Alternatives
Cheddar Up alternatives: collecting PTO money, with or without the rest of the platform
Cheddar Up does one job well: a collection page a parent can pay from with no account, with the fees passed to the payer by default. Boards outgrow it in two ways. The 95¢ flat fee on the free plan is close to 10% of a $10 spirit-shirt order. And it is only the money: no roster, no announcements, no volunteer slots, no treasurer's books, so a PTO ends up running three or four tools side by side.
The short answer
The main alternatives to Cheddar Up are PTO Homeroom (the same no-account checkout with a 3% fee covered by the payer, plus the roster, announcements, signups and books), PTBoard, Membership Toolkit and Givebacks (full platforms with a store and forms, at a subscription), Konstella (communication first, with sales and donations as a feature), and SignUpGenius (free volunteer slots, with payments as an add-on). The right one depends on whether the pain is the flat fee on small payments or the number of tools you are juggling.
Rates below are each vendor's own published figures, last checked 9 September 2026. Anything unpublished is marked as such rather than estimated.
Every option, side by side
| Platform | Best for | Subscription | Fee on payments | Fee on fundraisers | Card processing | Fee can be passed to payer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cheddar Upthe one you have | Groups that mainly need to collect money — dues, spirit wear, tickets — with no parent accounts, and are happy to keep communication elsewhere. | $0 – $420 / year | Blended into the card rate | Blended into the card rate | 3.95% + 95¢ free · 3.59% + 59¢ paid | Yes — and it is the default |
| PTO Homeroomthis site | Boards that want the roster, dues, fundraisers, signups, announcements, sponsor placements and the treasurer's books in one place, free, with no parent logins. | $0 | 3% | 3% | Stripe 2.9% + 30¢ | Yes — shown at checkout and covered by the payer by default |
| PTBoard | Boards that want the most features for the least subscription and are comfortable with a 5% fee on fundraising campaigns. | $64.99 – $399.99 / year | 0.7% + 20¢ | 5% | Your own PayPal or Stripe | Yes — three documented options, including purchaser-covers-all |
| Membership Toolkit | Larger PTAs that want a polished public website, deep membership tooling and are willing to pay a subscription of several hundred dollars a year. | $550 – $1,150 / year | 0% on dues and store payments | 3% of each donation, up to $50,000 | LumaPay 2.89% + 30¢ (as published Aug 2026; the PaySimple partner card now lists interchange-plus pricing) | Not published |
| Givebacks | State-PTA-affiliated units that need PTA dues remittance built in, and boards that want a store, website and fundraising in one paid platform. | $499 – $599 / year | 1.05% + 65¢ | 7.5% | Stripe 2.9% + 30¢ | Yes — absorb, pass on to the donor, or split |
| Konstella | Schools where parent-to-parent communication and classroom groups matter more than payments or the treasurer's books. | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published |
| SignUpGenius | Anyone whose real need is a volunteer slot sheet; it is the easiest signup tool there is and free for organizers on its basic plan. | $0 – $539.89 / year | 5% + 50¢ on collected payments | 5% + 50¢ (no fundraiser product; payments on sign-ups) | Included in the 5% + 50¢ | Yes — the organizer chooses whether the buyer or the seller pays the fee |
| RunPTO | Boards that want a low-cost, PTO-specific website and membership tool and can live with unpublished payment rates. | $299 / year | None — RunPTO never touches the money | None | Your own Stripe or PayPal | N/A — there is no platform fee to pass on |
Each vendor name links to the head-to-head page with sources. Homeroom's own row is on the same terms as everyone else's.
What Cheddar Up costs, all in
The organization pays $0 on the free plan, $15 a month billed annually on Pro and $35 a month billed annually on Team. The convenience fee is 3.95% + 95¢ per payment on the free plan and 3.59% + 59¢ on paid plans, passed to the payer by default. The processor underneath is Stripe; the split between Stripe's rate and Cheddar Up's share is not published. Free pages allow five items and one form or sign-up each.
If the problem is the flat fee
Fees with a flat part punish small payments. On a $10 order Cheddar Up's free plan takes $1.35 (13.5%); Homeroom's 3% plus Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ comes to 89¢. On a $25 membership the two are closer: $1.94 against $1.55. Both are shown to the payer at checkout and covered by the payer by default, so the PTO banks the sticker price either way; the difference is what families see.
If the problem is running four tools
The usual Cheddar Up stack is Cheddar Up for money, SignUpGenius for volunteers, a Google Site or Facebook group for news and a spreadsheet for the books. PTBoard, Membership Toolkit and Givebacks fold those into one subscription with parent accounts. Homeroom folds them into one place with no accounts, and adds the treasurer's ledger, reimbursements and an audit packet that none of the others keep.
If you only ever collect money
Stay. Cheddar Up is faster to set up for a single collection than any full platform, ours included, and a class parent collecting for one gift has no reason to adopt a PTO system. The alternatives on this page are for the board, not for one collection.
Where Cheddar Up still wins
Genuinely free to start with fees passed by default, the simplest collection pages in the category, eCheck and ACH on paid plans, and a lower percentage on the Pro and Team tiers at volume.
Questions boards ask
Is Cheddar Up free for a PTO?
The free plan costs the organization nothing. Each payment carries a 3.95% + 95¢ convenience fee that the payer covers by default. Paid plans are $15 or $35 a month billed annually with a 3.59% + 59¢ fee.
What is the cheapest way for a PTO to collect dues online?
Compare the whole fee, not the subscription. On a $25 dues payment Cheddar Up's free plan charges the payer about $1.94; PTO Homeroom's 3% line plus card processing is about $1.55; PTBoard's 0.7% + 20¢ is lower still but sits inside a $64.99 to $129.99 yearly subscription.
Does any alternative keep the treasurer's books?
PTO Homeroom posts every payment, refund and reimbursement to a ledger with budget-vs-actual and an exportable audit packet. Cheddar Up, PTBoard, Membership Toolkit and Givebacks report on money collected through them but do not keep the books.
Can parents pay without an account on the alternatives?
On Homeroom and SignUpGenius, yes. PTBoard, Membership Toolkit and Givebacks expect parents to hold an account for the store and forms.
See Homeroom in two minutes, or set it up in about the same
Free, no card, no call. If it isn't the right fit, the comparison pages above will say so.
- Free for the PTO, no subscription
- 3% at checkout, paid by the payer
- No parent logins, ever
Cheddar Up sources: Pricing Fees explained