Why We Made OEASE Free — And Always Will

The Math That Doesn't Work

Here is a scenario that plays out constantly. A community nonprofit with 50 members needs to manage attendance, track donations, coordinate volunteers, and communicate with supporters. They look at the available tools and find that member management software costs $15 a month, the payment platform charges $20 a month, and the event tool adds another $10. That's $540 a year — for a group that might collect $3,000 annually in contributions.

The math doesn't work. So they default to spreadsheets, Venmo, and group texts. Not because those tools are good enough, but because they're free.

We built OEASE to fix this equation.

How We Stay Free

OEASE is free to use. Every feature — member management, role-based access, recruitment, financial tracking, events, digital presence — is available to every organization from day one. No paid tiers. No feature gates. No "upgrade to unlock" prompts.

So how does the platform sustain itself? Through a small 1.3% platform fee applied to transactions processed through Stripe on the OEASE platform. This sits on top of Stripe's standard processing rate of 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction.

Here is what that means in practice:

• A sports league collecting $75 registration fees pays about 97 cents per transaction to OEASE — roughly the same as the loose change in their concession stand tip jar.
• A nonprofit running a $5,000 fundraiser pays $65 in platform fees. The alternative — paying monthly subscriptions for separate fundraising, member management, and communication tools — would cost far more over the course of a year.
• A student organization that never processes payments through OEASE pays nothing. Zero. Not now, not ever.

This model means our revenue is directly tied to the value we provide. If organizations aren't using OEASE to process transactions, we don't earn anything from them — and that's fine. The platform still works fully for those organizations. They still get every feature.

Why Competitors Charge More

Most platforms in this space use a tiered pricing model. The free version gives you just enough to get started — maybe 25 members, maybe basic event creation. Then the features you actually need — financial reporting, custom roles, bulk communications, integrations — sit behind a paywall.

This model works well for the software companies. It does not work well for organizations.

A community group evaluating tools shouldn't have to predict their future size to pick the right pricing tier. A nonprofit running its first fundraiser shouldn't hit a paywall the moment it wants to send a receipt. These friction points discourage adoption and push organizations back toward the fragmented free tools they were trying to escape.

We chose a different path. Every organization gets the full platform, regardless of size, budget, or transaction volume.

Aligned Incentives

The subscription model creates a subtle misalignment. The software company gets paid whether or not the organization is thriving. A community group paying $20 a month for member management software pays the same amount during months when engagement is high and months when nobody logs in.

Our transaction-based model reverses this. We earn when organizations are actively using the platform to collect dues, sell event tickets, process donations, or handle registration fees. If an organization is thriving and growing, our revenue grows with it. If they're in a quiet period, they owe us nothing.

This alignment matters. It means we're incentivized to build features that drive real organizational activity — not features designed to justify a price increase.

Who This Is Really For

We think about OEASE in terms of the organizations that need it most:

• The volunteer nonprofit with 50 members that manages everything through a combination of Excel, Zelle, and word of mouth. They need a roster, a way to track contributions, and event coordination — but they can't justify a software budget.
• The nonprofit running quarterly fundraisers that currently uses GoFundMe for donations and a separate tool for donor management. They need integrated financial tracking but don't have staff to manage multiple platforms.
• The sports league handling 200 registrations per season that still processes sign-ups through Google Forms and payments through Venmo. They need a streamlined registration flow with automatic payment tracking.
• The student organization with 30+ active members that rebuilds its infrastructure every year when leadership turns over. They need persistent, organized data that survives transitions.

None of these organizations should have to pay for the privilege of being organized. The tools should meet them where they are — and where they are is on a tight budget, with limited technical resources, trying to do something meaningful for their community.

The Bottom Line

We made OEASE free because the organizations we serve can't afford the alternative, and because we found a sustainable model that doesn't require them to. The 1.3% transaction fee keeps the platform running and growing. Everything else — every feature, every update, every improvement — is available to everyone.

If your organization has been settling for "good enough" tools because the right ones cost too much, that tradeoff no longer exists.