Prospect research & wealth screening
WealthEngine alternatives
If you are shopping to replace WealthEngine, the shortlist below is ordered by the situation you are in rather than by which vendor pays most. Every price is real and dated, and where staying put is the right answer, we say so.
Checked Aug 3, 2026
Some links on this page are affiliate links. Disclosure
Why shops leave WealthEngine
- There's an implementation fee on top of the subscription. Reported anywhere from $2,000 to $20,000 one-time depending on setup, on top of a subscription reported from around $5,000/yr for a single user. Competitors in this category don't all carry that.
- Pricing scales with seats. Reported at roughly $15,000/yr around ten users and roughly $50,000/yr around a hundred. Every person you want looking at prospect data is a line item, which quietly discourages the access that makes screening useful.
- Wealth markers are not inclination. The modeling is strong on capacity across large lists. Capacity tells you who could give; it doesn't tell you who will, and a list ranked purely on wealth sends your gift officers to people with no history of giving to anyone.
- Nothing about the price is published. Quote-only with no rate card, which makes a like-for-like comparison slow and puts you in a negotiation without a reference point.
What to move to
| Tool | Pricing | Move here if | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kindsight (iWave) |
| You want capacity scoring you can actually defend | Visit → |
| 2 | DonorSearch |
| Your donors give consistently and you want to find who could give more | Visit → |
1. Kindsight (iWave) — You want capacity scoring you can actually defend
The closest replacement, and the one to price against WealthEngine directly. Reported from around $4,150/yr for one user and roughly 1,500 screens, with a Professional tier reported near $5,350/yr for three users and about 5,000 screens. Same emphasis on wealth and capacity indicators, with two things WealthEngine doesn't match: transparent sourcing on how each score is built, and consistently top satisfaction ratings in the category on the major review sites. A score your gift officer can explain in a portfolio meeting gets acted on.
2. DonorSearch — Your donors give consistently and you want to find who could give more
Reported at roughly $4,000/yr for a small file around 5,000 records, $6,000–$12,000/yr at 10,000–50,000 records, and $15,000–$22,000/yr at enterprise scale — plus a pay-per-record option at roughly $1–$2 per record for a one-off screen with no subscription at all. That per-record route is the important one if what you actually need is a single pre-campaign screen. DonorSearch leads with demonstrated philanthropic history rather than wealth markers, and pushes scores directly into major donor CRMs.
WealthEngine models wealth well and publishes nothing about what it costs. Both of those facts drive alternative searches — the first because wealth alone is a partial answer, and the second because a quote with no reference point is a bad negotiating position.
The test before you shop anything
Ask who, by name, will make the visits, and whether that’s on their calendar. If there’s no answer, no screening product will pay for itself, and hand-researching your top 25 prospects is the cheaper experiment.
Our 2026 survey of 100 U.S. fundraising professionals found 95% of shops under $250K raised spend $0 on wealth screening — median $0, mean $45. At $250K–$1M the mean is $1,319 and the median $550, meaning half that segment still spends nothing. At $1M–$5M the mean is $4,135, and at $5M+ it’s $17,320. The category effectively starts at $1M raised.
Capacity is half the picture
This is the substantive reason to look elsewhere, and it’s worth separating from the price complaint.
A wealth-indicator model tells you who has money — real estate, securities, business affiliations, giving to other organizations where it’s public. It does not tell you who gives. A list ranked purely on capacity sends gift officers to wealthy people with no philanthropic history, and those visits convert badly.
Demonstrated giving is the better predictor, which is DonorSearch’s explicit thesis. Kindsight sits between the two and shows its sourcing. Which weighting is right for you depends on your file: wealthy people who haven’t given yet, or modest people who give every year without fail.
Buy the screen, not the year
Pre-campaign feasibility is a project, not an ongoing need. DonorSearch’s pay-per-record option — reported at roughly $1–$2 per record — screens a 5,000-record file once with no subscription attached. For a one-time capacity picture that is the whole job, at a fraction of any annual contract plus implementation fee.
The consultant route does the same thing and adds the part no software does: turning scores into a tiered portfolio with suggested ask amounts. That typically runs around $4,000–$5,000 as a project. For a first screen, the interpretation is worth more than the data — our consulting page covers how those engagements work.
Run a real comparison
Build a test file of 50–100 constituents whose capacity you can independently verify — board members, past major donors, people whose giving elsewhere is public. Ask every vendor to screen it during the sales process. Most will.
Check who they flagged, who they missed, and how many high scores you know are wrong. The vendor whose output best matches what you already know is the one your team will trust on the names you don’t.
Then tell each vendor you’re running the same file elsewhere. Every product in this category is quoted per organization, which means the price reflects the negotiation — and a competing bid is the only real leverage you have. It works better before you sign than at renewal.
Compare every option in prospect research & wealth screening, or see what a shop your size should be running in the recommended stacks.