Running for office for the first time?

What you need to know about NationBuilder and how it can or can’t help you.

What is NationBuilder?

NationBuilder is a software platform. The platform brings together the four core pillars of digital organizing that you will need to run the basics of your campaign. The four pillars are:

  • Website - NationBuilder is a CMS, and you can build your website using the NationBuilder platform. The advantage of using the NationBuilder CMS is that it’s seamlessly connected to the other three parts of the platform described below.
  • Database - Some might refer to this as a CRM but essentially it’s a place to house all the different supporters you might need to track or interact with during your campaign. People who have signed up for your email list, to volunteer, to attend events, and donate, will all be stored in the database, and be easily searchable and filterable.
  • Communication - Any blast email or texts to your opted in supporters can be sent from the platform.
  • Donation processing - We offer our own payment processor, NationBuilder Payments, built on the underlying technology of Stripe, to all of our customers. We also integrate with the common politically oriented processors like ActBlue, Anedot and WinRed, so you can process your donations in those platforms but still have the donation detail and donor information funnel into the CRM.

If you need functionality that is not part of our core platform offering, it’s likely we have an integrated app partner that will provide it. Some of the most common requests for additional functionality needed on campaigns is for peer to peer texting, canvassing and phone banking. You can refer to our Apps and Integrations page to find all the 3rd party platforms that can support this functionality.

What is NationBuilder not?

NationBuilder is not a data provider. We do not provide voter data to our customers but can house the voter records that you may acquire or purchase from 3rd party sources, in the CRM. Additionally, any data you collect during the course of the campaign is yours to export and keep when the campaign ends.

NationBuilder does not provide any consulting or web design services. However, we have a large ecosystem of partners who provide many of these services to NationBuilder customers. You can find a full listing of all the types of partners to engage with in our Partner Directory.

Specifically for website design, there are a few options beyond utilizing the free website themes that come with any NationBuilder account:

  • Theme Marketplace - We offer a handful of website themes for purchase via our Theme Marketplace.  Once you purchase a theme, it will be shared into your NationBuilder account and you can then add your content or make more customization.
  • Completely Custom Website - If you’d like to hire someone to build you a completely custom website theme on the NationBuilder CMS, you should engage with a NationBuilder Certified Website Architect. You can easily find one via our Partner Matching Service.

How does NationBuilder pricing work?

NationBuilder’s pricing is a pay as you grow model that is built around how many contactable records are in your database. The term contactable is the most important piece to pay attention to.

A record is considered contactable in NationBuilder if they are opted into email or opted into text communication. A database record may become opted into communication by signing up for your email list on your website (or taking any number of website actions), by attending an event, by confirming verbally during a door knocking or phone banking session, or many other ways of providing confirmation/consent. Any record that you choose to store in your database that is not opted into email or text communication, will not count as a contactable record and will just count towards your Total Record count.

When you look at the pricing tiers on our Pricing page, they refer to Contactable records. If you are a campaign just starting out, with probably a few hundred personal contacts on your email list, it’s likely that you can start on our 0-500 contacts tier of either the Starter or the Pro plan.

What plan types does NationBuilder offer?

NationBuilder has three plan types, Starter, Pro, and Enterprise. If you are running for office in any race that isn’t legislative, regional, or another federally held office, it’s likely that the Starter or Pro plan will completely accommodate your needs.

The Starter plan accommodates up to 5,000 contactable records and 25,000 total records before there are any overage charges applied.

The Pro plan scales up to 15,000 contactable records and 100,000 total records. Your potential voter universe may be larger than 100,000 records but we don’t suggest importing entire voter files to start without a plan to immediately canvass or phonebank them. 95% of the political campaigns that use the NationBuilder software platform, do so on the Pro plan.

On both Starter and Pro, you can start small, pay as you grow and cancel your account at any time. If you expect your email list to grow to over 15,000 contactable records, you can speak with the Sales team to learn more about our Enterprise offering.