Lightwork vs SignUpGenius
SignUpGenius, and the asks it can’t hold.
SignUpGenius fills slots for almost anything, and does it well. Lightwork is a different shape: the person who needs help starts the ask.
The short answer
If you are filling a schedule you already designed — shifts, conference slots, a potluck, a booth rota — SignUpGenius is the more capable tool and it is not close. Lightwork is the better fit when help starts with somebody saying they need a hand, rather than with a coordinator building a grid.
Where SignUpGenius is the better choice
- Slot filling is its whole job. Shifts, dates, quantities, items, and reminders are all first-class, and it handles far bigger and more complicated schedules than Lightwork does.
- It can collect money — for a fundraiser, a ticketed event, or supplies. Lightwork cannot do this at all, by design.
- Its free tier covers a great deal on its own, including dates that repeat, so a committee can run a real schedule without anyone paying for it.
- It is the safe institutional choice: almost every school and committee has used one, so nobody needs to be taught what the link is.
Where Lightwork fits better
- The person who needs help can post the ask themselves. Nothing has to be planned by a coordinator first.
- Asks can be anonymous, and you can choose whether each one is visible to a group or to neighbors nearby.
- No money moves through Lightwork, so there is no percentage taken and no transaction fee.
- The group is the unit, not the sign-up. The people stay together after this particular list is finished.
- Native iPhone and Android apps as well as the web.
What each one costs
SignUpGenius has a free tier, paid tiers above it for larger organizations, and a fee on money collected through it. We are quoting the shape rather than the numbers on purpose — its tier prices are not stated on a page we could read directly, and a figure we could not verify is worse than none. Their pricing page has the current answer.
Checked 2026-09-21 against signupgenius.com/pricing. Prices change — the link is the current answer, not this page.
Side by side
| What | SignUpGenius | Lightwork |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to organize | Free tier; paid tiers above | Free |
| Collect money | Yes, for a fee | No, by design |
| Who starts an ask | The organizer | Anyone who needs help |
| Ask anonymously | No | Yes |
| Shift capacity, waitlists | Yes | No |
What Lightwork is not
Lightwork is new, and we are not going to pretend otherwise: there is no crowd on it yet. It works today on iPhone, Android, and the web, but it works because you invite the people you already know — not because a pool of strangers is waiting on it. If your plan depends on a built-in audience, that is not what this is.
It is also not volunteer-management software. There is no background-check integration, no application or waiver workflow, no shift capacity or waitlists, no segmented bulk messaging, and no CRM, SSO, or Zapier integrations. If your organization needs those, the tools built for that job are a better answer than we are.
And no money moves through Lightwork. Help here arrives as a thing or an act — a meal, a ride, a hand with a chore — chosen and delivered by the person helping. If what you need is to collect funds, this is the wrong tool and we would rather say so than sell you on it.
Questions
The ones people actually ask.
Is Lightwork a free alternative to SignUpGenius?
For coordinating neighbourly help, yes — asking, offering, and organizing for people you know are free permanently, with no ads. But SignUpGenius covers schedule shapes Lightwork has no answer for, including per-slot capacity and waitlists, so it is only an alternative for the kind of help a neighbor performs.
Can Lightwork collect money or run a fundraiser?
No, and it is not planned. Help on Lightwork arrives as a thing or an act — a meal, a ride, a hand with a chore — chosen and delivered by the person helping. If you need to take payments, SignUpGenius can and Lightwork cannot.
Do you charge a percentage of anything?
There is no percentage, because no money passes through Lightwork. The only thing we charge for is the organization layer — a certified identity, oversight across your groups, and grant-ready volunteer-hour records — and that price is not set yet.
Can volunteers sign up without making an account?
Offering help needs an account, which is a real difference from a public sign-up link. What does not need one is receiving help: you can run a program on someone’s behalf so the person being helped never installs anything.
Your community is one ask away from showing up.
Ask for help and see who pitches in. It’s free.
