Submittable vs. WordPress

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Submittable
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Submittable offers tools to launch, measure, and grow social impact programs, locally and globally. From grants and scholarships to awards and CSR programs, Submittable partners with users to make a difference. The vendor states Submittable has supported over 95,000 social impact programs, receiving nearly 20 million applications, and that teams save an average of 12 hours per week and launch in an average of 14 days.
$10,000
per year
WordPress
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Wordpress is an open-source publishing platform popular with bloggers, and a content management system, known for its simplicity and modifiability. Websites may host their own blogging communities, controlling and moderating content from a single dashboard.
$3
per month 6 GB storage
Pricing
SubmittableWordPress
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Personal
$4
per month 6 GB storage
Premium
$8
per month 13 GB storage
Business
$25
per month 50 GB storage
Commerce
$45
per month 50 GB storage
Enterprise
Contact for pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SubmittableWordPress
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing for Business and Commerce plans vary on number of GB.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SubmittableWordPress
Considered Both Products
Submittable
Chose Submittable
When we decided on Submittable: a) Most cost-effective: solution would cost under USD3,000 per year with no setup fee. b) We needed key features of this solution that were available out-of-the-box, e.g., Online Application Form -- including answers to approximately 20-30 …
WordPress

No answer on this topic

Features
SubmittableWordPress
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Submittable
-
Ratings
WordPress
8.1
159 Ratings
1% below category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.1159 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Submittable
-
Ratings
WordPress
7.9
134 Ratings
2% above category average
API00 Ratings7.9124 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings7.9103 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Submittable
-
Ratings
WordPress
8.1
166 Ratings
4% above category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings7.9151 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings7.3152 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings8.3164 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings8.7160 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings8.6162 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings8.5161 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings8.2154 Ratings
Form generator00 Ratings7.1131 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Submittable
-
Ratings
WordPress
8.2
164 Ratings
10% above category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings8.1142 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings7.9148 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings7.5125 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings9.2152 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings8.3152 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SubmittableWordPress
Small Businesses
Blackbaud Grantmaking
Blackbaud Grantmaking
Score 9.0 out of 10
ManageWP
ManageWP
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
MIP Fund Accounting
MIP Fund Accounting
Score 9.0 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Workday Financial Management
Workday Financial Management
Score 8.2 out of 10
RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
SubmittableWordPress
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(82 ratings)
8.6
(203 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(6 ratings)
4.9
(38 ratings)
Usability
7.9
(79 ratings)
8.1
(50 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(3 ratings)
9.5
(3 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(3 ratings)
8.6
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(5 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.1
(2 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(4 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Configurability
7.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.3
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
9.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
SubmittableWordPress
Likelihood to Recommend
Submittable
Submittable is great for grant management, grantmaking, and scholarship awards. It's a very useful tool also when there are multiple reviewers and committees involved in the assessment of the application. The table feature is helpful, but to download the information in a usable report is a pain. Overall a very useful tool for funding.
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Automattic
Wordpress is a great solution for a website of nearly any type. It may not be as suitable if a fully custom solution or app is needed, and it does have some limitations when it comes to connecting it to external products (especially if the product doesn't have any support from a native system), and it does require a lot of testing. Multiple plugins in one install are common but also increase the risk of conflicts, and when those do occur, it can be exceptionally time-consuming and tedious to identify what is causing the issue. As third parties create many plugins, you're also at risk with each potential security breach, which needs to be kept in mind. I would be cautious to use WordPress to store any sort of sensitive PPI. That said, it's a wonderful, easily customizable solution for many, many different types of websites and can allow even inexperienced client users with low-tech knowledge to update basics.
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Pros
Submittable
  • Form-logic: Allows application forms to adjust based on answers to crucial questions (if-then-else) so that all applications don't have to see extended questions that may not apply to them or their situation.
  • Messaging Platform: This platform allows interactions with applicants or internal review teams to be associated with the specific submission, allowing for an easier, complete view of an application being considered and as an audit trail.
  • Good Voting/Polling Management: It makes it easier to record the latest vote/feedback from assigned team members and allows customization of the vote/feedback review as a form. It also summarizes the votes for easy review in a submissions dashboard view.
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Automattic
  • Easy to use User Interface
  • Coding / Plugin Implementation is awesome
  • There's always a solution available for the platform
  • Security is easy to use and robust
  • Implementation with 3rd party platforms, such as Google's variety of tools
  • Can download and host on your own server or use their hosted servers
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Cons
Submittable
  • We are some of the earliest users of employee volunteerism, so there have been some things to work out. However, because of that, we've gotten a lot of one-on-one support to help make minor tweaks to the system in a way that works for us.
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Automattic
  • WordPress breaks often so you need to have someone who understands how to troubleshoot, which can take time and money.
  • Some plugins are easier to customize than others, for example, some don't require any coding knowledge while others do. This can limit your project if you are not a coder.
  • WordPress can be easily hacked, so you also need someone who can ensure your sites are secure.
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Likelihood to Renew
Submittable
We use this software annually to help with our grant processes. Without it, I'd be so lost! Our team relies on the data from our past years to sift applications and we try to prioritize those who have applied and been a finalist but perhaps didn't win in years prior
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Automattic
The complications we have and the lack of support. Every plugin has a differente team of support in charge and make one plugin work with the other one always affects the website performance. It's a thousand times better to have only one provider with all functionalities included unless you are an expert web developer or have a team dedicated to it
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Usability
Submittable
A submittable requires a great deal of thought to set up. It would be best if you really did an outline and flowcharting. Once you have a detailed plan and set up the system, you have to think of the process that you would manually do step-by-step to deal with the what-ifs; it’s beautiful. The ability to Clone events is invaluable. The onboarding can be complex, but the ease of use afterward is worth it.
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Automattic
Extremely easy to use and train users. It took very little time to get everyone trained and onboarded to start using WordPress. Anytime we had any issues, we were able to find an article or video to help out or we were able to contact support. The menu options are well laid out so it is easy to find what you are looking for.
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Reliability and Availability
Submittable
We have thankfully never experienced an outage nor been affected by a technology issue on Submittable's side that has delayed our grant process. We have instead been able to distribute over $6M in donated dollars to AAPI small business owners because Submittable is trustworthy and available
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Automattic
Anyone can visit WordPress.org and download a fully functional copy of WordPress free of charge. Additionally, WordPress is offered to users as open-source software, which means that anyone can customize the code to create new applications and make these available to other WordPress users.
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Performance
Submittable
We've had a quick and efficient submittable experience that has always been easy to use. When we need a report it downloads within seconds, even the larger reports are 30 seconds or less to download. Pages are quick to load and reports complete in a more than reasonable time frame
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Automattic
Mostly, any performance issues have to do with using too many plugins and these can sometimes slow down the overall performance of your site. It is very tempting to start adding lots of plugins to your WordPress site, however, as there are thousands of great plugins to choose from and so many of them help you do amazing things on your site. If you begin to notice performance issues with your WordPress site (e.g. pages being slow to load), there are ways to optimize the performance of your site, but this requires learning the process. WordPress users can learn how to optimize their WordPress sites by downloading the WPTrainMe WordPress training plugin (WPTrainMe.com) and going through the detailed step-by-step WordPress optimization tutorials.
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Support Rating
Submittable
I think that they are good at answering our questions and solving our problems. We occasionally get reports from applicants about problems the Submittable team has not solved, but I do not know what the applicant has done to get the problem solved.
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Automattic
I give this rating, which I believe to be a great rating for a community based support system that's surrounding it. Most platforms and products have their own, and as WordPress does have their own team that help here and there, a lot of it's handled by community involvement with dedicated users who are experts with the system who love to help people.
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In-Person Training
Submittable
We have been using this for many years but my memory is that we had a
human walk us through how to use basic features. We also used the
resource library to learn about specific topics or issues as they came
up.
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Automattic
Varies by the person providing training. High marks as it's incredibly easy to find experienced individuals in your community to provide training on any aspect of WordPress from content marketing, SEO, plugin development, theme design, etc. Less than 10 though as the training is community based and expectations for a session you find may fall short.
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Online Training
Submittable
10/10 because we were able to meet virtually and still get all of our questions answered! Online was effective too because we could easily record the sessions and review them later. Since we had to onboard our reviewers virtually, it was actually convenient that this was the same method we learned how to use the entire program virtually too.
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Automattic
It is very easy to find online resources to learn how to do just about anything with WordPress.
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Implementation Rating
Submittable
I would say, provide Submittable as much detailed information on your planned use of the platform and your desires with the platform as possible, and the implementation will be tailored to accommodate your organization with minimal lag time and issues/problems.
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Automattic
WordPress is not a great solution if you have: 1) A larger site with performance / availability requirements. 2) Multiple types of content you want to share - each with its own underlying data structure. 3) Multiple sites you need to manage. For very small sites where these needs are not paramount, WordPress is a decent solution
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Alternatives Considered
Submittable
Submittable isn't in the same league as these other platforms. It's trying to get there but it's been a rocky road. Neither customer support nor the account people we've dealt with at Submittable seem particularly knowledgeable about how the product actually works for foundations and can't provide detailed recommendations for how to use the product more effectively. The decision to use Submittable was made before I came on board. We are moving to another platform next year, probably SmartSimple.
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Automattic
WordPress isn't as pretty or easy to use as certain competitors like Jimdo, Squarespace or HubSpot, but it makes up for it with its affordability, familiarity and the ability to find quality outside help easily. The same can't be said for certain competitors, as you might need to find an expert and it could get costly.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Submittable
I wish we could choose our own number of applications we want for the year and have the price be changed because we are in-between buyable numbers and always have to add more applications at the end of the year
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Automattic
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Submittable
We have been easily able to grow. Not only are we able to process different applications, but Submittable makes it easy to add applications onto our plan. Additionally, their eligibility form before the application does a good job of screening applicants so we do not pay for extra applications.
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Automattic
WordPress is completely scalable. You can get started immediately with a very simple "out-of-the box" WordPress installation and then add whatever functionality you need as and when you need it, and continue expanding. Often we will create various WordPress sites on the same domain to handle different aspects of our strategy (e.g. one site for the sales pages, product information and/or a marketing blog, another for delivering products securely through a private membership site, and another for running an affiliate program or other application), and then ties all of these sites together using a common theme and links on each of the site's menus. Additionally, WordPress offers a multisite function that allows organizations and institutions to manage networks of sites managed by separate individual site owners, but centrally administered by the parent organization. You can also expand WordPress into a social networking or community site, forums, etc. The same scalability applies to web design. You can start with a simple design and then scale things up to display sites with amazing visual features, including animations and video effects, sliding images and animated product image galleries, elements that appear and fade from visitor browsers, etc. The scaling possibilities of WordPress are truly endless.
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Professional Services
Submittable
Very professional
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Automattic
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Submittable
  • Time is money! Submittable has eliminated many tasks I used to do manually, thus freeing my time for other work.
  • Decreased support calls and emails from applicants- Our applicants are able to successfully access and apply for our grants.
  • No internal IT support needed to use this platform. That team is able to focus on their larger business projects and needs.
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Automattic
  • Allowed us to being all websites under a single umbrella, saving costs on similar products.
  • It's increased our website turn time and made us faster and more efficient at launching websites.
  • Edits and tweaks happen much faster as we have a customized environment.
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ScreenShots