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Simple, Affordable, Powerful software for in person, hybrid or virtual events. Supports live auctions, paper or online/mobile silent auction bidding, custom ticketing, seating management, custom color branding, donation bundling with multiple high resolution photos, guest self-checkout, monetary donations, marketing communications, detailed reporting, sponsor recognition and more. Our best in class customer service is FREE via phone or email. We're here to help!
Provider
Silent Auction Pro
Located In
United States
Foundation
2007
Open API
No
Deployment
Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
Mobile Apps
Android, iOS
Training
Documentation, Webinars, Live Online, Videos
Support
FAQs/Forum, Phone Support, Email/Help Desk, Knowledge Base
Community Service Organizations, Schools, Churches, Nonprofit Organizations of all sizes, sports organizations, political organizations and anyone wanting to run a fundraising based event.
Content Source: Silent Auction Pro
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Reviewers commend Silent Auction Pro for its robust event management capabilities, highlighting the seamless execution and extensive planning features. They find the customer support exceptional, with event coaches providing proactive guidance and real-time assistance during events. The software's organizational tools and virtual event support have been particularly beneficial, reducing preparation time and ensuring smooth operations, which has led to more successful and less stressful events.
Users appreciate the integrated credit card processing feature in Silent Auction Pro, which simplifies the check-in and check-out processes and allows for secure online payments. They find the ability to pre-authorize credit cards and store payment information particularly helpful in reducing checkout times. However, some users have experienced issues with the reliability of the payment processor and the lack of an opt-out option for saving credit card information, which has caused some frustration.
Pros
Overall Great Features: The user pages looked stunning, most features you'd want are available. We really enjoyed our use of the software and are looking forward to our next auction.
They have numerous help pages and even some youtube videos that help you learn the software. Additionally the technical support was out of this world (see Tech Support is Outstanding).
We particularly loved the automated winner text notification and giving them the opportunity to self check-out/pay, making it all so much faster and easier.
It is intuitive, simple, and made us look polished and organized. Features I loved most include: Easy Check-in, Easy Check-Out, entering of winning bids, and the integrated credit card feature.
Cons
It was difficult for us to figure out which of the pull down sections to use. Such as "I know I saw that somewhere, but where.
The only downside I see is the appearance on the phones. It looks old and basic compared to what it can actually do.
Sometimes it was difficult to navigate or figure out exactly what functions lied where in the platform. It took a bit of digging around before I got comfortable with using it.
They do offer to import for you at extra cost. They must have had bad experiences.
Most Recent Video User Review for Silent Auction Pro
SEE ALL VIDEO REVIEWS
Worked Wonders For Me & My School
Ciera M.
"Excellent Event Planning Software! "
Overall: We are a hypothermia shelter that houses 12 guests during the coldest months of the year, and have a fundraising gala every 2-3 years. At the beginning of our planning process for our February 2020 gala, we wrestled with the question “Do we really need an auction and event planning package for our little event?” At the end, there was no question that Silent Auction Pro was a HUGE reason why our event went so smoothly and exceeded our fundraising goals!
Pros: I cannot say enough good things about our experience using Silent Auction Pro. Some of the key things that we liked: Event Coach. From the beginning, we were assigned an event coach ([SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN]), and she proved incredibly helpful in both understanding Silent Auction Pro as well as anticipating what other issues might come up before, during, and after our event. She checked in regularly, and was available even on weekends. Training Videos. Silent Auction Pro has a large number of training videos on YouTube that were very helpful. Admittedly, they seemed difficult to understand when I viewed them before we actually signed up, but once I was on Silent Auction Pro and able to play around, they made much more sense, and proved very helpful. Pricing Structure. At first, it seemed expensive to pay $800 and still give up 2% of our proceeds to Silent Auction Pro. However, the 2% is only out of auction proceeds, and not things like tickets or sponsorships. That kept the 2% cost down to under $300, for a total cost of $1,100. Comparing that to the many, many hours of time saved, the ability to start the auction before the event, ability to easily sell tickets, and all the communications tools made it worth the money many times over! Usability. While I would not call Silent Auction Pro the most user-friendly website in existence, it is user-friendly, and with a minimal amount of practice it becomes very easy to get around. The reports are also very useful and easy to generate.
Cons: There were a few very minor bugs, but that was it. I didn't care at all for WorldPay, which is one of the two credit card processors that Silent Auction Pro works with. They had horrible customer service and wanted to know WAY to much personal information about me in order to open an account. But that isn't Silent Auction Pro's fault ...
"Overall Excellent Experience with Software and Support"
Overall: We were overall very pleased. It provided a greater reach than we would have ever been able to achieve with an in-person silent auction. We loved the versatility, the ease of use (after learning), and the support. We'd absolutely recommend this to another organization and will be using it again.
Pros: Easy to use: The software is very easy to use after spending a little bit of time familiarizing yourself with it. They have numerous help pages and even some youtube videos that help you learn the software. Additionally the technical support was out of this world (see Tech Support is Outstanding). We also loved that numerous people can enter donation items so that the cumbersome task of entering items is not tasked to one person. Reasonably priced: It is reasonably priced, relative to other similar softwares, and the support alone was worth the money. Originally, we thought the fees were slightly high, but after investigating other software pricing, and after our experience with this software and their support, the annual fee (which allows for as many auctions/events as you'd like within a year) and the 2.0% taken from high bids were nothing, and we would absolutely do it again. Tech Support is Outstanding: The event coaches are very friendly and incredibly helpful. They help you get started, make suggestions along the way, and they are there to wrap up afterwards as well. We had an IT problem at 9:00pm CST. I called in, my event coach answered me, and she had tech support looking into my problem immediately. Every tech call was answered or gotten back to within an hour. Overall Great Features: The user pages looked stunning, most features you'd want are available. We really enjoyed our use of the software and are looking forward to our next auction.
Cons: Takes Time to Learn: The administrative pages are slightly cumbersome to navigate in the beginning. They take time to learn, although that is probably true of every auction software. Some Features Not Available: There were a few features that were not available that we would have liked to have seen, such as an option for the public to view all bids placed on an item with bidders names or without, similar to an in-person silent auction. The Donate Button (Fund-a-need) was not intuitive for our users and confused them. Administrative Pages: Looked a bit dated. For a new software, we would have expected everything to be a bit more up-to-date looking. However, the user pages were very nice looking for the actual auction. Additionally, it would be great if there was a "view as user" option to be able to see what your changes look like once you've made them in the administrative account. It was cumbersome to have a user account and an administrative account and have to switch between the two constantly to be able to view things we were changing in the administrative account. Also the software won't let you have two logins open at the same time.
"Review"
Pros: Not a million screens amongst which to navigate.
Cons: There is a lot of repeat info on each screen. Would be great if information could be streamlined a bit.
Vendor Response
"Family Promise of Montgomery County Loves Silent Auction Pro"
Overall: The Staff does an excellent job coaching you throughout the entire event process; from setting up the event, creating tickets, posting auction items and ultimately closing out the event. A very patient, professional and knowledgeable staff that is excited to help at all times...
Pros: Silent Auction Pro helps make your event stay on track. The software does a wonderful job keeping up with your money and donors which is extremely important in the non profit word.
Cons: Need an export to QuickBooks tool (which I hear is in the works)!
Vendor Response
"Round 2; Regrouping "
Overall: I loved the software. We had used BidPal/OneCause prior but the cost model was unbearable for us this year. With Silent Auction Pro we pay after the first event; nothing upfront. Capped fee% and low fixed cost are benefits. Credit card processing (we used WorldPay) fees are lower (and no monthly fee), making the total cost lower. Software is feature-rich. This can be a double-edged sword as features can add complexity. Help is always available and phone support was awesome. Overall, the features are worth it. Ability to 'stage' or start a new event while keeping a recently finished event active for a bit would be a welcomed improvement.
Pros: Features, Performance and Support were all Excellent.
Cons: Registration and PW requirements for bidding . No import (from spreadsheet) capability. Understandable, but would have been nice. They do offer to import for you at extra cost. They must have had bad experiences... It turned out to be less an issue than I thought. They were very upfront about it and it was not a surprise.
