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The Best and Easiest for Individual Applications
February 17, 2022

The Best and Easiest for Individual Applications

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Submittable

We use Submittable to manage our grant application process for all of our programs. On average we receive 750 applications per year, 90% of which go through a multi-stage review process, first by internal reviewers and then by outside panelists. Submittable has allowed us to be flexible and responsive in structuring applications, providing help text, and having custom review criteria for our panelists to use. We came from a prior system that required software developers to get involved whenever there were changes or a program needed to be set up. That's gone down to zero and internal staff can handle setting up anything in Submittable.
  • User interface for both submitters and reviewers
  • Continually adding new functionality
  • It is becoming practically "industry standard" in our area, so people come in with a level of familiarity and require much less tech support than any other system (and that support needed has declined over time).
  • Easy to learn administrative user interface
  • Well structured and communicated API
  • Usefulness of out of the box dashboard reports
  • Some features cost extra to use on top of the base price
  • Not great at supporting the "lifecycle" of a grant (i.e., reports and reports due, payments and payments due, etc.)
  • To date, it is stronger for individual submitters and less so for organizations submitting applications, though this has been trending upward.
  • Faster launch times
  • Time savings and less expertise needed to set up programs
Usability is Submittable's strong suit. It's rare for people to not understand how to submit an application. It is also easy to train an administrator to create new application forms, and these can be quite complex in how they use branching logic, which also benefits applicants in seeing what is most relevant to them.
The easy ability to communicate with applicants and awardees straight from Submittable has improved our communications. It is easy to send customized confirmations (like "we have received your application, expect to hear from us on [date]") that prevent a lot of questions coming in by phone and email. It is easy to send mass messages, whether acceptances, declinations, reminders, etc. It is a huge help to have applicants have one Submittable login for everything they apply to--there is not a need for them to create custom logins and remember your organization's specific URL.
Foundant is excellent for grants management for organizations, but not as strong as Submittable when it comes to programs for individual applicants. Submittable pricing is really competitive and what you get for the cost, makes it a winner against other systems that may be more customizable. And note that if you have a lot of customization, you might need dedicated people to maintain it and train others, while Submittable is easy to understand "out of the box."

Do you think Submittable delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Submittable's feature set?

Yes

Did Submittable live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Submittable go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Submittable again?

Yes

Submittable is perfect for getting applications from individuals and having a review process (whether you are using internal or external reviewers) go through the system and be totally self-contained. It generally works well for accepting applications from organizations. The API makes it reasonably simple to get your data out of Submittable and into other systems you might use. If you are looking for something that tracks reports due and other "lifecycle" elements of a grant, it is less strong and far less robust than some custom or customized systems that are made specifically for such a use case. But if you have a mix of individuals and organizations applying, the pros of the usability of and familiarity with Submittable favors using Submittable.