BrightAccess vs Common Grant Application
BrightAccess
brightaccess.caCommon Grant Application
commongrantapplication.comSide by side
| Figure | BrightAccess | Common Grant Application |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | $175/mo |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 0 | 3 |
| Spec score · Scholarship Management Software | 7.4 (#9) | 7.6 (#6) |
| Integrations | The features page lists two-way Salesforce sync, CRM exports, webhooks, REST API access, and SSO support for enterprise organizations. | The maker says there is no DocuSign integration or general online payment mechanism; it offers a Bill.com integration to generate an invoice for online payment. |
| Purpose | BrightAccess describes its platform as end-to-end scholarship management for foundations, covering applications through disbursement. | The product is a customizable online system for managing grant and scholarship lifecycles, including online and paper-based applications. |
| Support | BrightAccess says it typically responds to inquiries within one business day and offers a 30-minute platform walkthrough. | The maker lists setup help, ongoing support, online help, and email and phone support; its pricing page says setup, ongoing support and training have no additional charge. |
Plans
Common Grant Application
- Low Complexity$175 a month
- Medium Complexity$250 a month
- High Complexity$450 a month
In their own words
BrightAccess
BrightAccess is a scholarship management platform for foundations, covering applications through award disbursement. Its form builder supports 15+ field types, conditional logic, AI-assisted question generation, document uploads and reusable templates. Review tools include semantic search, duplicate and outlier detection, application clustering, field comparison, essay authenticity scoring and transcript verification. Reviewers can use bulk assignment, custom rubrics, progress tracking, conflict-of-interest management, calibration and blind review. Award workflows include banking-detail verification, scheduled disbursements and tax-receipt generation. Reporting tracks demographics and outcomes, with compliance-ready reports and CSV exports. Migration supports CSV and Excel imports, mapping, validation, historical records and rollback. Listed connections include two-way Salesforce sync, CRM exports, webhooks, REST API access and SSO. The privacy policy describes encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access and logically isolated tenant data. Human reviewers decide awards; AI scores are decision-support tools. Pricing is on request. Student profiles are free, with no platform fees or credit card required.
Common Grant Application
Common Grant Application is a customizable web system for managing grant and scholarship lifecycles, including online and paper-based applications. Grantmakers can create reusable forms for applications, recommendations and reports with text, document and media fields. Review workflows support evaluation steps, reviewer groups, scoring or ranking, notes and controls over evaluation visibility. Grantmakers can manage agreements, reports and payment amounts, then export payment information to a spreadsheet. Each application can contain up to two grant agreements and eight grant reports. Applicants pay nothing; grantmakers pay a monthly subscription starting at $175 a month. The Low Complexity plan covers one to two administrative users and 1–50 applications annually. Medium Complexity costs 250.00 USD monthly, and High Complexity costs 450.00 USD monthly. The browser-based service requires no installation and supports Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. Setup, support and training are included.