Direct Affect vs ESi Pay
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Direct Affect
This platform helps non-profits connect with supporters by sharing news, events, and direct messages. It allows supporters to manage charitable giving, accept or decline associations, and receive personalized updates based on their interests. The app facilitates seamless donations and matching gift programs at no cost.
- Community engagement platform
- Direct messaging with supporters
- Event calendar sharing
- Donor advised fund integration
- Matching gift program facilitation
- Personalized news feed
- NPO database access
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Direct Affect: The Non-profit Community Engagement Platform Direct Affect is a community engagement mobile app and platform designed to help non-profit organizations better engage and communicate with their supporters. The free platform empowers non-profit organizations (NPOs) to easily and securely share news and event calendars while engaging their supporters or “members" via direct, relevant messaging that highlights their charitable impact. NPOs are able to efficiently manage supporter participation in their community and supporters are able to accept or decline association with the organization. The platform is integrated with a donor advised fund solution that enables supporters to easily organize their charitable activity and efficiently manage the funds they have designated for charitable giving. Contributions to the member’s donor advised fund may be donated instantly to NPOs via the mobile App at no cost. Direct Affect will also facilitate matching gift programs for members whose employers offer them. From a donation perspective, the platform provides supporters with a quick and easy way to give at the moment they feel compelled to do so. Member donations are seamless and record keeping is centralized for ongoing gift planning and annual tax reporting. Furthermore, Direct Affect helps individuals engage with multiple NPOs by efficiently connecting them via a single supporter-centric interface. Supporters will be able to customize the frequency and nature of the messages and news they receive from each non-profit of which they are a member. Based upon the supporter’s individual interest or “cause” profile, relevant subject matter news and news about the NPOs with which they are associated is delivered via a curated news feed. As the first true supporter-centered non-profit platform, Direct Affect enables more efficient communication and meaningful engagement between members and the NPO’s they support. Direct Affect will also provide a direct link to a database of vetted NPO’s, prioritized by individual members’ area(s) of interest. With Direct Affect, supporters get a highly personalized, fully integrated charitable engagement and donation system. • Plan • Engage • Direct • Affect
ESi Pay
This app facilitates transparent fund distribution for a conditional basic income pilot program, supporting mothers and children. It uses biometric authentication and allows donors to track the impact of their contributions. The program is expanding to new countries.
- Conditional Basic Income pilot support
- Biometric authentication
- Transparent fund distribution
- Donor impact tracking
- Program expansion
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The ESi app by EinStrong Foundation successfully powers the Conditional Basic Income (CBI) pilot in Cambodia, South Sudan & Nepal, supporting nearly 6,000 mothers and children across 100+ merchants as of October 2024. With biometric authentication, the app ensures transparent fund distribution and allows donors to track the impact of their contributions. Building on this success, plans are underway to expand the program to other countries, including those in Africa.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is device support: ESi Pay at 3 against Direct Affect's 1. On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Direct Affect against 5.0 for ESi Pay. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 6 and 3 respectively.
Direct Affect ships an update monthly, ESi Pay every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 17, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Direct Affect | ESi Pay |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (6 ratings) | 5.0 (3 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 6 — better | 3 |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 5 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 39 MB | 146 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Direct Affect, Inc. | EinStrong Foundation (U.S.) |
Customer experience
Direct Affect
ESi Pay
In-app purchases
Direct Affect
No in-app purchases
ESi Pay
No in-app purchases









