Blackbaud support, AI and professional services terms are the operational documents that determine what a customer receives beyond access to a Solution. They affect cost, staffing and risk even though they do not set the headline subscription price. This article summarises three sets of terms and the regional additions.
Customer Support
What support covers
Blackbaud’s Scope of Customer Support says Customer Support helps customers understand the capabilities of their Subscription and provides, as part of an active Subscription, diagnosis of errors, reasonable efforts to correct errors attributable to programming in the Subscription, major releases and subscription updates, documentation and answers on navigation.[1] If the Subscription is licensed and sold as a locally installed instance, support extends to questions about releases and troubleshooting; if Blackbaud hosts the Subscription, locally installed instances are not supported.[1] Data anomalies that are not directly caused by an error may be charged at time-and-materials professional services rates.[1]
Authorized Support Contacts
Support is delivered through named people. A Subscription allows up to three Authorized Support Contacts, and the maximum may increase as the customer buys more Blackbaud Solutions or its overall investment grows.[1] Third-party consultants are not eligible unless they are on a semi-permanent status with the organisation, shown by an email address and user account in the organisation’s domain.[1] Authorised contacts must be trained on the Subscription, with training within 30 days of designation after staff turnover, at the customer’s expense.[1] If the customer’s agreement lets affiliates access the Subscription, the Authorized Support Contacts act as the primary liaison for them, and affiliates do not receive direct support unless the agreement says so.[1] The catalog row is Authorized Support Contact.
Annual investment
Overall investment is measured as recurring annual investment in US dollars, and a customer must reach an annual investment of ten thousand US dollars to be considered for enhanced support benefits.[1] The row is Recurring annual investment. The scope document does not say what the enhanced benefits are beyond additional case-creation channels that may become available.
Severity and response targets
| Severity | Description | Response target |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Critical | Production incident preventing access or making a mission-critical function unavailable, with no workaround | 30 minutes, 24x7[1] |
| 2 High | Major functionality impacted or significant degradation | 2 business hours[1] |
| 3 Medium | Partial, non-critical loss of use | 4 business hours[1] |
| 4 Low | Routine technical inquiries and workarounds available | 8 business hours[1] |
Business hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 6pm Eastern Time, with after-hours support 24x7 for severity 1.[1] Severity 1 issues require the customer to have dedicated resources available to work on the issue on an ongoing basis.[1]
Limits on support
The customer is responsible for remaining current on Subscription or maintenance fees for all Subscriptions as long as they are in use, and Customer Support does not provide support by the hour.[1] If the customer cancels an ongoing Subscription, reinstatement of the annual maintenance fee or Subscription is required before Blackbaud will assist.[1] Blackbaud may limit support if the customer has chosen not to keep the production version on the most current major release and subscription update.[1] Planned Obsolescence of a Subscription or portions of it comes with prior written notice, in most cases at least one year before the effective date.[1] Several things fall outside support, including professional services, custom code and database administrator functions on the customer’s infrastructure.[1]
AI Terms
Blackbaud’s AI Terms, dated June 2026, apply to access to and use of AI in addition to the customer’s contract.[2] The main licensing points are these.
- Opt-in. AI features must be turned on by the customer’s organisation, for example by joining an AI pilot, buying a standalone AI feature, asking Blackbaud to enable a feature, or having an authorised user turn it on.[2] If the customer enables an AI feature in an instance, it may be enabled across applicable subscriptions in that instance and may process customer data associated with them.[2] An AI feature enabled in one interoperable Solution may process data in both.[2]
- Ownership. As between the parties, the customer has all rights in Inputs and Outputs, subject to limitations, and grants Blackbaud a licence to use them to provide and improve the AI or the Solutions. Outputs may not be unique to the customer.[2]
- Restriction on reuse. The customer may not use the AI or Output to develop, train or improve any other AI services or models, and may not scrape data from the AI.[2]
- Training by Blackbaud. Blackbaud may use Inputs and Outputs containing the customer’s Confidential Information solely to improve the customer’s own instance, and may use de-identified Inputs and Outputs more widely.[2]
- Third-party models. Blackbaud may use third-party large language models. Their processing of personal data makes them sub-processors under its Data Processing Addendum, and such AI is not subject to service level agreements unless explicitly stated.[2]
- Unpriced features can change. If there is no separate fee for an AI feature, Blackbaud may change it at any time in its sole discretion, including removing availability for certain geographies, introducing request limits, reducing functionality or ceasing the feature.[2]
The last point matters for budgeting. A feature included in a subscription at no separate fee carries no stated commitment to continue. Blackbaud’s annual report describes AI as a core pillar of its strategy, and says it has introduced generative AI features across multiple products.[3]
Professional services
Blackbaud’s Consulting and Professional Services Terms apply to all customers buying professional and consulting services, with billing terms that apply unless the Order Form says otherwise.[4]
| Model | Billing |
|---|---|
| Time and Material | Billed monthly on hours entered by the project team; Change Orders approved by the customer may alter scope, hours and cost[4] |
| Managed and retained services | Billed monthly from the Effective Date for the term, unless the Order Form says otherwise[4] |
| Fixed Price Engagement, 80 hours or fewer | 50% at the Effective Date and 50% 90 days later[4] |
| Fixed Price Engagement, 80 to 2,000 hours | Four payments: 30% at start, 30% at delivery of the Business Requirements Document, 30% at completion and 10% at closure[4] |
Pricing is conditional on the customer being ready to start engagements of fewer than 2,000 hours within 60 days of the Effective Date, unless the Statement of Work says otherwise.[4] Blackbaud’s annual report says consulting is generally billed on hourly rates plus reimbursable travel-related expenses, with fixed price engagements billed as milestones are reached.[3] The row is Professional services hour.
Regional terms
Regional terms modify the Solutions Agreement. For customers based in Canada, the use of a third party other than a Blackbaud certified implementation partner to implement Blackbaud Solutions voids the warranty obligations.[5] The Europe terms contract with Blackbaud Europe Ltd. and Giving.com Ltd, use Pound Sterling and ICDR arbitration in London, and state that the servers used to provide Subscriptions and hosting are operated by Blackbaud, Inc.[6] The Pacific terms make Blackbaud Pacific Pty Ltd the contracting entity.[7] Check which entity and currency appear on the Order Form before comparing prices across regions.
Acceptable use
The Acceptable Use Policy prohibits conduct that interferes with Blackbaud services or causes excessive or disproportionate load on Blackbaud or its suppliers’ infrastructure.[8] Where encrypted fields are available within a Solution, customers must not store sensitive personal information outside them.[8] Violation can lead to suspension, immediately on notice.[9]
Virtualization and partitioning
Not applicable to these terms.
Compliance
Support and AI terms create operational obligations: keep authorised contacts trained, stay on a supported release, enable AI deliberately and record which instance holds enabled features. None of the cited documents contains a software-usage audit right.
Out of scope
This article does not cover subscription pricing, payment services or Blackbaud’s data-security incident matters.