Comparison
PTO Homeroom vs RunPTO
Treasurer-first, one flat price, and they take nothing per transaction.
The short answer
RunPTO is built around the treasurer, one flat $299 covers everything, and they take no cut of your transactions at all. You pay the $299 before a single dollar comes in — which is the whole trade.
All figures below are the vendors' own published rates, checked on 25 August 2026. Pricing changes — verify with each vendor before deciding.
Pricing, side by side
| PTO Homeroom | RunPTO | |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | $0 | $299 / year |
| Fee on payments | 3% | None — RunPTO never touches the money |
| Fee on fundraisers | 3% | None |
| Card processing | Stripe 2.9% + 30¢ | Your own Stripe or PayPal |
| Fees passable to the payer | Yes — shown at checkout and covered by the payer by default | N/A — there is no platform fee to pass on |
| Processor lock-in | No — funds settle to your PTO's own Stripe account | No — you connect your own processor |
RunPTO tiers: One flat price for every feature. 30-day free trial. RunPTO states the price will never increase.
What a $22,000 year actually nets
Assumes an average payment of $36.67 and that 55% of the total comes from your big fundraiser — the part vendors price differently. Both columns assume the group absorbs its own fees.
PTO Homeroom
$20,522
No subscription. Shown absorbing our 3% and card processing, to match the column beside it — pass them to the payer instead and you bank the full $22,000.
RunPTO
$20,982
More than we'd net at this volume — a flat subscription overtakes a percentage once a group raises enough. Slide the amount down and the order flips.
What to watch for with RunPTO
$299 before you raise anything
A flat annual fee is easy to understand, and it is due whether your PTO raises $2,000 or $200,000. Homeroom costs nothing until money moves, and then only 3% of what moved.
They take nothing per transaction
Their own documentation says it plainly: “RunPTO does not collect payments; funds go directly to your PayPal or Stripe account.” You pay your processor and nobody else. Above roughly $10,000 a year, that flat $299 costs a PTO less than our 3% — if your PTO absorbs fees rather than passing them on.
Strongest where it started: the books
RunPTO markets itself as PTA accounting software first. That focus is real, and the treasurer tooling is its best feature.
Smaller on the family-facing side
The pitch is administration. Homeroom's bet is the opposite end — that a tool fails if parents never open it.
Where RunPTO is the better choice
We'd rather you pick the right tool than the one that wrote the comparison.
Cheaper than us at volume
A flat $299 beats a percentage once a PTO raises more than about $10,000 a year and absorbs its own fees. If that's you, and the family-facing side matters less, they are the better buy and we'd rather say so.
A price that genuinely never moves
They publish a commitment not to raise it. For a board that has been repriced by a vendor before, that is worth something.
Bring your own processor
Stripe or PayPal, your account. We match this rather than beat it.
A 30-day trial with the full feature set
No feature gating during the trial.
Years of treasurer-specific refinement
Accounting was the first thing they built, not the last. If your PTO's pain is entirely the books, that shows.
Choose RunPTO if…
A flat $299 beats a percentage once a PTO raises more than about $10,000 a year and absorbs its own fees. If that's you, and the family-facing side matters less, they are the better buy and we'd rather say so.
Choose PTO Homeroom if…
You want one tool instead of three, no annual subscription, a published fee you can explain to any parent, and your fundraiser, roster, communication and books in the same place.
Sources
- RunPTO — Pricing
- RunPTO — Terms and conditions ($299 flat, no transaction fees stated)
- RunPTO — “RunPTO does not collect payments; funds go directly to your PayPal or Stripe account”
- RunPTO — Accounting features
Checked 25 August 2026. We don't republish figures a vendor doesn't publish; anything unstated is marked “not published” rather than estimated.
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