Samfora vs Octany: the right tool for a small fundraising operation, the right platform for a growing one

The short version

Octany is good. We say it up front, because it is true. The platform has been built since 2017 together with more than 100 Swedish organisations, it takes gifts nine ways in one checkout, it needs no technical integration, and customers say they were live in a week. No binding period, no setup fee. For an organisation raising under 10 million kronor that wants checkout, monthly donors and a donor register in one package, it works really well.

The difference is what happens when you grow. Octany is priced on how much you raise, so every krona raised carries a fee. The contact register is built around the payment: donors, members and transactions with custom fields. Communication happens in your external email system, which Octany syncs contacts to. And nowhere on octany.se is there a mention of AI, company enrichment or foundations (checked 27 October 2026).

Samfora is built for organisations that want full control. Donors, members, volunteers, companies and foundations in one data model. Swish, Autogiro, Bankgiro and cards matched automatically to the donor profile, whichever checkout they came through. Advanced automations with consent synced, AI in the foundation, companies enriched with financials and giving research, Sweden's more than 17 000 foundations mapped. Fixed price, data encrypted in Sweden, everything included.

It is not the same category. Octany is a payment platform with a contact register. Samfora is a donor data platform that sits on top of whichever payment rails you choose. If you are small and want everything in one package, choose Octany. If you want to own your donor data, your flows and your analytics, choose Samfora.

Where the products came from

Octany has been built in Stockholm since 2017 by three founders, together with its customers. The company has no investors, describes that as an ethical choice, reports more than 100 connected nonprofits and won People's Choice in Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV Impact Nordics in spring 2026. The site calls the product "the Nordics' complete fundraising platform" and describes it as fundraising and CRM in one and the same platform (octany.se/om-oss, checked 27 October 2026). The foundation is the checkout: payments first, the register around them.

Samfora was founded in 2025 in Stockholm, and the first line of code in the platform was written in January 2026. We started from the donor data: Swish gifts with no sender data, Autogiro mandates, Bankgiro files, tax deductions, the 90-account and a fundraising manager spending 20 hours a week on administration. We build the platform together with Swedish organisations such as UN Women Sverige, IM Individuell Människohjälp, Operation Smile, Operation Aid, ALS-fonden, Regnbågsfonden, GAPF, Stiftelsen Expo, Reformaten, Ny Gemenskap, Framtidsjorden and cureFAchildren. We also run samfora.org, a free donation platform with more than 70 connected organisations. Payment rails matter to us, but they are not the product. The data is.

Area by area

Price and what is included

Octany's price is based on how much your organisation raises, and the fee falls as fundraising grows. No setup fee, no binding period. Fees to banks and payment providers, for example Swish Handel and recurring Swish with your bank, you pay directly to them. Included are all payment methods, the contact register, automatic collection for monthly donors and membership fees, accounting reports, campaign pages, a gift shop, digital gift certificates, branded receipts and Swedish support. Automatic bookkeeping to Fortnox, Visma or PE Accounting is an add-on. The exact percentage you get in a meeting (octany.se/pris, checked 27 October 2026).

The model is reasonable for a small organisation: the cost follows the benefit. It is less reasonable for an organisation on its way from 10 to 50 million, where every new monthly donor and every successful Christmas campaign raises the bill.

Samfora has a fixed price based on the size of your organisation. Platform licence, every module, Rule for email and SMS, every integration, data storage, support, migration and ongoing development are included. There is no per-user licence, no consulting hours and no fee per krona raised. The only usage-based charge is SMS, at 0.50 kr each. And for organisations that only need to receive gifts, there is samfora.org, free of charge.

Payment flows: the checkout and everything outside it

Here Octany is strong. Nine ways to give in one checkout: Swish and recurring Swish, one-click Swish as a widget, cards, digital Autogiro with a mandate signed through Mobile BankID, Google Pay, Apple Pay and invoice. Existing Autogiro mandates are imported from another provider without donors signing again. Payments are synced and matched to the right donor, and the money goes straight to your accounts (octany.se/funktioner, checked 27 October 2026). For an organisation whose fundraising runs through a checkout on the website, it is a complete flow.

What does not pass through the checkout is the problem. Swish gifts straight to your Swish number, payments to the Bankgiro account, companies paying an invoice through the bank, foundations depositing grants. In Samfora, card payments and Swish arrive through Repejo and Stripe, the bank account is read through open banking so that 100 percent of what comes in becomes donor data, and every transaction is matched to the right donor profile on email, phone number or personal identity number. Duplicates are stopped against the external ID, and uncertain matches become review tasks for a human, never guesses. No manual reconciliation, and no dependence on a single checkout.

Data model and control

Octany's register brings donors, members and payments together in one place, with custom fields for what you want to know about them, and a real-time overview of income streams. That goes a long way for an organisation with one fundraising manager and one communicator.

Samfora has five objects at its core: donors, members, volunteers, companies and foundations. Every donation, send and interaction lands on one complete profile. The member module handles memberships, fees and renewals in the same profile as the gifts. The corporate and foundation modules are described below. Through samfora.org, peer-to-peer campaigns, corporate donations, invoices, card donations, monthly giving, matching campaigns and donors' own self-service pages are included as well. Fields, segments and flows are yours to shape, and everything exports with one click.

Automations and communication

Octany sends branded receipts and reply emails automatically and transfers donor information to your external email system, so new monthly donors land in the right contact list. The communication itself, newsletters, campaigns and flows, happens in the external system (octany.se/funktioner, checked 27 October 2026).

Samfora includes Rule, a Swedish marketing automation platform: campaigns and automations for email, SMS and RCS, triggered by what happens in the donor data, with consent synced both ways. Ready flows for welcome, thanks, reminders and reactivation are in place, and segments drive the sends directly. A donor who gave last Christmas but not this year gets their send without anyone exporting a list.

AI and automation

Octany does not mention AI anywhere on its site (checked 27 October 2026). Nothing wrong with that in itself, but it says something about where the product's centre of gravity is.

Samfora is built with AI in the foundation. Today: AI field mapping on import, email and SMS drafts written from your own data, segmentation in plain language, and analytics. Agents working with a human in the approval loop are in development. The AI features run on Mistral and other European models, and more European models are launching at speed. No model is ever trained on your data. All of it is part of the licence, not an add-on.

Companies and foundations: enrichment and grants

Octany has corporate gifts as a feature: tailored corporate packages, CSR partnerships and Christmas gift donations in the checkout. It is a way to receive companies' money. Finding the companies, knowing what they earn and who decides, or finding foundations that could fund you, is not in the product.

Samfora enriches every company in the register out of the box, with no add-on: revenue, net result, profit margin and headcount from the annual report, a primary contact person, website and social media following, and research on the company's giving with known donations, a giving profile, sourced examples and its ESG report. Ready-made segments for corporate leads and corporate donors are in place. Right now several of our customers are using it in their Christmas campaigns to small and medium-sized businesses. None of the systems we compare ourselves with has this built in.

The foundation module maps Sweden's more than 17 000 foundations from the county administrative boards' foundation register and matches their purposes against yours, so you can see which foundations could fund your work, and it handles the applications in the same system. We are testing it with current customers from November 2026, it is included for Samfora customers in 2026, and in 2027 we open it to every nonprofit in Sweden.

Reporting and donor analytics

Octany gives a real-time overview of income, ready reports, accounting reports, SFTP export of fundraising data and automated handling of tax deductions on gifts, which is otherwise a large manual job every year. It is reporting built around the transaction, and it is good.

Samfora reports on what Swedish fundraising actually measures: monthly donors in and out, reactivated donors, campaign results per channel, corporate income and average gift, all on data that was matched automatically. The analytics module is included, and you can ask the questions in plain language.

For private donors, ready-made segments are there from day one: monthly donors, one-time donors, donors who have given twice, major donors with a 12 or 24 month window, and lapsed donors. The segments update automatically and can drive sends and automations directly. RFM analysis, which scores every donor on how recently, how often and how much they give, launches at the turn of the year, with lifetime value per donor to follow.

Data storage, security and GDPR

Octany describes itself as entirely Swedish and GDPR-adapted for Sweden and the EU, and writes that it does not sell collected data (octany.se, checked 27 October 2026). In which country the data is stored is not stated on the site. Ask, and ask for the answer in the data processing agreement.

Samfora stores all data encrypted in Sweden. Hosting and storage run within the EU/EEA, we only use sub-processors that meet the same requirements, and nothing is transferred to third countries. Your data is never used to train AI models. A data processing agreement is ready, every data subject right is supported and consent is handled automatically per channel and purpose. The whole database is yours: export everything with one click as Excel, CSV or SIE. Larger organisations with special requirements can run Samfora on their own servers.

Implementation

Octany needs no technical integration: activate payment methods, place widgets on the website and start receiving gifts. One customer describes being live in a week, and existing Autogiro mandates move over with Octany's import (octany.se, checked 27 October 2026). For an organisation starting from zero, that is as fast as it gets.

Samfora: 2 to 12 weeks to go-live depending on data volume. You get a dedicated contact who maps your data, imports donors and donations and trains your team. You spend 2 to 4 hours a week during the migration, and after go-live you run the platform yourselves. Hela Människan and GAPF each moved from NGO Pro to Samfora in under a month. It takes longer than activating a checkout, because a whole donor base is moving.

Ecosystem and maturity

Octany has been built since 2017, shows 24 Swedish logos on its site, reports more than 100 connected organisations and has customers happy to testify. Samfora was founded in 2025 and builds the platform together with Swedish design partners, with samfora.org already connecting more than 70 organisations.

Questions to put to both vendors in writing

The answers say more than any demo.

• What is the fee in kronor at our current fundraising level, and at double that?
• Where is our data stored, in which country, and what does the data processing agreement say about sub-processors?
• How does a Swish gift straight to our Swish number, or a payment to the Bankgiro account, land on the right donor?
• Can we build automations that start from what a donor has done, with consent per channel?
• How do we find new companies and foundations in the system, and what does the system know about them?
• What happens to our history, and how do we export everything if we want to leave?
• Which AI features are planned, and what exists today?
• What do we get back if the vendor does not deliver?

We are happy to answer all eight in writing.

Where Octany is the better choice

• You raise under 10 million kronor and want checkout, Swish, Autogiro and a donor register in one package, live in a week.
• You do not want to commit: no binding period, no setup fee, and a price that follows fundraising.
• You want a gift shop, digital gift certificates and campaign pages with real-time display without building anything.
• You want an entirely Swedish vendor without investors, with more than 100 organisations and Swedish support.

Where Samfora is the better choice

• You have outgrown "everything in one package" and want donors, members, volunteers, companies and foundations in the same data model, with full control over fields, segments and flows.
• You want to run advanced automations that start from the donor data, with consent synced and AI writing the drafts.
• You raise from companies and foundations and want the companies enriched and Sweden's foundations mapped in the same system.
• You want a fixed price that does not rise with every krona raised.
• You want everything that reaches the account to become donor data, including what never passes through a checkout.
• You want to know exactly where your donor data lives (Sweden) and that it never trains any AI.
• You have 5 to 100 employees and 20 to 500 million in annual income, and want a platform built for that size.

Samfora and Octany at a glance