Candid Premium Price: Tiers, Seats and What Is Included

The Candid Premium price is $219 per month on the monthly plan, or a starting price of $1,199 billed annually, which Candid displays as $100 per month (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). Those are the figures on the page's Nonprofit Discounted setting, which is "Eligible to all verified non-funding organizations"; funders and corporate buyers see a separate Standard rate (Candid pricing page, read September 2026; Grantsights, June 18, 2026).

Price is one part of the decision. A Candid subscription is also a seat count, a set of monthly download allowances, a monthly credit allowance for the AI tools, and a contract that renews on its own anniversary date (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025). Candid replaced its old plan lineup during 2026, so every figure carries the date it was checked (Candid Learning, read September 2026).

Quick Answer: How Much Does Candid Premium Cost?

Candid Premium costs $219 a month billed monthly, or from $1,199 billed annually (shown as $100 a month), according to Candid's pricing page in September 2026. Those are the nonprofit-discounted figures; funders pay a higher Standard rate. Both Premium plans include two user licenses, unlimited search results and full profile views, and capped monthly downloads.

Candid Premium Price: Every Published Tier

On its Nonprofit Discounted setting, Candid's pricing page lists Free at $0, Premium monthly at $219 per month, Premium annual from $1,199 billed annually, Ultimate annual from $1,699 billed annually, and Enterprise at custom pricing (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). The two Premium plans differ in their monthly download allowances, which are higher on the annual plan (Candid pricing page, read September 2026).

Source: Candid pricing page, nonprofit-discounted rates, read September 2026.

The pricing page toggles between "Standard" and "Nonprofit Discounted" pricing, and the discounted rate is "Eligible to all verified non-funding organizations" (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). Candid says paid pricing is "designed so that nonprofits and others with limited budgets pay lower rates, made possible by higher pricing for corporate clients and foundations" (Candid press release, January 15, 2026). A third-party price check on June 18, 2026 recorded the same public figures on the nonprofit discounted path, including Premium annual at $1,199 billed annually (Grantsights, June 18, 2026). Those figures were captured on that discounted path, so a funder or a corporate buyer should confirm its own rate before budgeting from them.

Older posts quote a lineup that no longer exists. An independent write-up dated December 15, 2025 recorded a four-tier paid ladder, Essential, Professional, Premium and Ultimate, with the old Premium and Ultimate tiers priced well above what the plans of the same name cost today (independent Substack write-up, December 15, 2025). Essential and Professional are gone. Candid's help center lists two paid subscription plans, Candid Premium and Candid Ultimate (Candid Learning, read September 2026), so the Premium name now sits on a different price. A quote carrying an Essential or Professional price is quoting a retired lineup, and a Premium figure needs its date checked before you compare it.

What Is Included in a Candid Premium Subscription

A Candid Premium subscription includes unlimited search results, unlimited access to full profile views, and unlimited 990 downloads (Candid pricing page and Candid Learning, read September 2026). Grants and profile downloads are capped by plan, and AI prompts draw on a monthly credit allowance.

Source: Candid pricing page, Candid Learning and Candid blog (January 20, 2026), read September 2026.

Beyond search, Premium and Ultimate subscribers "can download any available financial data for an organization", including revenue and expenses, balance sheets, financial trends analysis, and audited financials (Candid help center, read September 2026). Premium also covers downloading an organization's full profile and compensation data for officers, directors, trustees, key employees and highest paid employees (Candid Learning, read September 2026). Candid search covers grants given, grants received, guidelines and grant transaction profiles, and open opportunities from funders accepting applications appear in the guidelines tab (Candid help center, read September 2026).

The paid filter set is one of the things a free registration lacks. It includes zip code and radius, affiliation type, IRS subsection, total revenue, total expenses, total assets, IRS form type, number of employees, total contributions, program service revenue, cash and equivalents, and investments and securities (Candid Learning, read September 2026).

Candid lists four paid AI tools: an "LOI writer", "Funder recommendations", "RFP recommendations" and the "Fundraising assistant", which Candid describes as "Candid's AI agent for nonprofit fundraisers" that can search funders, grants and expert knowledge and "draft a letter of inquiry in seconds" (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). A letter of inquiry template and examples is useful once a first draft exists. Premium carries "25 credits / month" for the assistant, "Each prompt uses credits", and credits "are restored each month based on your subscription date" (Candid pricing page, read September 2026).

What sits behind the search is "1.9M+ nonprofit profiles", "304k+ funder profiles" and "29M+ grants" (Candid search product page, read September 2026).

How Many User Licenses Come With Candid Premium

Candid Premium includes two user licenses: "Candid Premium also gives your fundraising team expanded access with 2 user licenses included" (Candid Learning, read September 2026). Both the monthly and the annual Premium plan carry that same pair of seats.

A user license is a named seat on the account. Candid's published plan pages show no per-seat add-on price (Candid pricing page, read September 2026).

Source: Candid Learning and Candid pricing page, read September 2026.

For a team that needs more seats, Candid describes Enterprise as "Designed for colleges, academic libraries, and large organizations" and a "Cost-effective option for teams needing 10 users or more", with "API and data bundling available" (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). Enterprise is quoted, so the seat count and the fee both come out of that conversation.

Seat count matters because an organization buys the subscription and named people use it. One user on Reddit said two seats were "not much help, we only need one" (Reddit thread 1vb5ctu, read September 2026). A solo grant writer should raise the seat question with Candid before signing.

The published ladder leaves a gap between 2 licenses and a plan described for 10 users or more, so a team of three to nine should get the cost of extra seats in writing before it buys (Candid pricing page and Candid Learning, read September 2026).

Candid Premium vs Candid Ultimate: What the Higher Price Buys

At the nonprofit-discounted rate, Candid Ultimate annual is listed from $1,699 billed annually, displayed as $142 per month, and it adds instant nonprofit compliance status, downloadable compliance reports and a data visualization tool for funding trends to the Premium feature set (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). The two annual plans start at nonprofit-discounted prices of $1,199 and $1,699, and the AI credit allowance moves from 25 a month to 250 a month (Candid pricing page, read September 2026).

Source: Candid pricing page, nonprofit-discounted rates, read September 2026.

The compliance status draws on "6 federal and state sources ... Including BMF, Pub78, Automatic Revocations, IRB, OFAC, and California AB 488" (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). Candid states it "monitors all data sources daily to detect any updates not officially announced", and the compliance reports are downloadable (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). Candid's help center draws the boundary: "Only Ultimate subscribers have access to Compliance Reporting, which includes IRS Publication 78 data, Business Master File (BMF) data, and a downloadable Compliance Report" (Candid help center, read September 2026).

Ultimate earns its price on teams that check an organization's standing before spending research hours on it. Screening against Publication 78, the Business Master File, the automatic revocation list, OFAC and California AB 488 by hand is work that stays outside the tool on Premium (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). A team that only builds funder prospect lists can stay on Premium.

The credit allowance is the other difference: 25 credits a month on Premium against 250 on Ultimate, with each prompt using credits and the allowance restored monthly on the subscription date (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). Ask Candid how many credits a typical prompt uses before buying Ultimate for the AI tools.

Billing, Auto-Renewal and Cancellation Terms

Candid's subscriber agreement states in capitals that "PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE", and accounts "automatically renew, at the then current subscription plan fee, upon the next anniversary date of your subscription" (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025, read September 2026). The renewal price is the price in force on the anniversary date, not the price at signing.

Stopping a renewal takes written notice. The contract "will then renew automatically at its plan level and frequency unless either Party provides the other at least thirty (30) days prior written notice to the expiration of the then current term" (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025). Leaving early does not reduce the bill: "there is no proration of your Subscription charge if you terminate your Subscription before the end of the Subscription period" (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025).

The agreement works the timing out with its own example: a subscriber on an annual plan starting December 15 who cancels the following July 15 has been billed through December 14 and keeps access until that date (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025). An annual plan is a full-year commitment as a result, and the monthly plan at the nonprofit-discounted $219 per month is the short-horizon option at a higher monthly cost (Candid pricing page, read September 2026).

Candid's help center describes the cancellation path as "Account" then "Manage" then "Cancel Subscription", and notes "the cancellation is effective on the last date of your plan, not on the day you cancel" (Candid Learning, read September 2026).

Keep your own copy of the paperwork. A grant writer in a public Facebook group reported in March 2026 that a December renewal "did not register to my profile", that premium features disappeared, and that customer support could not be reached (public Facebook group post, March 22, 2026). Save the invoice and the renewal confirmation outside the account itself.

Questions to Ask Before You Pay the Candid Premium Price

Ask who needs a named seat, whether compliance screening is part of the job, which rate your organization qualifies for, and how much the AI tools will be used (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). Each answer points to a different plan or billing option, and the subscription is non-refundable once it starts (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025).

Source: Candid pricing page (nonprofit-discounted prices, read September 2026) and Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025.

Rate qualification is easy to miss. The discounted rate applies to verified non-funding organizations (Candid pricing page, read September 2026), so confirm the verification status first and ask which rate a quote is built on.

Free and discounted routes exist for small organizations and for anyone who can reach a partner location (Candid Learning, read September 2026).

Some of the lookup work may not need a Candid seat at all. GrantCue publishes profile pages for more than 10,000 private foundations built from IRS 990-PF public filings, and its free personal tier costs $0, with paid plans from $49 a month (grantcue.com, September 2026). Checking funders in the GrantCue foundation directory first can show how many named seats the Candid work really needs.

Prices move, and the figure to trust is the one on the page the day you commit (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). If your research target is federal or state opportunities first and foundations second, the live lists of open federal and state grants and the walkthrough on nonprofit grant research cover that side without a subscription.

FAQ

How Much Does Candid Premium Cost?

Candid lists Premium at $219 per month on the monthly plan, or from $1,199 billed annually, displayed as $100 per month, on its nonprofit-discounted setting for verified non-funding organizations (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). The annual figure is a starting price, and Premium includes two user licenses (Candid Learning, read September 2026). The page's Standard setting applies to funders and corporate buyers.

What Is Included in Candid Premium?

Candid Premium includes unlimited search results, unlimited access to full profile views, unlimited 990 downloads, two user licenses, full profile and financial data downloads, compensation data, the paid filter set, and 25 fundraising assistant credits per month (Candid pricing page and Candid Learning, read September 2026). Grants downloads are capped at up to 250 per month on the monthly plan and up to 1,000 per month on the annual plan (Candid pricing page, read September 2026).

How Many Users Does Candid Premium Include?

Candid Premium includes two user licenses: "Candid Premium also gives your fundraising team expanded access with 2 user licenses included" (Candid Learning, read September 2026). Both the monthly and annual Premium plans carry the same pair of seats. For larger teams, Candid describes its Enterprise plan as a "Cost-effective option for teams needing 10 users or more", quoted individually (Candid pricing page, read September 2026).

What Is the Difference Between Candid Premium and Candid Ultimate?

At the nonprofit-discounted rate, Candid Ultimate starts at $1,699 billed annually against $1,199 for Premium, and adds instant nonprofit compliance status drawn on 6 federal and state sources, downloadable compliance reports, a data visualization tool for funding trends, and 250 fundraising assistant credits per month instead of 25 (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). Everything in Premium is included in Ultimate.

Is the Candid Premium Price per User?

No. Candid publishes Premium as a subscription price that includes 2 user licenses, listed at nonprofit-discounted rates of $219 per month or from $1,199 billed annually (Candid pricing page and Candid Learning, read September 2026). Candid's published plans show no per-seat rate, and Enterprise is the listed option for teams needing 10 users or more, quoted individually (Candid pricing page, read September 2026).

Why Do Different Websites Show Different Candid Premium Prices?

Two reasons. Older posts quote a retired four-tier ladder from before the 2026 platform change, with the old Premium tier recorded at several thousand dollars a year (independent Substack write-up, December 15, 2025). And Candid's own pricing page toggles between Standard and Nonprofit Discounted rates (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). The current nonprofit-discounted figures for Premium are $219 per month or from $1,199 billed annually (Candid pricing page, read September 2026).

What to Confirm Before the First Invoice

What you pay is set by the plan, the rate and the date the term renews (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025). Before the card is charged, get in writing: the plan name, the billing period, the rate applied (standard or nonprofit discounted), the user licenses and the names attached to them, and the anniversary date.

Put two dates on the calendar the day you sign: the anniversary date, and the last day to give written notice to stop the renewal, which is thirty days before the term expires (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025). A team that starts weighing the decision a month out is already at the notice deadline.

Write the price, the seat count and the renewal date into one line of a grant budget template on the day you sign.