, allowing staff to master the program without extensive instruction or a steep learning curve.

Invest in showcasing its efficiency gains, as the reduced administrative burden often leads to quick buy-in and high user satisfaction.

4. Support & Success Factors

Vendor support truly simplifies deployment.

Submittable’s customer support is highly praised, offering responsive email, phone, and chat assistance to both administrators and applicants. What I found about deployment is that this dual-level support significantly reduces admin time spent answering technical questions, streamlining your rollout.

Prioritize leveraging their responsive team and intuitive platform design, which are critical elements for a successful and swift implementation.

The overall Submittable setup emphasizes ease of use and rapid deployment, making it a practical choice for organizations seeking quick time-to-value.

Bottom Line

Who should use Submittable for their programs?

This Submittable review provides a final assessment of who benefits most from its features, pricing, and overall value proposition for managing social impact initiatives.

1. Who This Works Best For

Mission-driven organizations simplifying application management.

Submittable is ideal for grant managers, CSR professionals, non-profits, and government agencies of all sizes needing to streamline complex application and review processes. What I found about target users is that organizations prioritizing user-friendliness and customization without coding excel with this platform for their social impact programs.

You’ll find success if you aim to reduce administrative burden and enhance efficiency in your various grant, scholarship, or award programs.

2. Overall Strengths

Unmatched ease of use and powerful collaboration.

The software excels through its intuitive drag-and-drop form builder, robust collaborative review tools, and comprehensive reporting capabilities, all without requiring coding. From my comprehensive analysis, its exceptional customer support, even for applicants, stands out, significantly reducing your team’s administrative overhead.

These strengths translate into substantial time savings and improved program efficiency, making it a powerful solution for your organization.

3. Key Limitations

Pricing can be a significant concern for larger scales.

While highly capable, the pricing structure for Submittable can become steep for larger organizations or programs with extensive participant volumes. Based on this review, some advanced customization options may require additional support or workarounds, which can add complexity to your workflows.

I’d say these limitations require careful consideration of your budget and specific customization needs before committing to the platform.

4. Final Recommendation

Submittable comes highly recommended for social impact.

You should choose this software if your organization needs a comprehensive, user-friendly, and scalable platform for managing various social impact programs like grants and scholarships. From my analysis, your decision should align with its core strengths in streamlining application and review processes, rather than highly niche functionalities.

My confidence level is high for organizations prioritizing efficiency and a strong user experience in their social good initiatives.

This Submittable review demonstrates strong value for social impact organizations seeking to streamline their application and review processes with an intuitive, powerful solution.