NationBuilder gives an organisation a public website, a supporter database and email in one place, and it is sold worldwide. Cadrify does not build websites. It runs a British election: the electoral register, door-knocking rounds, leaflet rounds, polling day and the nomination paperwork. Most people weighing these two are choosing between a supporter platform and a field operation.
If the centre of your campaign is a public website, a supporter list and email, NationBuilder is the better buy and Cadrify will not replace it. Cadrify has no website builder and is not going to have one.
If the centre of your campaign is the doorstep, Cadrify does things NationBuilder does not. It imports the council electoral register as electors rather than as contacts, digitises the marked register, cuts door-knocking and leaflet rounds from a ward boundary, runs telling and knocking up on polling day and produces the nomination pack and the election agent's return.
The other real difference is how each one charges. NationBuilder's published plans are set by contact count and database size. Cadrify's price follows the electorate of the geography your organisation claims, and the number of records never moves it, so importing a whole ward register on day one costs nothing extra.
Every row carries a verdict as well as a tick. Where a row says Cadrify does not do something, it does not.
| Capability | Cadrify | NationBuilder | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| British electoral register | Imports the council register as electors, matched to wards and polling districts by GSS code | Generic CSV import into the people database | Both will take the rows. Only Cadrify treats them as a register, with polling districts, a marked register and a knock-up list behind them. |
| Marked register and turnout history | Digitise the marked register after each ballot and hold who voted, ballot by ballot | Not offered | If you want to know who turned out last time, Cadrify is the only one of the two that ingests a British marked register. |
| Door-knocking rounds | Rounds cut from a ward boundary and the road network, balanced by door count, printed or worked on a phone | Mapping and printed door-knocking and calling sheets on the Pro plan | Both produce a list for the door. NationBuilder's is aimed at a supporter list. Cadrify's starts from the full electorate of a ward. |
| Leaflet and literature rounds | Delivery rounds with counts, deliverers and a delivery record | Not offered | Leaflet delivery planning has no NationBuilder equivalent. If your branch delivers more than it knocks, this row matters. |
| Polling day: telling and knocking up | Telling sheets by polling station, and knock-up lists that shrink as tellers report | Not offered | British polling-day practice is not a NationBuilder concept. If polling day is why you are buying, start with this row. |
| Candidate nomination paperwork | Nomination forms filled from your data, subscribers checked against the register | Not offered | Cadrify produces the pack. With NationBuilder you do it by hand. |
| Election agent spending return | Spend recorded against PPERA categories and exported as a return | Donation and expense records, but not a British return | NationBuilder keeps good money records. It does not produce a British election agent's return. |
| Public website and content management | Not offered. Public petition, event, sign-up and donation pages only | Website builder with themes, one site included on every plan | NationBuilder wins this row outright, and Cadrify has no plan to compete on it. |
| Broadcast email | Email to your own lists, with 25,000 sends a year included and metering after that | Email blasts on every plan, plus drip automations on Pro | Both send. NationBuilder is designed to be the mailing platform and its email tooling is deeper. |
| Donations and fundraising | Donation pages, 0.5% on top of Stripe's rate, PPERA fields and gift aid | Donation processing included on every plan | The two are close. Cadrify's is built around a British return and gift aid. NationBuilder's serves a broader and mostly American donor base. |
| How the price is set | Electorate of the geography your organisation claims. Records and volunteers unlimited | Contact count and database size at the time of billing | This is the practical difference. A full register import raises a NationBuilder bill and does not raise a Cadrify one. |
| Volunteer and staff accounts | Unlimited. No per-seat charge, ever | Check the control-panel user limit that applies to your plan | Cadrify never charges per volunteer. Ask NationBuilder what your plan allows before you count on adding everyone. |
| Data residency | EEA. Hosted in Frankfurt | Not stated as an EEA option on the public pricing page | If your data protection officer needs EEA hosting in writing, put that question to NationBuilder before you buy. |
Cadrify's own rows describe what the product does today. The NationBuilder rows reflect our reading of its public documentation and pricing as of August 2026, and vendors change both. Check anything that would decide your purchase with NationBuilder directly. Unfamiliar with a term? See the British campaign glossary.
If the right-hand column describes your campaign, NationBuilder is the better buy.
Cadrify is the better fit when you are fighting an election.
NationBuilder does several things Cadrify has no plan to do, and it does them well.
Cadrify's figures are our published rate card. The NationBuilder figures are what that vendor published when we last read it, in its own currency.
One plan. Every feature at every size, unlimited volunteers and unlimited branches. The price follows the electorate of the geography your organisation claims, never the number of records you hold.
Rates are marginal, per 1,000 electors per year. A ward of 5,000 electors is £150 a year. A Leeds ward of 17,000 is £695. A constituency party covering 70,000 is £2,450. Broadcast email, per-address geocoding and AI features are metered separately, each with an allowance most campaigns never reach, and postcode-level geocoding is free. 30 days free. Full pricing
Published self-serve plans, monthly billing, in US dollars. Enterprise is quoted.
Read from nationbuilder.com/pricing in August 2026. NationBuilder states that annual billing is cheaper than monthly and that the charge follows your database size at the time of billing. Prices are in US dollars. Vendors change pricing, so check the current page before you decide anything.
The two price different things. NationBuilder charges more as the database grows, which is awkward in Britain, because a single ward register is tens of thousands of records before you have spoken to anyone. Cadrify charges for the electorate of the areas your organisation claims and never for the records you hold, so a full register import on day one costs the same as importing 500 supporters. On the published figures, NationBuilder's Pro plan is $1,920 a year at the monthly rate before add-ons. Cadrify for a ward of 17,000 electors is £695 a year. Convert at whatever rate applies on the day and compare on your own numbers rather than ours.
Written for the person who has to do it. Do every step while the old account is still live.
Take the full people export, including tags and custom fields, not a filtered view. Do it while the account is still live, before anything is cancelled.
Cadrify imports CSV activist and member records with column mapping. Tags come across as tags. This part is a straight copy.
This step has no NationBuilder equivalent. Your council supplies the electoral register. Cadrify loads it as electors, matched to wards and polling districts by GSS code, then links your supporters to their register entry where they match.
Cadrify does not replace a NationBuilder website. Plenty of organisations keep the site and move only the field operation. If you are closing the account outright, move the site first and the data second.
Cadrify hosts petition, event, sign-up and donation pages. Swap an embed or a link once the new page is live, not before.
Generate a round from a real ward, print the sheets, knock it and log the results. Do that inside the 30-day trial, on your own register, while NationBuilder is still running.
It will import the rows, because it takes a CSV into its people database. It does not treat them as electors. There is no polling district structure, no marked register and no knock-up list behind them. If the register is the reason you are buying, that is the deciding difference.
For a British local campaign, usually. Cadrify starts at £150 a year for a ward of about 5,000 electors and the price does not follow record count. NationBuilder's published Starter plan is $34 a month for up to 5,000 contacts, and a full register import would take most branches past that. Compare on your own numbers and check both current pricing pages.
No, and it is not planned. Cadrify publishes petition, event, sign-up and donation pages that you link to from whatever site you already have. If you need a full site with a content editor, NationBuilder does that and Cadrify does not.
No. Some organisations keep a NationBuilder website and mailing list and run the field operation in Cadrify. Cadrify exports everything at any time, so neither tool holds the data hostage.
Cadrify. Telling sheets by polling station, knock-up lists that shrink through the day and marked register digitisation are British practice that NationBuilder does not model.
30 days, the whole product. Import your register, generate a round and knock it this week.