Trello for Nonprofits: 75% Off, and the Guest Rule That Decides the Plan

Trello’s nonprofit discount is one of the largest in project software: 75% off Standard, Premium and Enterprise through Atlassian’s Social Impact license, or 85% for organizations in lower-income countries. At 75% off, Standard costs $1.25 a user a month on annual billing. Two things are easy to miss. Trello is not part of Atlassian’s newer offer that makes Jira and Confluence free for up to 25 seats, and the free plan’s 10-person limit counts every volunteer guest. We read Atlassian’s nonprofit page and Trello’s pricing and help pages on 10 November 2026. Prices are in US dollars.

What Trello costs, and the nonprofit price

List prices come from Trello’s pricing page. Atlassian’s nonprofit pricing page lists “Trello – Standard/Premium/Enterprise” under “Atlassian Cloud Subscriptions – 75% off list price”. Atlassian does not print the discounted Trello price, so the column above is our arithmetic, taking 75% off the annual price. Atlassian does not say whether the discount also applies to monthly billing; plan on annual.

Ten people on Standard cost about $150 a year at the nonprofit rate. For most small charities that is less than any comparable paid tool except monday.com, which is free for the first 10 seats.

The 85% Global Access discount

The same page says “Organizations registered in low and lower-middle income countries, as defined by the World Bank, can receive 85% off list price instead of 75% off.” At 85%, Standard costs about $0.75 a user a month on annual billing, and ten people cost about $90 a year. This is one of the few nonprofit offers anywhere that is more generous to organizations outside rich countries.

Trello is not in the free-for-25-seats offer

Atlassian now says nonprofits can get “50-100% off” its apps, and its nonprofit page lists Jira, Confluence, Loom and Teamwork Collection “for free up to 25 seats billed annually.” Trello is not on that list. It sits in the 75% group, from the first seat. If a charity mainly needs project boards, Trello at 75% off is still cheap; if it would use Jira or Confluence anyway, the free 25-seat offer on those products may make more sense. Our project management software comparison covers Atlassian’s other tools alongside Trello.

Who qualifies

Atlassian verifies through Goodstack, which it says “reviews the information provided in your application, public information, and ensures alignment” with three criteria: the organization does not operate at the expense of the environment, human rights or dignity, or public safety; it “Does not advocate for or against any political party, candidate, or campaign”; and it does not discriminate. Social enterprises such as US public benefit corporations can qualify if they are non-political and non-governmental.

The excluded categories are long. Atlassian’s page excludes governmental entities, which “are required to purchase commercial licenses or subscriptions”, and lists exclusions including professional associations, unions and social clubs, fraternities and sororities, hospitals and health insurers, rehabilitation, political and legislative activity, schools from preschool to higher education, boards of education, alumni groups, parent teacher associations, professional sports, endowment funds and military support. Schools have a separate academic license. Receiving government funding does not on its own make a charity governmental. Religious organizations are not on the list.

How to apply

1. Use Atlassian’s Social Impact license form, which replaced the older Community license request. It tries to find your organization by name or registration ID.
2. Upload proof if asked. For nonprofits, the form asks for “your scanned copy of the income tax exemption letter or other proof of your nonprofit status”, in the US your IRS determination letter.
3. Wait for Goodstack’s review, then apply the discount to your Trello Workspace subscription as Atlassian instructs.

Atlassian’s page says all “new and existing Social Impact License applicants are reviewed by Goodstack against the same qualification standards”. It does not publish a review time or how often you must re-verify, so keep your documents current and diary the renewal in the budget.

Volunteers, guests and the 10-person limit

This is where Trello differs from other tools. On the free plan, Trello’s collaborator limit article counts Workspace guests, “This includes single-board guests and multi-board guests”, and pending invites, toward the 10. If a free Workspace goes over 10 collaborators, “the boards in this Workspace will become view-only”, and automations stop. A charity that invites seven volunteers to one board has used its free plan.

On paid plans the rule flips. Trello’s billing article says “All Workspace members and multi-board guests are billable”, but single-board guests are free and you can invite as many as you like. The multi-board guests article confirms that on Standard and Premium, multi-board guests “are billed at the same rate as a normal Workspace member”, while on Enterprise they are not billed.

So a charity with many volunteers does better on a discounted Standard plan than on Free: one board per volunteer team keeps every volunteer free, at $1.25 a month for each staff member. Give each volunteer team its own board, and keep volunteers off a second board unless you want to pay for them. For larger volunteer programs with scheduling and hours, see volunteer management software and how to recruit volunteers.

A worked example: a food pantry

Take a food pantry with four staff and thirty volunteers in three teams: intake, warehouse and delivery. On the free plan, the first six volunteers invited take the Workspace to 10 collaborators, and the rest would turn the boards view-only. Free does not work.

On Standard at the nonprofit rate, the four staff are paid members at about $15 each a year, $60 in all. Each volunteer team gets its own board, and every volunteer joins as a single-board guest, free. The volunteer coordinator, who needs all three boards, is either made a member, another $15 a year, or would be billed as a multi-board guest at the same rate. The whole pantry runs on Trello for about $75 a year. The same setup on the free plan of most other tools would hit a guest or member limit.

Setting up boards for a charity

Trello works best with one board per team or recurring process, rather than one giant board. Typical charity boards are a grant calendar with a card per application, an event checklist copied for each event, a content calendar for newsletters and social media, and a volunteer task board per team. Use lists for stages, such as to do, in progress and done, and due dates on cards so reminders go out automatically.

Keep volunteers on their own team’s board, which keeps them free on paid plans and limits what they can see. Put anything confidential, such as client names or staff matters, on a separate board that only members can open.

Moving from Free to Standard

Apply for the Social Impact license before you upgrade, so the discount applies from the start. Trello’s billing article says that “Removing someone from a Workspace makes their seat available to reassign”, and that empty seats are not charged at renewal, so tidy the member list before each renewal date. If you upgrade because the free plan hit 10 collaborators, move volunteers to single-board guest access first, so you pay only for staff and keep the discount working for you.

Automation and AI

The free plan includes 250 Workspace command runs a month, Standard 1,000 and Premium unlimited, which matters if you automate reminders for grant deadlines or volunteer shifts. Atlassian’s AI article says Trello’s AI features are available on Standard, Premium and Enterprise. Set rules for donor and client information with our AI use policy template before using them on real data.

Is Trello the right tool?

Trello suits simple, visual work: event checklists, content calendars, grant deadline boards and volunteer task lists. At 75% off it is among the cheapest paid tools, and its single-board guest rule suits volunteer teams well. It is less suited to complex projects with dependencies or heavy reporting, where Asana fits better, or to documents and policies, where Notion does. For a free option with unlimited editing guests, ClickUp’s free plan is the alternative. For grant tracking specifically, compare grant management software.

Trello connects to chat tools such as Slack. Keep at least two Workspace admins and store the login in a shared password manager. How to check any vendor’s nonprofit offer at source is in our nonprofit software discounts guide. Atlassian has no commercial relationship with this site, and we take no referral fees.

This is reference information, not legal or tax advice. Rules vary by state and change over time. For a decision that carries real consequences, check the current text at irs.gov or your state registry, and talk to a nonprofit attorney or CPA.