Compare
How Helm Grants compares, honestly.
Three ways to keep up with grant rounds: a funder's own alert list, a typical paid grants database, and Helm Grants. The questions below are the ones a careful applicant asks. Where a free alert list is enough for you, this page says so.
The questions that matter
| Question | Funder alerts (free) | Typical paid grants database | Helm Grants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where do the rounds come from? | The funder's own announcements, one funder at a time. | Often undisclosed. Ask which sources are licensed and how often each is refreshed. | Named funders and finders under their published licences, each on the Coverage page with its status, including rounds entered by hand from department pages the finders miss. Where Helm does not index a funder, it says so and links to the funder's own alert list. |
| Open rounds or program catalogue? | Open rounds, for that funder. | Frequently a catalogue of programs, many closed. Ask what proportion is open today. | Open rounds with their own closing dates first; program listings without dates are labelled as such, and a finder's stale program row is hidden while a real round is open. |
| How is fit decided? | You judge each announcement yourself. | Commonly keyword or category filters. | An itemised score against your organisation's own profile, every part visible on the round page. Never a funding prediction. |
| What about eligibility? | You read the guidelines. | Some state eligibility as a fact. Ask how it was determined. | Helm surfaces the guidelines' own who-may-apply rules for you to confirm, checks the entity against public registers, and shows your own lodged charity statement where one exists. It never asserts that you are eligible. |
| Who got funded before? | Some funders publish recipients; you look them up. | Sometimes, from undisclosed sources. | Published recipient records from licensed government and council datasets, shown on the round page with the licence line, stored exactly as published. |
| What does the AI actually do? | None. | Varies. Ask what is sent where and whether drafts cite sources. | Reads the guidelines you upload, extracts the funding facts with quoted evidence, and drafts an application scaffold grounded in your recorded facts with a visible confirm marker on anything unverified. Providers named on the security page; your data trains nothing. |
| What does it cost? | Free. | Often a subscription quoted after a call. | A published ladder from free to Grant Pro, AUD ex GST with the GST-inclusive total beside it, cancel any time. Founding pricing terms are on the pricing page. |
| Can it lodge for me? | No. | Some offer grant-writing services. Decide whether you want that in your name. | No, by design. Applications are lodged through the funder's own channel by you. |
No competitor is named on this page and none is pictured. The middle column describes a category, not a company.
When a funder's alert list is enough
- You apply to one or two funders a year and know their calendars. Join their lists and keep the money.
- You have a grants officer who reads every guideline. Helm's guideline reads and scaffolds help most where that person is you.
- You want to see what is open before deciding. The public rounds page and the free rung exist for exactly that.
What Helm Grants will never do
- Predict a funding decision. Scores are fit evidence, itemised.
- Assert that you are eligible. It surfaces the funder's own rules for you to confirm.
- Lodge an application. Every draft is yours to review, own and submit.
- Fetch from a source that has declined, or train any model on your data.
The detail behind every line is on the security page, how the AI works and the pricing page.