Board Manager vs. Govenda

Govenda is a corporate-first board portal aimed at private companies, pre-IPO, and public boards, and it was acquired by OnBoard's parent company in May 2024. If you are a small nonprofit evaluating it today, the more useful question is usually what to use instead.

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Last verified September 2, 2026. We link our sources at the bottom of this page.

At a glance

A tilde (~) means the capability exists but with real caveats. The note explains what they are.

Capability	Board Manager	Govenda
Roster and terms
Member roster with contact details	Yes	Yes
Term start and end dates	Yes	No
Alerts before a term expires	Yes	No
Meetings and committees
Agenda builder and board packs	Partial	Yes
Minutes captureGovenda's Gabii AI drafts minutes and transcripts.	No	Yes
Voting and e-signatureBoard Manager does compliance document signing but not in-meeting voting.	Partial	Yes
Committees	Yes	Yes
Meeting RSVPs and attendance per member	Yes	No
Compliance and onboarding
Annual director attestationGovenda's D&O questionnaire suite covers annual director questionnaires and assessments, which is closer to a COI workflow than most competitors get.	Yes	Yes
Conflict of interest document signingGovenda has e-signature and questionnaires, but no published COI-specific signing workflow.	Yes	Partial
Per-member onboarding checklists	Yes	No
Recruitment
Board candidate pipeline with stages	Yes	No
Public recommendation form	Yes	No
Skills and diversity matrix in the product	Yes	No
Access and cost
Board members access without creating an account	Yes	No
Pricing published publiclyGovenda's pricing page directs you to contact them for a quote.	Yes	No
Start without talking to sales	Yes	No
Free plan	Yes	No

The honest take

These are different tools for different situations. Here is when each one is the right answer.

Pick Govenda if

You are a private, pre-IPO, or public company board rather than a small nonprofit
You need a D&O questionnaire suite and formal board assessments
Deep Microsoft 365 in-browser collaboration matters to your directors
You have a governance budget and a procurement process that expects a sales cycle
You are an existing Govenda customer whose workflows are already built around it

Pick Board Manager if

You are a nonprofit with a volunteer board rather than a corporate governance team
You want to see a price without booking a demo
Terms, recruitment, and compliance signing are your real problems
You'd rather not adopt a product whose roadmap is being merged into another
You need to start today, for free, without a procurement conversation

What each one costs

Where a vendor does not publish pricing, we say so rather than guessing at a number.

Board Manager

$0 or $19 / month

Published pricing. No demo required, no card to start.

Starter: free forever, for boards up to 25 members and candidates
Engage: $19/month for unlimited members, compliance signing, and onboarding checklists
500 emails/month on Starter, 2,500 on Engage
No setup fee, no annual commitment, no sales call

Govenda

Quote only

Govenda does not publish pricing. Their pricing page asks you to contact them for details.

No published tiers, starting price, or minimum commitment
No free plan and no published free trial
Vendor states unlimited users and no implementation fees
Reviewers report add-on fees for calendar integrations and native file storage
A demo is required to get a number

Moving from Govenda

Most boards do this in an afternoon. Nothing is deleted on the other side, so you can keep it open while you check the data.

1Export your director and committee lists from Govenda.
2Import members at /members/import: names, emails, and roles come across in one pass.
3Add term start and end dates, which Govenda won't have tracked.
4Rebuild your committee structure and assign members.
5Send your conflict of interest document once to establish a signing baseline.

Common questions

Is Govenda still available?

The brand is still online and demos are still solicited. Govenda was acquired by Passageways, OnBoard's parent company, in May 2024. The acquisition announcement described a future that combines OnBoard and Govenda's capabilities. No sunset date has been published, but Govenda's own blog has published nothing since the acquisition announcement.

Wasn't Govenda called something else?

Yes. Govenda was previously BoardBookit. Several review sites still list it under the old name, which is worth knowing when you're comparing reviews.

How much does Govenda cost?

They don't publish it. Their pricing page asks you to get in touch for details, so a demo is the only way to get a number. Board Manager publishes both of its prices: $0 and $19 a month.

Is Govenda built for nonprofits?

Not primarily. Their site names private companies, pre-IPO, and public companies as their segments, and the D&O questionnaire suite points at corporate governance. It can serve a nonprofit board, but that isn't who it was designed around.

Does Govenda handle conflict of interest?

Partly, and it's fairer to them than most competitors here. Their questionnaire and D&O module handles annual director questionnaires and assessments, which is the closest thing to an annual attestation workflow among the tools we compare. What isn't published is a COI-specific document signing flow.

Should I wait to see what happens with the OnBoard merger?

That's your call and we won't pretend to know their roadmap. If you need something working this quarter and your board is small, starting on a free plan you can leave costs you nothing either way.

Try it before you decide.

The free plan covers boards up to 25 people and is not a trial. Set up your roster, see whether it fits, and switch back if it doesn't.

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Sources

Claims about Govenda on this page were verified against the following, last checked September 2, 2026. Pricing and features change, so if you spot something out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.