Graduway (Gravyty) vs Raklet: Which alumni engagement platform is right for you?

Last Updated: May 2026

Graduway (now part of Gravyty) is purpose-built for higher education alumni relations, with deep Blackbaud and Salesforce integrations and a six-product ecosystem covering fundraising, mentoring, and video outreach. Raklet is an all-in-one membership and community platform with published pricing from $49 per month, used by associations, alumni groups, nonprofits, and clubs in 50+ countries.

This comparison is for alumni relations teams, advancement offices, school associations, and nonprofits who are evaluating a Graduway renewal or looking for a less expensive alternative.

Quick-glance summary

Pricing as of May 2026. Graduway figures are third-party estimates from ITQlick and verified Capterra reviewers. Official Gravyty pricing requires contacting their sales team.

What is Graduway (now Gravyty)?

Graduway was founded in 2013 by Daniel Cohen and headquartered in London. The product rebranded under the Gravyty umbrella in December 2021 after merging with Gravyty (AI fundraising) and Gratavid (video messaging). It is now one of six integrated products in the Gravyty ecosystem, alongside Advance, Raise, Gratavid, Ivy/Ocelot, and Athlete Network.

The company is privately held by K1 Investment Management, a Southern California private equity firm that invested $60 million in 2019 and has backed seven acquisitions and mergers since (CampusTap, VineUp, EverTrue Communities, Gratavid, PeerPal, Fabrik, Athlete Network, and the March 2025 Ivy/Ocelot merger). In August 2025, Justin Beck was appointed CEO, replacing founder Daniel Cohen, who moved to the board.

Graduway’s core features include a branded alumni community portal, mentoring program management (flash and formal matching), event management, a job board, fundraising forms (via Advance), video outreach (via Gratavid), and AI fundraising tools (via Raise). Named clients include UCLA, the University of Oxford, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Arizona. Gravyty serves 2,750+ institutions globally as of 2026.

On Capterra, Graduway holds a 4.4/5 rating across 133 reviews. The lowest-rated features in that dataset are reporting and analytics (3.0/5) and content management (3.0/5).

What is Raklet?

Raklet is a membership and community platform founded in 2013, based in San Francisco with a fully remote engineering team. It is backed by Techstars and Microsoft Ventures (2016) and is independently owned. About 50 percent of Raklet customers are based in the United States; the other 50 percent span 50+ countries.

Raklet bundles CRM, memberships, email marketing, SMS, events, a private social network, fundraising, a job board, payments, and digital membership cards into one platform with an app-store model. Customers turn on the apps they need. The platform is used by professional associations, alumni networks, clubs, nonprofits, chambers of commerce, and schools with alumni programs.

Pricing comparison

Graduway pricing (as of May 2026)

Graduway has no published pricing. All quotes require contacting Gravyty sales, and there is no free trial.

Third-party estimates suggest the following ranges:

• Small institutions, single-user setup: roughly $200 to $500 per month
• Mid-size institutions, around 10 users: roughly $1,000 to $2,500 per month
• Large institutions, 100+ users: $5,000 to $15,000+ per month
• Annual range for mid-size universities: $36,000 to $84,000 per year
• Enterprise ceiling: $100,000+ per year

Implementation, data migration, training, API integrations, and SMS credits are billed separately. One Capterra reviewer summarized the long-term cost concern this way: “In the long term, the platform’s annual fee is high. Cost-effectiveness of competitors is much better.” A director-level reviewer also flagged undisclosed upsells for new functionality after the contract was signed.

Raklet pricing (as of May 2026)

Custom-branded mobile apps for iOS and Android (your organization’s own brand in both app stores) cost $299 per month with annual billing. REST API access is included from the Premium tier. Standard payment processor fees from Stripe or PayPal still apply on collected payments. See Raklet pricing for current rates and add-on packs.

The key callout: Raklet’s free plan is below Graduway’s estimated monthly minimum. At Raklet’s entry paid tier (about $588 per year), organizations get full membership management, email, SMS, events, and a member portal. That is roughly 1 to 2 percent of Graduway’s estimated mid-market annual contract.

Feature deep-dive

Membership and community management

Raklet handles dues automation, renewal reminders, tiered membership levels, digital membership cards with QR codes, a member CRM with custom fields, and a per-contact timeline that records every action a member takes. Admins can fully edit profile fields and the contact record persists even when staff turns over.

Graduway provides an alumni community portal with a profile directory, group spaces, and event management. Multiple Capterra reviewers describe admin-side control as a known weakness, calling out a “real lack of control over profiles on the admin side.”

Winner: Raklet for organizations where membership operations are the core job. Graduway for higher-ed alumni relations inside a full advancement program.

Email marketing and communication

Raklet includes native email campaigns with open rates, click rates, and bounce tracking visible inside the platform. Native SMS is included on every paid tier. Direct messages and board comments trigger notifications so members do not need to log in to see replies.

Graduway sends alumni digest emails, newsletters, and outreach automation. SMS and WhatsApp arrive through Ivy/Ocelot as a Gravyty add-on. Reviewers report a notification gap: when members reply to posts, there is no ping, replies do not appear in the next news digest, and members must log in manually to see the conversation.

Winner: Raklet for communication flexibility and notification reliability. Graduway for organizations that already build their workflow around scheduled alumni digests.

Reporting and analytics

Raklet shows growth and churn trends, event attendance trends, and member engagement metrics out of the box. Email open rates, click rates, and bounce rates are visible per campaign without exports.

Reporting is Graduway’s most-cited weakness in verified reviews. GetApp rates the feature at 3.0/5. Multiple Capterra reviewers note that email open rates, bounces, and unsubscribes are not visible natively; pulling a report requires downloading one large export file and filtering it manually.

Winner: Raklet, by a clear margin. Graduway’s reporting is the platform’s most consistent complaint.

Mentoring and career features

Graduway’s mentoring program is the platform’s strongest feature. It supports both flash and formal mentoring, with matching algorithms, milestone reminders, match locking, and goal tracking. The job and internship board integrates with Handshake and Simplicity.

Raklet provides board-based mentoring, a member directory with custom fields, and a job board. It is not a dedicated alumni mentoring platform.

Winner: Graduway. Purpose-built mentoring infrastructure is significantly more developed.

CRM and integration depth

Graduway integrates directly with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT, the dominant fundraising CRM in US higher education, and with Salesforce. Both integrations matter for advancement teams already running those platforms.

Raklet offers REST API access from the Premium tier, Zapier, Stripe, PayPal, and a growing set of native integrations. There are no native Blackbaud or Salesforce connectors.

Winner: Graduway for universities already on Blackbaud or Salesforce. Raklet for organizations that do not need those specific connectors.

Pricing transparency and contract terms

Raklet publishes pricing on the website, allows self-serve signup, charges no mandatory implementation fee, and has no minimum contract length. Annual billing earns a discount but is not required.

Graduway is contact-sales only. Reviewers flag long renewal negotiations, undisclosed add-on upsells, and migration costs as separate line items.

Winner: Raklet, with a clear advantage on transparency and contract simplicity.

AI features

Graduway as a standalone product references AI capabilities without specifics. The substantive AI is in the broader Gravyty ecosystem: Raise handles donor prospect prioritization and email generation; Ivy and Ocelot launched a unified 24/7 chatbot in October 2025, covering 100+ languages for student support and enrollment.

Raklet is building two AI features. AI onboarding agents (in development) will automatically match a new organization’s existing website design and import pages on signup, which removes most of the first-week setup work. AI engagement scoring (in development) surfaces contacts at risk of lapsing. Raklet’s roadmap also includes an AI-powered page builder.

If AI fundraising at the donor-prospecting level is core to the program, Graduway via the Raise integration is the more mature offering. If AI is about removing manual setup and surfacing churn risk inside a CRM, Raklet’s direction is closer.

Company health

Graduway has grown by acquisition. K1 Investment Management took the institutional position in 2019 with a $60 million growth round, and the Gravyty entity received an additional $12.7 million from Susquehanna Growth Equity in 2021. Since then, the company has acquired or merged with at least seven other businesses, including PeerPal (2022), Athlete Network (2024), and the Ivy/Ocelot merger (March 2025). Headcount sits between 150 and 255 depending on the source. The most recent confirmed product release was the Ivy and Ocelot unified AI assistant launch in October 2025. CEO Justin Beck took over from founder Daniel Cohen in August 2025. The company ranked #4814 on the 2025 Inc. 5000 list with 59 percent three-year revenue growth, and reported $5.1M in 2024 revenue per Latka data for the Gravyty consolidated entity.

Raklet was founded in 2013 by a UX and computer-science founder, raised an early round from Techstars and Microsoft Ventures in 2016, and has remained independent since. The team is small (10+ people, primarily engineers and designers, no dedicated sales team), fully remote, and ships features in response to direct customer usage rather than to a sales pipeline. The most recent customer base figure shows roughly 50 percent of customers in the United States and the other 50 percent across 50+ countries.

For a buyer, this matters in two ways. Graduway’s product cadence has shifted toward integrating acquired companies (Athlete Network, Ivy, Ocelot) rather than deepening the original alumni portal. Raklet’s smaller, founder-led team has the opposite trade-off: faster iteration on core platform features (the AI onboarding agent and engagement scoring both in development), but a smaller catalog overall and no dedicated higher-ed advancement stack.

What Graduway users say

The recurring complaint themes from 133 Capterra reviews (last updated March 2026) and GetApp’s feature ratings cluster around five issues that come up in nearly every long review:

• Reporting (3.0/5): Email open rates, bouncebacks, and unsubscribes are not visible natively. One reviewer wrote: “I wished there were email reporting metrics… open rates, bounceback data, unsubscribe tracking.” Pulling reports means exporting a large file and filtering it manually.
• Admin profile control: The phrasing across reviews is consistent: “real lack of control over profiles on the admin side.” Admins cannot fully manage or edit member profile fields.
• Notification gaps: No ping when members reply to posts. Replies do not appear in the next news digest. Members must log in manually to see conversations.
• Multilingual limits: One reviewer wrote: “The least thing I liked… is the difficulty of communicating with customer service, in addition to the lack of many languages.” A blocker for institutions with international alumni communities.
• Annual fee and undisclosed upsells: A 3-star reviewer wrote: “In the long term, the platform’s annual fee is high. Cost-effectiveness of competitors is much better.” A director-level reviewer separately flagged that new functionalities requiring extra payment were not communicated upfront during the sales process.

The product also gets consistent praise for event management (4.7/5 on GetApp), customer service (4.6/5), and ease of use (4.4/5). Reviewers running flash and formal mentoring programs at large universities tend to write the most positive reviews.

Migration considerations

Switching from Graduway to Raklet (or to any alternative) involves three real costs that quote-based platforms often understate.

First, data export. Graduway customers typically need to request a member data export from Gravyty support. Raklet imports member CSVs through the admin panel, with custom fields mapped during import. Plan on one to three weeks for a clean cutover for a mid-size alumni community.

Second, contract timing. Graduway contracts are typically annual. Time the migration to your renewal window to avoid double-paying. Several reviewers flagged that renewal negotiations can take weeks, so start the conversation early.

Third, integrations. If you rely on Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT for fundraising CRM data, Raklet does not replace that integration. The cleanest pattern is to keep Blackbaud as the donor system of record and use Raklet for community, membership, events, and email, with data syncing via API or Zapier.

Who should choose Graduway?

• Universities and colleges with established alumni relations offices and dedicated advancement budgets above $36,000 per year
• Institutions already running Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT or Salesforce, where the native integrations are a genuine differentiator
• Organizations that need formal and flash mentoring program management at scale
• Teams that value dedicated Client Success Managers and high-touch onboarding
• Institutions that want the broader Gravyty ecosystem (AI fundraising via Raise, AI student support via Ivy/Ocelot, video messaging via Gratavid)

Who should choose Raklet?

• Alumni associations, school associations, and nonprofits that need membership management and a community portal without a full fundraising CRM
• Organizations that cannot justify $36,000+ per year for alumni software
• Teams that need email marketing and SMS in one tool without adding external platforms
• International organizations that need native multilingual support across the platform
• Admins who need full control over member profiles and reliable reporting without manual exports
• Organizations that want to start free and scale as the community grows, with add-on contact packs instead of forced tier upgrades

Verdict

If you are running a large university advancement program with Blackbaud, an active mentoring program, and a dedicated alumni team, Graduway is built for you, and the price reflects that. If you are running an alumni association, a school association, a nonprofit, or any community that needs membership management with transparent pricing and built-in email and SMS, Raklet is a better fit. If your budget is below $5,000 a year, Graduway has no entry point, and Raklet (or one of the alternatives in our Graduway alternatives roundup) becomes the practical choice. The Raklet free plan covers 100 contacts with no credit card required, so the cheapest way to evaluate fit is to spin up a working portal and invite a small alumni cohort.

Frequently asked questions

Is Graduway more expensive than Raklet?

Yes, by a wide margin. Graduway is contact-sales only, with third-party estimates ranging from about $5,000 a year for the smallest institutions to $100,000+ for large universities. Raklet publishes pricing on the website and starts at $0 for the free plan and $49 per month (billed annually) for the Essentials tier. Capterra reviewers consistently flag Graduway’s annual fee as a renewal concern.

Does Graduway have a free plan?

No. Graduway has no free plan and no free trial. Every account requires contacting Gravyty sales for a quote and signing a contract, typically annual. Raklet, by contrast, has a permanent free plan for up to 100 contacts that does not require a credit card.

Can Raklet replace Graduway for a university alumni program?

It depends on what the program needs. Raklet covers the membership, community, events, email, SMS, and directory work that most alumni teams do every day. Where Raklet does not yet replace Graduway is dedicated mentoring program management at scale (flash and formal matching), native Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT integration, and AI donor prospecting via the Raise product. Schools running heavy advancement programs usually keep Blackbaud as the donor system of record even if the community portal moves to Raklet.

What are the main complaints about Graduway?

Capterra and GetApp reviews surface five recurring issues: reporting and analytics rated 3.0/5 (the lowest-rated feature, with no native email open or bounce tracking), weak admin profile control, no notifications for direct message replies, limited multilingual support, and high annual fees with undisclosed post-contract upsells. Event management and customer service receive consistently strong ratings.

Which platform is better for small alumni associations?

Raklet, in nearly every small-association scenario. Graduway has no published entry tier, and third-party estimates put the realistic minimum at roughly $5,000 a year, with $36,000+ a year more typical for active alumni programs. A small alumni association can run a member directory, dues collection, an event calendar, and email campaigns on Raklet’s Essentials tier for under $600 a year.