Blackbaud Merchant Services Customer Reviews

The “Payment Enablement Fee” is infuriating! Every time I see that fee on an invoice, I’m angry all over again. I imagine if Blackbaud weren’t still embroiled in the data breach class action suit, that one(s) of us would have launched such a suit about this fee. If it weren’t so complicated and time-consuming to switch databases, we would have done so when this fee came out of the blue, non-negotiable, for a service to which we don’t and won’t subscribe (and which we pay another company to provide to us).

When the fee first came up, along with being disgusted, I imagined some cost center within Blackbaud was not making its numbers, thus this fee to cover.

You know how a disgruntled customer tells 7 people who might each tell 7 more…?

When people ask what database software we use, I suggest they steer clear of Blackbaud.

WE certainly agree with all of these comments regarding this payment service fee

which we did not sign up for and never intend to use. It is an awful way to treat a customer base.

This payment-enabled fee of $50/mth from Blackbaud started at the beginning of March. According to the information, it would only be for customers that use payment-enabled services, such as processing payments, etc. Come to find out that even if you only use the database to store and record donors, and not to process any transactions through your bank, you are still expected to pay this fee. Which by the way they say is a monthly fee of $50, but they will be billing it annually…so $600.00 EXTRA dollars in addition to the renewal amounts that do not list any additional fees after the renewal charge. But all their CEOs and Directors are making bank selling their shares…it’s ridiculous.

Thanks for taking questions. Why is Blackbaud introducing this fee outside of contracted terms after all of your customers had to win back the trust of donors when you had the largest data breach in the history of the nonprofit world? Shame. On. You.

We are equally upset about this. The additional charge $450 annual charge was imposed outside of our signed contract. A Blackbaud rep told us today: “Your account executive or sales person would likely have had no idea of this charge, this was only

recently introduced by the highest levels of Blackbaud, I do not think they would be able to help.” We do not use any merchant services with our subscription as we have a separate setup with PayPal which is adequate (and reasonable!) for a nonprofit our size. Whoever these people are at “the highest levels”, they just lost our business.

On March 3rd Blackbaud implented a $50 per month Payment Enablement Fee to take effect and be billed April 1st for April through December. This is an unexpected and disappointing hit to the budget.