Should We Renew Our Candid Subscription? A Decision Checklist
A renewal checklist for Candid search subscribers: audit logins and usage, read the auto renewal terms, weigh seats and caps, and decide before the renewal date.
Last updated: October 2026
Your renewal date is coming while nobody is quite sure who used the account this year. One person ran searches in the spring. Another pulled a list before a deadline. The card on file is about to be charged again, and the question on the table is simple: should we renew our Candid subscription for another term, or let it lapse and work another way?
Records settle it faster than memory. Login counts, saved lists and next year's deadline calendar show whether the account earned its fee, and the contract decides how much time you have to act.
Quick Answer: Should We Renew Our Candid Subscription?
Renew if your team used the plan steadily and has foundation prospecting scheduled for the coming year; pause if logins sat idle. Decide early: Candid's agreement renews automatically unless you give at least 30 days' written notice before the term ends, and all subscriptions are non-refundable (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026).
Should We Renew Our Candid Subscription If Usage Was Low This Year?
Low usage points toward pausing, unless the coming year looks different from the last one. A subscription earns renewal when the work it supports is scheduled and staffed. A subscription that sat idle for most of the term will likely sit idle again without a change in staffing or calendar.
Start with logins. Ask who signed in and how often. Healthy use shows regular sessions tied to deadlines: new lists before a cycle, profile checks before an inquiry, financial reviews before a proposal. One burst after purchase and then silence points to a habit gap, not a tool gap.
Then tie usage to output. Count lists built, inquiries sent, and proposals submitted. Research tools pay through pipeline, not searches run. If turning research into applications needs repair, our search-to-inquiry prospecting guide covers the steps in between.
Write down seat fit. Candid Premium includes two user licenses, described as "Candid Premium also gives your fundraising team expanded access with 2 user licenses included" (Candid Learning, read September 2026). A team of one leaves a seat empty, and a team of five has more people than logins. Record who needed access.
What Your Team Actually Used This Year
Your renewal file should record what the account did in plain counts. A short written record settles the question in one meeting.
Collect four figures from the team's own records and whatever the account shows: sign-in frequency by month, searches run, profiles opened, and files downloaded. Compare heavy months against deadlines. Prospecting clusters before application windows signal fit. Flat activity with no link to submissions signals the account served curiosity more than pipeline.
Candid paid plans pair unlimited searching with capped downloads. Both Premium plans include "Unlimited search results" and "Unlimited access to full profiles views" (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). The Premium monthly plan allows up to 250 grants and 750 profiles per month and the Premium annual plan up to 1,000 grants and 5,000 profiles per month (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). One commenter on Reddit wrote "I was fooled by the unlimited searches feature in the price list" (Reddit thread 1vb5ctu, read September 2026). Download counts show what the team kept.
Record AI use. Candid describes its "Fundraising assistant" as "Candid's AI agent for nonprofit fundraisers" that can "search funders, grants, and Candid's expert knowledge" and "draft a letter of inquiry in seconds" (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). Candid's plan comparison table lists usage as "25 credits / month" on Premium and "250 credits / month" on Ultimate, noting "Each prompt uses credits" with credits "restored each month based on your subscription date" (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). Another commenter on Reddit put the other side plainly: "I don't need their AI to write an LOI for me, I need to be able to download an excel of past relevant grants" (Reddit thread 1vb5ctu, read September 2026). Weekly credit use supports renewal. Untouched credits do not.
| Period | Main user | Sign-ins | Grants downloaded | Output kept |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spring cycle | Staff lead | 14 | 180 | Inquiry list of 12 funders |
| Summer | Grant writer | 5 | 0 | Profile notes on 6 funders |
| Fall cycle | Staff lead | 11 | 150 | Proposal pipeline updated |
| Winter | None | 0 | 0 | Nothing kept |
Illustrative figures, not data from a real organization.
The table works when every row names a person, a count and a file. Rows with nothing kept are the ones to discuss. Looking without keeping is a workflow problem renewal alone will not fix.
Candid Subscription Cancellation and Refund Terms
Candid subscriptions are non-refundable, renew automatically on the anniversary date, and are not prorated if you end them early (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026). Read the renewal clause before the anniversary date passes.
Candid's Subscriber License Agreement states in capitals: "PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE" (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026). The same agreement states "All accounts will automatically renew, at the then current subscription plan fee, upon the next anniversary date of your subscription" and that "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 page, read September 2026).
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 page, read September 2026). Hold the decision meeting about six weeks before the anniversary so the written notice can go out in time.
Candid's help center explains cancellation is done from "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). The agreement gives a worked example: a subscriber on an annual plan starting December 15 who cancels the following July 15 has already been billed through December 14 and keeps access until then (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026). Keep a dated screenshot of the confirmation. One grant writer in a public Facebook group reported in March 2026 that a paid renewal "did not register to my profile" (public Facebook group post, March 22, 2026). A dated confirmation is your record if the account does not show the change.
Is Candid Search Worth Renewing?
Candid search is worth renewing only if it does your work today, because renewal buys the current platform, not the Foundation Directory many long-time subscribers remember. One university library's notice gave July 20, 2026 as the date the old Foundation Directory platform would be fully retired (Rutgers University Libraries, July 20, 2026), and Candid search brings GuideStar and Foundation Directory capabilities onto one platform (Candid blog, January 20, 2026).
Grant writers on Reddit have been critical of the new platform. A Reddit thread titled around the claim "Candid Search is hot trash, it's almost unusable" drew 87 points (Reddit thread 1wcw9yl, read September 2026). Users across four separate threads said "I miss FDO" and "Foundation Directory was incredible. Operative word: was" (Reddit threads 1wcw9yl, 1vb5ctu, 1ur2eou and 1sewng0, read September 2026). Treat those as user sentiment, not as vendor documentation.
Test current search on your own funders before renewal. Run the searches your team ran last year and check whether the results, the full profile views and the downloads still cover the work.
Candid also changed shape this year. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported on February 12, 2026 that Candid "is undergoing a major reorganization and has laid off 42 people, about one-fifth of its work force" (Chronicle of Philanthropy, February 12, 2026). Weigh this as context for a one-year decision with a dated review.
What You Keep and What You Lose After the Renewal Date
Letting the account lapse costs specific capabilities on a specific date. Name them in the renewal meeting.
Candid 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 includes "The ability to download an organization's full profile" plus compensation data for officers, directors, trustees, key employees and highest paid employees (Candid Learning, read September 2026). Paid filters add detail free search lacks, including zip code and radius, affiliation type, IRS subsection, revenue, expenses, assets, form type, employees and contributions (Candid Learning, read September 2026). Compliance reporting sits one tier higher: "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).
The free tier keeps a thin slice. Candid's free tier gives "One per Month" full profile views, plus limited search results, limited dashboards, profile claiming and the Seal of Transparency path (Candid pricing page, read September 2026). That single monthly view cannot carry prospecting volume. Core reference data stays public elsewhere: Candid says "Core information" such as nonprofit profiles and IRS Forms 990 "remains accessible without registration or subscription" (Candid blog, January 20, 2026).
Before the meeting, export what the team saved while the account is live. Candid's license forbids bulk extraction, stating "Printing or downloading of any search output may not exceed a significant segment ... of the database(s)" (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026), and adds that "Scraping or other technological means of wholesale or material downloading or storing of the database(s) ... is STRICTLY PROHIBITED" with excessive downloading as grounds to suspend access (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026). Export the shortlists you built, not the database. If your own reports draw on award data from the account, download it while access is current and file it with your checklist for post-award tasks.
The Renewal Decision Checklist for Your Next Meeting
A renewal decision is a short meeting with a fixed agenda and a written outcome. Run it about six weeks before the anniversary date so written notice can reach Candid at least thirty (30) days before the term expires (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026). Bring the usage log, the calendar for the coming year, and the cardholder.
Walk the checklist row by row and mark each one renew, pause, or fix first. Mostly renew marks mean the account earned another term. Mostly pause marks mean the calendar does not need it. Mixed marks with fix first items mean the workflow needs repair before money changes hands.
| Step | Question for the room | Renew signal |
|---|---|---|
| Usage | Did two or more staff sign in monthly through deadline season | Steady logins tied to submissions |
| Output | Did research produce saved shortlists and sent inquiries | Files exist with dates and owners |
| Seats | Did the included logins cover the people doing the work | No sharing queues or idle logins |
| Calendar | Are foundation applications scheduled in the next two quarters | Named deadlines with owners |
| Terms | Is the anniversary and notice date on the calendar with a cardholder | Date recorded with confirmation saved |
| Budget | Does the coming budget carry the fee without cutting applications | Fee funded from an approved line |
A pause does not have to stall the calendar. GrantCue tracks deadlines and applications in a kanban-style pipeline, with an ICS calendar feed for those deadlines on every plan, Free included, and its public foundation profiles are built from IRS 990-PF public filings (grantcue.com, September 2026). A team that lets the Candid term lapse can keep the next cycle's dates in GrantCue's deadline pipeline until paid prospecting resumes.
Close the meeting with a written line: renew or pause, the term chosen, the owner, and the review date. If you renew, record the anniversary and the notice deadline that same day. If you pause, record where saved lists live and who owns the next prospecting calendar. For a comparison of full lifecycle tools, see our nonprofit grant management software roundup.
FAQ
Does a Candid subscription renew at the same price?
Not necessarily. Candid's agreement states "All accounts will automatically renew, at the then current subscription plan fee, upon the next anniversary date of your subscription" (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026). The renewal charge follows the plan fee in force on the anniversary date, not the price you paid last year, so check Candid's current pricing before the notice deadline passes.
How do we stop a Candid subscription from auto renewing?
Give Candid at least thirty (30) days prior written notice before the term expires, because the contract otherwise renews automatically at its plan level and frequency (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026). Cancel inside the account under Account, then Manage, then Cancel Subscription, and keep the confirmation (Candid Learning, read September 2026). Access continues until the last date of the paid plan.
Can we get a refund if we cancel a Candid subscription after renewal?
No refund is available under the published terms, which state that all subscriptions are non-refundable and that there is no proration for early termination (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026). Cancellation stops the next charge and leaves the current term active until its end date. Calendar the notice deadline to avoid paying for a year nobody planned.
Should we renew our Candid subscription when the grant calendar is light?
A light calendar argues for pausing and restarting around the next deadline cluster. Candid's free tier gives "One per Month" full profile views (Candid pricing page, read September 2026), which will not carry active prospecting, so plan where profile checks and financial reviews will happen during the gap. Restart the paid term when named applications return to the calendar.
Who should make the call on renewing our Candid subscription?
The person who owns the grant calendar should decide with the cardholder and the heaviest account user in the room. Finance confirms the budget line, the cardholder confirms the anniversary and notice dates, and the user confirms whether the tool produced saved shortlists. Record the decision, the term, and the review date in writing.
What should we check before we renew our Candid subscription?
Check login frequency, saved shortlists with dates, seat coverage, the coming deadline list, the anniversary date, and the notice deadline. Confirm which plan the team used and whether its download caps fit last year's work. Put the next review on the calendar before the meeting ends.
File the Decision and Set Next Year's Review Date
Renewal is paperwork plus a calendar entry, not a debate that repeats every year. File the usage log, the checklist marks and the renewal receipt in one folder. Write the anniversary date and the deadline for at least thirty (30) days prior written notice on the shared calendar with an owner attached (Candid Subscriber License Agreement, April 25, 2025 page, read September 2026).
Set the review for six weeks before the next anniversary. That review opens the usage log, counts saved shortlists against submitted applications, and asks whether the calendar still needs paid prospecting depth. If the review slips inside the thirty-day window, the contract's notice deadline has already passed.