SmartyGrants is the dominant grants management platform in the Australian and New Zealand market, used by hundreds of government agencies, community foundations, and corporate funders. Tahua is a newer entrant, purpose-built for the Australasian market with specific focus on accountability, audit trail, and government-grade compliance.
This comparison covers the key differences between Tahua and SmartyGrants to help funders make an informed platform choice.
SmartyGrants is an established Australian grants management platform that has been in the market for over 15 years. It offers a comprehensive feature set — application forms, assessment workflows, grant management, reporting — and a large base of reference customers across Australia and New Zealand. SmartyGrants is well-understood by many grant applicants who have used it to apply for grants across multiple funders.
Tahua is a purpose-built platform for New Zealand and Australian grantmakers, designed with a specific focus on government accountability requirements, probity documentation, and compliance-grade audit trails. Tahua is built for funders who need their grants management to meet the standards required by the Auditor-General, the ANAO, DIA gaming trust oversight, and parliamentary accountability.
SmartyGrants: Provides standard transaction logging and record management. Adequate for most grantmaking purposes. Some government agencies have noted limitations in the depth of audit trail when subjected to performance audit.
Tahua: Built from the ground up with government-grade audit trail requirements. Every action — form submission, assessment score, decision, payment — is timestamped, attributed to a named user, and tamper-proof. Designed to produce clean, complete documentation for OIA responses, ANAO audits, and Auditor-General reviews.
Best for: Government agencies, gaming trusts, and publicly accountable funders who need their grants documentation to withstand formal scrutiny should prioritise Tahua's audit trail depth.
SmartyGrants: Flexible, drag-and-drop form builder with a wide range of question types, conditional logic, and form versioning. Very configurable without developer involvement.
Tahua: Modern form builder with conditional logic and the question types needed for grant applications. Designed for clarity and applicant experience alongside completeness.
Best for: Both platforms offer strong form design capability. SmartyGrants has more years of iteration on form features; Tahua's forms are designed with applicant experience and mobile accessibility as primary design goals.
SmartyGrants: Per-submission pricing model — funders pay based on the number of applications received. At lower volumes, this can be cost-effective; at high volumes, costs can escalate significantly. Pricing is not always predictable for funders whose application volumes fluctuate.
Tahua: Subscription-based pricing with volume tiers — a predictable annual fee that doesn't vary with application volume within tier. More predictable for budgeting; may be better value for high-volume programmes.
Best for: Funders with predictable, moderate-to-high application volumes will generally find Tahua's subscription model more cost-effective and predictable.
SmartyGrants: Primarily Australian-developed and historically focused on the Australian market. NZ market presence has grown significantly but some NZ-specific requirements (Charities Register integration, OIA-specific documentation, te reo support) have been slower to develop.
Tahua: Purpose-built for the NZ and Australian markets simultaneously. NZ-specific requirements — Charities Register integration, OIA-ready documentation, gaming trust compliance features, Treaty of Waitangi considerations — are built into the platform design.
Best for: NZ-based funders — particularly government agencies, gaming trusts, and community trusts — will generally find Tahua's NZ-specific features better aligned with their requirements.
SmartyGrants: Used by many government agencies, with features that serve basic government accountability needs. Some advanced government accountability requirements require custom configuration or workarounds.
Tahua: Government accountability is a primary design objective — with delegate authority enforcement, ministerial briefing pack generation, OIA response document export, and parliamentary accountability documentation built into the product.
Best for: Government agencies with strong accountability requirements should evaluate Tahua's government-specific features carefully.
SmartyGrants: Many grant applicants across Australia and New Zealand have used SmartyGrants before. There's less training required for experienced applicants.
Tahua: Newer platform with a modern, intuitive interface. Applicant experience has been designed to be straightforward without requiring prior familiarity.
Best for: For funders where applicant familiarity with the platform reduces support overhead, SmartyGrants has an advantage. For funders who prioritise applicant experience over familiarity, Tahua's design is competitive.
SmartyGrants: Established implementation and support team in Australia. Good documentation and community resources.
Tahua: NZ and AU-based support team, deep understanding of the Australasian grantmaking context. Responsive implementation support, particularly for government and regulated sector clients.
The best way to evaluate any grants management platform is to see it in use on your programme type.