AkoyaGO Review: Microsoft Dynamics-Based Foundation Management

AkoyaGO is a foundation management platform built on Microsoft Dynamics 365. Formerly known as Pearl and, before that, Akoya.net, it has been through several iterations and now occupies a specific niche: comprehensive grant management and relationship management for foundations that are already committed to the Microsoft technology ecosystem. Its all-inclusive pricing model — unusual in a market where per-module charges and add-on fees are the norm — is one of its most frequently cited advantages.

This review is for foundations evaluating AkoyaGO alongside alternatives including Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud and Blackbaud Grantmaking. The critical question for any organisation considering AkoyaGO is whether their existing technology investment is in Microsoft's ecosystem, because this largely determines whether the platform is a natural fit or an awkward one.

AkoyaGO is a North American platform with limited market presence outside that region. UK and European foundations should factor this into their evaluation alongside the platform's Microsoft dependency.

What is AkoyaGO and how does it work?

AkoyaGO is a Microsoft Dynamics 365-based platform purpose-built for foundations and grantmaking organisations. The decision to build on Dynamics 365 rather than a standalone architecture is both the platform's biggest strength and its defining constraint.

Building on Dynamics 365 means AkoyaGO inherits the Microsoft enterprise technology stack: Azure cloud infrastructure, Office 365 integration, Power BI data visualisation, and the enterprise security and compliance certifications that Microsoft maintains. For organisations whose broader technology infrastructure is built on Microsoft, this integration is genuinely valuable — AkoyaGO connects naturally to the tools their staff already use daily.

The platform comprises two main components:

The core AkoyaGO system covers grant lifecycle management (from initial inquiry through to close-out), relationship management (CRM for foundation contacts and grantee organisations), data visualisation and geographic mapping, fund accounting integration, and internal workflow management.

GOapply is a separate portal for external-facing activity: online application intake, third-party reviewer access, and external review workflows. This is the interface that applicant organisations and external reviewers interact with, and it sits separately from the core platform.

What does AkoyaGO include?

AkoyaGO's all-inclusive pricing model means all of the following are included in the subscription without per-module charges:

• Full grant lifecycle management — application, review, assessment, decision, payment, monitoring, and close-out
• Relationship management and CRM — contact management, organisation records, communication history, relationship mapping
• Geographic visualisation — mapping of grantee locations and portfolio geographic distribution
• Data visualisation and reporting dashboards — built-in analytics; integration with Power BI for advanced reporting
• Fund accounting integration — connections to accounting systems for budget management and payment reconciliation
• GOapply — the external application and reviewer portal
• Fully customisable application forms — application design without requiring custom development
• Third-party data capture — tools for capturing information from grantees and external reviewers

The all-inclusive model is worth emphasising because it is genuinely unusual. Many enterprise grant management platforms price individual modules separately — an analytics add-on here, an application portal licence there — which can cause the actual cost to diverge substantially from the headline price. AkoyaGO's approach means the feature set is predictable even if the headline price is custom.

What is the pricing structure?

AkoyaGO uses custom pricing with no published price list, meaning prospective customers receive quotes through a sales engagement process. There is no free tier.

One distinctive aspect of AkoyaGO's pricing is how implementation is handled. Implementation is priced separately from the annual subscription, and it typically costs approximately 60% of the first year's annual subscription. This is worth understanding clearly upfront: the first year's total cost will be substantially higher than the annual subscription alone. In subsequent years, the cost drops to the subscription only.

This implementation cost structure is not unusual for enterprise platforms built on Microsoft Dynamics — configuring and deploying a Dynamics-based system requires significant work — but it is higher as a proportion of total cost than many alternatives and should be factored into any budget modelling.

Implementation typically takes three to five months, which reflects the complexity of deploying on the Dynamics 365 platform.

How does the Microsoft Dynamics dependency work in practice?

This is the central question for any organisation evaluating AkoyaGO. The Microsoft Dynamics dependency is both the platform's strongest argument and its biggest limitation.

When it works well: Foundations already running on Microsoft 365 — using SharePoint for document management, Teams for collaboration, Power BI for data visualisation, and Azure for hosting — will find that AkoyaGO connects naturally to their existing environment. Data flows between AkoyaGO and other Microsoft tools, staff work within familiar Microsoft interfaces, and the organisation does not need to manage a separate technology infrastructure for its foundation work.

Microsoft's enterprise compliance certifications — covering data security, accessibility, and various industry standards — are inherited by AkoyaGO, which can simplify the compliance evaluation for organisations that already rely on those certifications elsewhere in their technology stack.

When it creates problems: Foundations that are not invested in the Microsoft ecosystem will need to provision and manage Microsoft infrastructure to use AkoyaGO. This is not a lightweight ask. Running an enterprise Microsoft Dynamics deployment requires either in-house Microsoft expertise or an external partner who provides it. Organisations that use Google Workspace, AWS, or other non-Microsoft infrastructure will find that AkoyaGO introduces a parallel technology environment to manage alongside their existing stack.

The platform is also a poor fit for organisations that prioritise rapid implementation. A three-to-five month deployment is manageable for a large foundation with the resources to support it, but it is too long for organisations that need to be operational quickly.

AkoyaGO vs Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud vs Blackbaud Grantmaking

Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud offers greater configurability and a larger integration ecosystem, but at the cost of higher implementation complexity and cost. The all-inclusive contrast with AkoyaGO is notable: Salesforce's grantmaking tier requires OmniStudio for advanced features, which is an additional cost. Salesforce also has more presence in the UK market, which may matter for support and peer community reasons.

Blackbaud Grantmaking serves a similar enterprise segment but is built on a different architecture. Blackbaud's product suite is broader (fundraising, financial management, and more), which gives it integration advantages for organisations already using other Blackbaud products. However, Blackbaud's user experience has been frequently criticised as dated, and its AI capabilities are largely aspirational rather than shipped.

For UK funders, none of these three platforms offers built-in regulatory compliance integration. A platform like Plinth — which integrates natively with the Charity Commission, Companies House, and OFSI — provides that layer without requiring manual workarounds.

What kind of foundation is AkoyaGO best suited to?

The clearest positive case for AkoyaGO is a foundation that:

• Is already committed to Microsoft technology infrastructure across the organisation
• Has IT staff or an IT partner with Microsoft Dynamics expertise (or is willing to engage one)
• Values all-inclusive pricing that avoids module-creep over time
• Can accommodate a three-to-five month implementation process
• Manages the full grant lifecycle alongside relationship management and needs both in the same system
• Has budget for the implementation cost on top of the first year's subscription

Outside this profile, the platform's overhead — both in implementation cost and technology dependency — is likely to outweigh its advantages. Smaller foundations, organisations that need to be operational quickly, those without Microsoft infrastructure, and UK funders who need built-in regulatory compliance will typically find better fits elsewhere.

Are there AI features in AkoyaGO?

AkoyaGO's AI capabilities are limited compared with purpose-built AI grant management platforms. Being built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 means AkoyaGO has access to Microsoft's AI tooling (Copilot and related tools), but these are general-purpose productivity tools rather than grantmaking-specific capabilities.

Grantmaking-specific AI — automated due diligence against charity registers, application scoring against funding criteria, risk assessment, impact report generation — is not a current distinguishing feature of the platform. Organisations for whom AI-assisted assessment is a priority should look at platforms where this is a central design consideration rather than an inherited Microsoft productivity feature.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need Microsoft Dynamics experience to use AkoyaGO?

End users — grant officers, programme managers, reviewers — do not need to understand Microsoft Dynamics to use the system. The AkoyaGO interface abstracts much of the underlying Dynamics complexity. However, someone in the organisation or an external partner needs Microsoft Dynamics expertise to manage configuration, troubleshoot issues, and handle platform updates. This is an ongoing dependency, not just an implementation-phase requirement.

What is GOapply, and is it included in the price?

GOapply is AkoyaGO's external-facing portal — the interface that applicant organisations and external reviewers interact with for online applications and grant review. It is the part of the system that faces outward rather than being used by internal foundation staff. GOapply is included in AkoyaGO's all-inclusive pricing model and is not a separately licensed add-on.

How does the all-inclusive pricing model compare with competitors?

In the enterprise grant management market, it is common for platforms to price modules separately — analytics, reviewer portals, API access, and additional features may each carry their own licence cost. AkoyaGO's approach bundles all of these into a single subscription, which makes the ongoing annual cost more predictable. The trade-off is that you pay for the full feature set regardless of whether you use all of it. For most foundations, this is a reasonable trade-off.

What is the typical total cost in Year 1?

The Year 1 total cost is the annual subscription plus the separately priced implementation, which is typically approximately 60% of the annual subscription. So if the annual subscription is, for example, £30,000, the implementation would typically be approximately £18,000, making Year 1 total approximately £48,000. In Year 2 and beyond, the cost drops to the subscription only. Always obtain specific quotes based on your organisation's requirements.

Is AkoyaGO available to UK funders?

AkoyaGO is available outside North America, but it has limited UK market presence. UK-specific considerations — Charity Commission integration, Companies House checks, OFSI screening — are not available in the platform. UK funders should evaluate whether the platform's strengths (Microsoft ecosystem integration, all-inclusive pricing, geographic visualisation) outweigh the absence of UK regulatory compliance features.

How does AkoyaGO handle data security?

By building on Microsoft Azure, AkoyaGO inherits Microsoft's enterprise security infrastructure and compliance certifications. This is a meaningful advantage for organisations that already rely on those certifications. Microsoft's security posture is robust and well-documented, and for enterprise procurement processes that require specific certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2, and similar), the Microsoft heritage simplifies that conversation.

What happens if we want to leave AkoyaGO?

Like all platforms built on a proprietary data model — even one built on Dynamics 365 — moving away from AkoyaGO requires data migration planning. Data can be exported from Dynamics, but the configuration, workflows, and customisation built on top of it cannot be transferred directly to another system. The investment in customisation creates switching costs that increase over time, as is common with enterprise platforms. It is worth clarifying data portability and export formats at the point of procurement.

Recommended Next Pages

• Grant Management Systems Compared — How AkoyaGO sits alongside Fluxx, Foundant, Salesforce, Blackbaud, and others in a full market comparison.

• Salesforce vs Plinth for Grant Management — A detailed comparison for organisations weighing Salesforce's ecosystem against purpose-built grantmaking alternatives.

• Blackbaud vs Plinth — A thorough look at the Blackbaud Grantmaking platform and how it compares with UK-native alternatives.

• Automating Due Diligence in Grant Management — What automated regulatory checks mean in practice and why they matter for UK funders.

• Plinth AI Grant Management Features — Built-in Charity Commission checks, AI-assisted assessment, and rapid deployment for UK funders.

Last updated: February 2026