# Blackbaud Award Management Software Pricing, Alternatives & More 2026 | Capterra

> With the help of Capterra, learn about Blackbaud Award Management Software - reviews, pricing plans, popular comparisons to other Scholarship Management products and more.

Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/140271/AcademicWorks

---

# 

 Blackbaud Award Management Software Review 2026: Features, Integrations, Pros & Cons

Last updated on March 15, 2026

Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team.

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How Capterra ensures transparency

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[Description](#description)[Use cases](#use-cases)[Alternatives](#alternatives)[Features](#features)[Pricing](#pricing)[Integrations](#integrations)[Support](#support)[Reviews](#reviews)

Blackbaud Award Management

## What is Blackbaud Award Management?

Transform your institution's student awards program and revolutionize its donor stewardship practices with Blackbaud Award Management (formerly AcademicWorks). Built for higher education institutions of all types and sizes, this cloud-based solution serves as the catalyst to improve student access to awards and scholarship funds, create impactful stewardship practices, and enhance cross-functional visibility throughout the scholarship process. Learn more about Blackbaud Award Management.

## What is Blackbaud Award Management used for?

[Scholarship Management](https://www.capterra.com/scholarship-management-software/)[Higher Education](https://www.capterra.com/higher-education-software/)

Overall rating

Based on 30 user reviews

Reviews sentiment

Positive

93%

Neutral

7%

Negative

0%

Starting price

Free trial  
not available

Capterra Shortlist charts the highest-rated and most popular products...

Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings...

Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings...

## Blackbaud Award Management alternatives

Highest Rated

[4.8 (398)](https://www.capterra.com/p/158382/Submittable/reviews/)

Starting price

Contact vendor for pricing

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

98%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

[4.7 (36)](https://www.capterra.com/p/232111/RQ-Awards/reviews/)

Starting price

$1275.00

Per User, Per Month

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

97%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

[4.6 (73)](https://www.capterra.com/p/140294/OpenWater-Awards/reviews/)

Starting price

$5100.00

Per User, Per Month

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

96%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

[4.8 (22)](https://www.capterra.com/p/201478/Electronic-Form-Solutions/reviews/)

Starting price

$900.00

Per User, Per Month

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

100%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

[View all alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/140271/AcademicWorks/alternatives/)

## Features

Features with the highest number of reviews are displayed first. Those that have no reviews appear next, sorted alphabetically.

Student Information/Records

5.0 (1)

100.00% of 1 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important

Create lists of student grades, transcripts, class lists, course schedules, etc. to be shared with instructors and administration

Access Controls/Permissions

Define levels of authorization for access to specific files or systems

Ad hoc Reporting

Generate one-off reports that meet information requirements

Alerts/Notifications

Alerts or notifications of various types such as pop-up messages, sounds, banners, or badges

Alumni Management

Tools that help educational institutions or fundraising organizations connect with alumni

Applicant Portal

Gateway through which end users can update personal information, track their applications, and more

Blackbaud Award Management 28 features

Define levels of authorization for access to specific files or systems

Generate one-off reports that meet information requirements

Alerts or notifications of various types such as pop-up messages, sounds, banners, or badges

Tools that help educational institutions or fundraising organizations connect with alumni

Gateway through which end users can update personal information, track their applications, and more

Find and manage potential candidates and their applications and resumes through the recruiting life cycle

Track, manage and store the applications of potential future members, customers or candidates

Plan, schedule, and execute organization's accounts and assets to ensure compliance with policies and laws

Provides a channel for team members to share media files, communicate, and work together

Leave comments and notes on documents for others to view

Built-in customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities or integration with a third-party CRM system

Add customized logos and colors to align with company branding

Customize contracts and forms to collect specific information

Manage information and/or provide updates regarding student financial aid

Software designed for higher education organizations

Store, manage and track all forms in a centralized location

Activities related to raising money for a specific cause

Monitor application statuses, proposals and award funds

Algorithmically generated suggestions based on user behaviors, preferences, or data patterns to enhance UX, productivity, or engagement

Collection, analysis, and representation of numerical data and generation of reports to understand various patterns

Ability that helps reviewers analyze applications, add comments/notes, and more

Set & manage permission levels based on user roles and restrict access to only authorized individuals

Plan availability and assign specific time slots for tasks and resources

Automatically calculate score after the assessment

Online portal through which end users can access the system, manage tasks, or obtain information

Create lists of student grades, transcripts, class lists, course schedules, etc. to be shared with instructors and administration

Ability that lets users rebrand the software to make it look like their own

Create, design and manage workflows for repetitive tasks

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We can help you find the software with the features you need.

Features

4.4 (27)

4.4

Based on 27 reviews

## Pricing

Value for money

4.2 (25)

### Starting price

Free trial  
not available

Value for money

4.2 (25)

4.2

Based on 25 reviews

## Integrations

[

Decisions](https://www.capterra.com/p/149492/Decisions/)

Connect with a Capterra advisor for a free 15-minute consultation

Get a personalized software list aligned to your business needs with guidance from our expert advisors. Our team has helped 1 million+ businesses like yours find options that fit their needs.

## Support, customer service and training options

Customer Service

4.8 (26)

Support

-   Email/Help Desk
-   FAQs/Forum
-   Knowledge Base
-   Phone Support
-   24/7 (Live rep)
-   Chat

Training

-   In Person
-   Live Online
-   Webinars
-   Documentation
-   Videos

Deployment

-   Web
-   Android
-   iPhone/iPad

Typical users

-   Freelancers
-   Small businesses
-   Mid size businesses
-   Enterprises

Customer Service

4.8 (26)

4.8

Based on 26 reviews

## User reviews

Overall rating

4.4

Based on 30 reviews

Filter by rating

5(14)

4(14)

3(2)

2(0)

1(0)

Mentioned topic

Sorted by most recent

TF

Tara F.

Administrative Coordinator

Education Management

### "Blackbaud Award Management is great for Scholarship Awarding"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

9/10

February 15, 2022

Pros

Blackbaud Award Management has made scholarship awarding easy for our college. We can easily collaborate with multiple departments to award, review, and update our scholarships. I love that we are able to connect Blackbaud to Ellucian Banner for even more collaboration through our university. We are able to update a student account and the updates reflect with a minute or two.

Cons

I feel that there is a lot of clicking involved when trying to award to students. I wish that there wasn't so many screens and clicking on different options to award one student. It's not much of an inconvenience so not really much to complain over.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

HS

Heather S.

Scholarship Coordinator

Education Management

### "Award Management"

3.0

Overall Rating

3.0

3.0

Ease of Use

2.0

2.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

6/10

May 28, 2021

Overall, learning to run the system and think like the system has been a hurdle, it's not always user friendly on the admin side. The more i learn the more it works for me.

Pros

The software allows for an easy student user experience.

Cons

It's missing some functionality for logging in as an admin side, some tweaky things like creating a grid view and if your mouse moves outside the pop up it closes down.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

RS

Rachel S.

Program Facilitator

Higher Education

### "Great for scholarship management!"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

7/10

September 30, 2020

Blackbaud is an in-depth project management system and helps keep our contacts, notes, client history, scholarship donors, etc. all in one place. Using it for our scholarship management has helped increase our efficiency since we no longer have to print everything out for committees to review. Applications can be reviewed and scored online making the process much smoother.

Pros

Academic Works a great solution for scholarship management. It helps us manage the both the application and selection process for over 150 different scholarships. It's easy for students to apply and for donors and selection committees to review.

Cons

The software is pretty pricey. There are also a lot of features that were a bit more than we needed so at times it felt like we were paying for features that we just weren't using. However, we felt like we would grow into it and eventually begin using more features for our scholarship program.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

AS

Amy S.

Administrative Assistant

Higher Education

### "Great tracking software for Graduate admissions"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

10/10

December 9, 2019

This is a good system for our University. Even sporadic users (professors that need to login to review an application) can move through the process quickly. Quite intuitive.

Pros

This is a good tool that we use for tracking interest in our graduate school programs. We can see exactly where someone is in the process of applying and who we need to reach out to to "nudge."

Cons

No real drawbacks, for the way we use it. It would be nice to have a few more prompts to remind us of all the options that are available that we might not be using as fully as we could.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

Akhila M.

Assistant Professor

Higher Education

### "Academicworks Review"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

9/10

December 2, 2018

Pros

This is a scholarship software which is very useful for the institutions. I am working as assistant professor so this is very useful for identifying scholarship donors for my students and most attractive thing of this software is that by using this software we can easily renew scholarship.

Cons

Very good software. I didn't find any cons.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

Amy G.

Graduate Teaching Assistant

Higher Education

### "Software for Student Success in Scholarships"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

10/10

November 27, 2018

Academic works has provided me with the confidence that my students are getting some of the best help they can to find scholarships. A simple internet search cannot suffice when it comes to tacking the wide range of scholarships and as an education I want to ensure that all students know the opportunities available to them

Pros

As an instructor in higher education, I often help students find scholarships. Academic Works helps us to match student interests and qualifications with scholarships. I am most impressed with the accuracy and depth of the results. One word to describe this software is “personalized.”

Cons

Because academic works is cloud based then you’re reliant upon a strong WiFi connection. But, sometimes on big campuses the WiFi is not very strong or it malfunctions. Cloud based software can also cause browsers to crash more easily.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

Melissa J.

Student

Higher Education

### "Super Easy To Use!!"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

10/10

November 22, 2018

Pros

Making changes is super easy and the ability to add notes is great. Customer support is also excellent

Cons

It takes a lot of set up work when you first download the software.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

DD

Davide D.

Lecturer

Higher Education

### "Scholarship management website"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

8/10

November 21, 2018

Pros

The website does its job by assisting and managing in the process of offering scholarships. It is easy to use and very intuitive.

Cons

A little too expensive. If it was cheaper maybe even colleges with less economical availability would be able to afford it

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

Ritu s.

Lecturer

Higher Education

### "Academicworks"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

9/10

November 15, 2018

Well as per overall experience it is very good software.it save paperwork.it is simply and easy to create and manage records.user messaging ability is very good.as well as we can track recipient information.the grid view is very user friendly...We can see lot of information and any combination.at the end it saves our energy, resources and time.

Pros

Let's discuss about this software....It is very easy to use and a cloud based software.using this single software we can combine multiple tasks.if we talk about accuracy it is very powerful tool.it save out lot of time.

Cons

The turnaround time for support is slow.the awards screen should be clear.rest of the things are fine.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

JL

Johnetha L.

Database Coordinator

Higher Education

### "New Product"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

4.0

4.0

Likelihood to Recommend

7/10

October 11, 2018

Pros

We are just beginning to use AcademicWorks for our school. So far it has given us a way to simplify our scholarship tracking and allowed our campus to be on one accord.

Cons

Set up can be extremely time consuming and tedious.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

[View all Reviews](https://www.capterra.com/p/140271/AcademicWorks/reviews/)

Popular comparisons

[Submittable vs Blackbaud Award Management](https://www.capterra.com/compare/140271-158382/AcademicWorks-vs-Submittable) 

Independent research methodology

Capterra's researchers use a mix of verified reviews, independent research and objective methodologies to bring you selection and ranking information you can trust. While we may earn a referral fee when you visit a provider through our links or speak to an advisor, this has no influence on our research or methodology.

[Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/proprietary-data-research/)

How Capterra verifies reviews

Capterra carefully verified over 2.5 million+ reviews to bring you authentic software experiences from real users. Our human moderators verify that reviewers are real people and that reviews are authentic. They use leading tech to analyze text quality and to detect plagiarism and generative AI.

[Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-we-verify-reviews/)

How Capterra ensures transparency

Capterra lists all providers across its website—not just those that pay us—so that users can make informed purchase decisions. Capterra is free for users. Software providers pay us for sponsored profiles to receive web traffic and sales opportunities. Sponsored profiles include a link-out icon that takes users to the provider's website.

[Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-we-ensure-transparency/)