Pane vs Rows for Nonprofits
Pane is a new AI-native spreadsheet where an intelligent agent edits cells, writes formulas, and builds charts directly inside the grid. Rows is a mature AI-powered spreadsheet platform with 60+ live data integrations, collaborative sharing, and a natural language AI Analyst. Both tools make spreadsheet analysis accessible to non-technical staff, but they approach the problem from very different angles. The right choice depends on whether your nonprofit needs agentic AI editing on uploaded files, or a connected platform for live data and shared dashboards.
Quick Verdict
Choose based on your nonprofit's data and workflow needs:
Choose Pane if:
- •You upload CSV or Excel files and want AI to edit the grid directly
- •You want full transparency: every AI action visible and editable in the sheet
- •You need a simple, focused tool for one-off data cleaning without live integrations
- •You prefer an agentic approach where AI works on cells rather than generating text
- •You want to start free with minimal setup and no credit card
Choose Rows if:
- •You need live connections to CRMs, Google Analytics, Gmail, or databases
- •Your team collaborates on spreadsheets with roles and guest sharing
- •You need to publish live dashboards boards and funders can view without accounts
- •Your workflow requires scheduling automated data refreshes from multiple sources
- •You want a mature, established platform with documented pricing and support
At a Glance: Pane vs Rows
| Criteria | Pane | Rows | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free tier (limits undisclosed) | Free; Plus $8/user/month; Pro $79+$8/user/month | Rows |
| Nonprofit Discount | None documented | None (functional free tier) | Tie |
| AI Approach | Agentic: edits cells directly in the grid | AI Analyst: natural language queries + Python | Context |
| Ease of Use | 4/5 (familiar grid, iterative prompting) | 4/5 (familiar UX, integration setup needed) | Tie |
| Integrations | CSV, Excel, PDF import only | 60+ native (HubSpot, Salesforce, Gmail, Google Analytics...) | Rows |
| Collaboration | Not documented | Roles, permissions, guest access, live publishing | Rows |
| Data Privacy | Data obfuscated at rest; agent uses cloud LLMs | Minimal data shared: headers + 5 sample rows only | Tie |
| Product Maturity | Early stage (launched 2026) | Established (founded 2018, 100,000s of users) | Rows |
| Live Dashboards | Not documented | Yes: publish and embed live dashboards | Rows |
| Transparency | Every AI action visible and editable in the grid | AI answers are dynamic formulas; actions visible | Pane |
The AI Spreadsheet Problem Nonprofits Face
Spreadsheets remain the most common data tool in the nonprofit sector. Program coordinators track client outcomes in Excel, development teams manage donor pipelines in Google Sheets, and finance staff reconcile budgets in exported CSVs. The challenge has never been the spreadsheet format itself but the gap between the data inside it and the insights leadership needs. AI spreadsheet tools promise to close that gap, allowing staff without data analysis skills to ask questions and get meaningful answers.
Pane and Rows represent two distinct approaches to this problem. Pane, which launched in early 2026, takes an agentic approach: you type instructions in plain English, and an AI agent edits your spreadsheet directly, writing formulas, sorting data, cleaning fields, and building charts in the same grid you already know. Every action is visible, reversible, and produces real spreadsheet output rather than a text summary. For nonprofits that regularly export data from their CRM or program database and need fast, hands-on analysis, this approach can be compelling.
Rows, which has been in operation since 2018, approaches the same problem with a broader set of capabilities. Rather than replacing the spreadsheet interaction model, Rows extends it: you connect live data sources, pull in real-time information from 60+ apps, ask an AI Analyst to interpret trends, and publish interactive dashboards that boards and funders view without needing an account. For nonprofits that manage data from multiple systems, collaborate across teams, and need to report to external stakeholders regularly, Rows offers a more complete platform.
This comparison examines both tools across the dimensions that matter most to nonprofit organizations: what each tool actually does, how the AI works in practice, pricing and nonprofit accessibility, integration with the software nonprofits already use, collaboration and sharing, data privacy, and which use cases each tool handles best. The right choice is not always the more feature-rich option, and understanding the tradeoffs will help your organization make a decision that fits your team's size, technical comfort, and data workflow.
What Is Pane?
Pane is an AI-native spreadsheet tool launched in early 2026. Its core differentiator is the Pane Agent: an AI that works inside the spreadsheet grid the same way a skilled human analyst would. When you describe what you need in plain English, the agent selects cells, writes formulas, sorts ranges, and inserts charts directly in your sheet. You watch it work step by step, and every output is a real spreadsheet element you can edit, move, or delete.
This agentic approach addresses one of the main frustrations with AI-assisted data tools: the disconnect between the AI's text answer and the actual spreadsheet. Rather than asking a question and receiving a written response that you then have to manually implement, Pane implements changes for you. If you ask it to "calculate the average donation amount per month and create a bar chart," it does exactly that in your sheet without you touching a formula.
Core Capabilities
- Pane Agent edits cells, writes formulas, sorts, filters, and transforms data on command
- Full formula support powered by HyperFormula (SUM, VLOOKUP, AVERAGE, and more)
- Import CSV, Excel (.xlsx), and PDF files with smart table extraction
- Auto-generate dashboards with charts and key metrics from uploaded data
- Bar, line, pie, area, and scatter charts draggable and resizable on the sheet
- Cloud storage accessible from any device
Current Limitations
- No live data integrations: all data must be imported manually as files
- No documented collaboration or multi-user editing features
- Macros are not yet supported
- Pricing limits are undisclosed, making budget planning uncertain
- Very early-stage product: roadmap, longevity, and support quality are unproven
- Complex tasks may require multiple prompts and iterations
For nonprofits, Pane's transparency is a genuine asset. When an AI tool changes your data, you want to know exactly what changed and why. Pane's approach of working visibly within the grid means you can review every formula it writes before relying on it for a grant report or board presentation. The main caution is that Pane is still a very new product with limited public documentation, no published pricing structure, and no track record with enterprise or nonprofit customers. Organizations that need to budget predictably and rely on the tool for critical workflows should weigh that early-stage risk carefully.
What Is Rows?
Rows is a cloud-based spreadsheet platform that combines a familiar grid interface with powerful AI analysis and 60+ native live data integrations. Founded in 2018 as Dashdash and rebranded as Rows, the platform has grown to serve hundreds of thousands of users at companies ranging from startups to AWS and Hewlett-Packard. Its tagline is "Your new AI Data Analyst," reflecting its focus on making data analysis accessible to anyone who can describe what they need in plain English.
The Rows AI Analyst accepts natural language questions about your data and returns answers as dynamic spreadsheet formulas that recalculate automatically when underlying data changes. This is meaningfully different from tools that return static text: a Rows formula that calculates "average donation per month" updates every time new donation data arrives from your connected CRM, without you touching anything. Rows' published benchmark testing shows an 89% first-try accuracy rate for AI-answered spreadsheet questions compared to 53% for Excel Copilot and 57% for Google Sheets' AI features.
Core Capabilities
- AI Analyst answers natural language questions with dynamic, auto-updating formulas
- 60+ native integrations: HubSpot, Salesforce, Gmail, Google Analytics, Slack, MySQL, BigQuery, and more
- Live data refresh: daily on Plus, per-minute on Pro
- Publish interactive dashboards viewable by anyone without a Rows account
- Embed tables and charts into Notion, Confluence, Power BI, and Looker Studio
- Python-powered advanced analysis: cohort modeling, forecasting, statistics
- PDF, image, and web data extraction using vision AI
Current Limitations
- No dedicated nonprofit discount program
- Free plan limited to 5 AI tasks per month and manual data refresh
- No native integrations with nonprofit-specific CRMs (Bloomerang, Kindful, DonorPerfect)
- Mobile app significantly inferior to the web version
- Performance can degrade with very large datasets
- Cloud-only: requires stable internet for all features, no offline access
For nonprofits with data spread across multiple platforms, Rows' integration breadth is its most compelling advantage. Instead of manually exporting and importing CSVs from your CRM, email platform, and analytics tool each week, you connect them once and let Rows pull fresh data on a schedule. The resulting spreadsheet is always current, always ready for analysis, and can be shared as a live dashboard that refreshes automatically. This transforms the monthly board reporting process from a multi-hour manual effort into a nearly automated workflow.
Head-to-Head Feature Comparison
AI Capabilities and Approach
How each tool's AI works and what it can do for your data
Pane: Agentic Grid Editing
Pane's agent works inside the spreadsheet grid as an active participant rather than an external advisor. When you instruct it to "find all donors who gave more than $500 last year and highlight them," it selects cells, applies filters, and formats results directly in your sheet. This makes AI actions immediately visible and integrated into your existing data structure.
The agent writes real spreadsheet formulas rather than computing results once and embedding static values. This means the output is inspectable, editable, and understandable to anyone familiar with spreadsheets. The tradeoff is that complex multi-step analyses may require iterative prompting to achieve the exact result you need.
Rows: AI Analyst with Dynamic Formulas
Rows' AI Analyst receives natural language questions and returns answers as dynamic spreadsheet formulas that recalculate when data changes. Ask "what is our average monthly donation from new donors this year?" and you receive a live formula, not a static number. This is particularly powerful when your data refreshes automatically from connected sources.
Beyond the AI Analyst, Rows supports Python-powered analysis for cohort modeling, forecasting, and statistics, web research functions that pull real-time information into cells, and vision AI that extracts tables from PDFs and images. This gives Rows a broader AI toolkit for advanced users while maintaining accessibility for non-technical staff.
Nonprofit context: For analyzing a one-time export from your CRM, both tools perform similarly. For ongoing reporting where data refreshes regularly, Rows' dynamic formula approach keeps your analysis current without manual re-running. Pane's agentic editing is more intuitive for hands-on data cleaning and one-off exploration tasks.
Data Sources and Integrations
How each tool connects to the data your nonprofit relies on
Pane: Import-Only
Pane supports importing CSV, Excel (.xlsx), and PDF files, with smart parsing to extract tables from complex document formats. There are no documented third-party integrations or live data connections. Every analysis begins with a manual file upload. For nonprofits, this means regularly exporting from your CRM, program database, or financial system before bringing data into Pane. While this workflow is familiar to many spreadsheet users, it creates friction for teams that need up-to-date data for daily or weekly reporting.
Rows: 60+ Native Live Connections
Rows connects directly to over 60 apps without needing Zapier or Make as middleware. Relevant integrations for nonprofits include HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, Gmail, Slack, Mailchimp, Google Analytics 4, Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion, MySQL, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, Snowflake, Google Maps, and DeepL for translation. Data refreshes automatically on a schedule you set, keeping your spreadsheets current without manual exports. Nonprofit-specific CRMs like Bloomerang and DonorPerfect are not natively supported but are accessible via Rows' built-in Zapier and Make integrations.
Winner: Rows by a significant margin for any nonprofit that pulls data from multiple sources. For organizations that work primarily with exported files, the gap narrows but Rows still offers more flexibility.
Collaboration and Sharing
Working with teammates and sharing results with stakeholders
Pane: Limited Collaboration Information
Pane's collaboration features are not publicly documented. The product appears oriented toward individual use: a single analyst uploading a file and working with the AI agent to explore and transform data. There is no public information about shared workspaces, permission levels, real-time co-editing, or external sharing of spreadsheets or dashboards. For nonprofits where multiple staff members contribute to or review data, this is a significant gap until the product matures and documents these capabilities.
Rows: Full Team and Stakeholder Sharing
Rows supports workspace-level roles with distinct Editor and Viewer permissions, guest access for external stakeholders with plan-based limits (3 guests on Free, 10 on Plus, 200 on Pro), and live publishing that generates a public URL where anyone can view your spreadsheet as an interactive dashboard without a Rows account. Tables and charts can also be embedded in Notion, Confluence, Power BI, Looker Studio, and other tools your team may already use for internal documentation and reporting.
Winner: Rows clearly, for any nonprofit with team data workflows. Live publishing is especially valuable for board reporting and funder dashboards where stakeholders need to see current data without logging into another tool.
Transparency and Auditability
Understanding and verifying what the AI did to your data
Pane: Maximum Transparency
Pane's agentic approach is inherently auditable because every AI action occurs in the spreadsheet grid where you can see it happen. The agent selects visible cells, writes standard formulas, and produces chart objects you can inspect and modify. If the AI writes a VLOOKUP that doesn't work correctly, you can see the formula, diagnose the problem, and fix it. There is no hidden calculation layer or black-box summary. For nonprofits where data accuracy matters for grant reporting and compliance, this transparency is a meaningful advantage.
Rows: Dynamic Formulas You Can Inspect
Rows' AI Analyst produces answers as spreadsheet formulas rather than static text outputs, which means you can examine the formula logic, verify it against source data, and understand how the result was calculated. Version history is included on all paid plans (7 days free, 30 days Plus, 2 years Pro, unlimited Enterprise), giving you a way to compare current data against historical states and audit changes over time. The AI does not silently modify your raw data; analysis results appear in formula cells you control.
Edge: Pane for immediate visual transparency of AI actions; Rows for long-term auditability via version history. Both are meaningfully more transparent than tools that return plain text answers with no inspectable logic.
Reporting and Dashboard Output
Creating charts, reports, and presentations from your data
Pane: Charts in the Grid
Pane generates bar, line, pie, area, and scatter charts directly in the spreadsheet grid. You can drag and resize charts to build a visual layout within your sheet. The agent can also automatically create a dashboard with relevant charts and key metrics from uploaded data, giving you a starting point for a report without manually configuring each visualization. How these charts are exported or shared externally is not currently documented.
Rows: Live Published Dashboards
Rows supports full chart creation within the spreadsheet and goes further with live publishing: you generate a public URL for your sheet that displays it as an interactive dashboard. Stakeholders can sort, filter, and explore data in their browser without logging into Rows or having an account. Charts and tables also embed directly into Notion, Confluence, Power BI, Looker Studio, and other tools via embed codes. For nonprofits that share metrics with boards, funders, or program partners, this live sharing capability is particularly valuable.
Winner: Rows for external reporting and stakeholder sharing. Pane is adequate for internal chart creation but lacks the publishing infrastructure needed for nonprofit board and funder reporting workflows.
Pricing Breakdown
Pane Pricing
Pricing details are limited as the product is in early access
Free Tier
Available with a "Get Started Free" call-to-action. Exact feature limits are not publicly documented. No credit card required to start.
Paid Plans
Not publicly listed as of February 2026. Pane is an early-stage product and pricing structure may still be developing. Contact the team directly for enterprise or team pricing inquiries.
Planning Caution
Opaque pricing makes multi-year budgeting difficult. Nonprofits should verify current pricing directly with Pane before committing to workflows that depend on continued access.
Rows Pricing
Annual billing rates per user per month
Free
$0
- 5 AI tasks per month
- 3 guest users
- Manual data refresh only
- 7-day version history
- 1 MB file import limit
Plus
$8 /user/month (annual)
- 200 AI tasks per month
- 10 guest users
- Daily automatic data refresh
- 30-day version history
- 5 MB file import limit
Pro
$79 /month + $8/user (annual)
- 1,000 AI tasks per month
- 200 guest users
- Per-minute data refresh automation
- 2-year version history
- 100 MB file import limit
Cost Comparison for a Typical Nonprofit Team
For a small nonprofit development and program team of 4 staff members needing monthly donor reporting and program outcome analysis, Rows' Plus plan would cost approximately $32/month or $384/year on annual billing. This provides 200 AI tasks per month (enough for regular analysis), daily data refreshes from connected sources, and the ability to share live dashboards with board members as guests.
Pane's cost for the same team is unknown without published pricing, which is a genuine obstacle for nonprofit finance committees that need to approve tool budgets. The free tier is a useful starting point for evaluation, but the path from free to paid, and what that costs, is currently unclear.
Nonprofit Discounts and Special Pricing
Neither Pane nor Rows currently offers a formal nonprofit discount program. This is common among newer AI tools and productivity platforms that have not yet developed dedicated nonprofit pricing tiers. The following options exist for cost-conscious nonprofits:
Pane Nonprofit Access
- Free tier available with no credit card required
- No documented nonprofit discount or social impact pricing program
- As an early-stage startup, the team may be receptive to direct outreach for partnership or pilot pricing
- Verify current pricing and free tier limits directly at paneapp.com before planning around long-term use
Rows Nonprofit Access
- Fully functional free tier with no credit card required (5 AI tasks/month, manual refresh)
- No published nonprofit discount program
- Nonprofits can contact [email protected] to ask about potential accommodations
- Plus at $8/user/month is competitive with similar tools and accessible for most nonprofit budgets
For nonprofits comparing the two tools on cost accessibility, Rows' transparent pricing makes it significantly easier to plan and budget, even without a formal discount. The free tier is genuinely usable for small teams with modest AI needs, and the Plus plan at $8/user/month is well within reach for most organizations. Pane's free tier is a good entry point, but without published paid plan pricing, organizations cannot evaluate the total cost of scaling their use.
Note: Prices may be outdated or inaccurate.
Ease of Use and Learning Curve
Both Pane and Rows are designed for users who are comfortable with spreadsheets but do not have data science or programming backgrounds. The key differences in the user experience emerge not from the core interface but from the nature of each tool's AI interaction model and the complexity of setting up ongoing data workflows.
Pane Learning Experience
Pane's onboarding is low-friction: upload a file, describe what you want, watch the agent work. For users who learn by doing, watching the AI edit cells in real time is an effective way to understand both what the tool can do and how to prompt it effectively. The grid-based interface is immediately familiar to anyone who has used Excel or Google Sheets.
The main learning curve is developing effective prompting skills for complex or multi-step analyses. Some user reviews note that getting the desired result requires iterating on prompts, which can feel trial-and-error for less experienced users. Pane's documentation is limited given its early-stage status, so there are fewer tutorials and community resources compared to more established tools.
Rows Learning Experience
Rows consistently receives high marks for usability, with the interface rated 4.8/5 by third-party reviewers. The spreadsheet layout is familiar, and the AI Analyst accepts plain English questions without requiring any formula knowledge. Users who are already comfortable with Google Sheets or Excel can typically start analyzing data within minutes of creating an account.
Setting up live integrations requires more configuration than simply uploading a file, but the process is guided and no-code. The most common feedback is that Rows' documentation could be more comprehensive for power users. Mobile experience is notably weaker than the web interface, which can be a limitation for nonprofit leaders who review data on the go.
Integration and Compatibility
Integration depth is the most significant differentiator between these two tools. Nonprofits typically manage data across several systems: a donor CRM, an email marketing platform, a program database, financial software, and often Google Workspace for internal operations. The ability to pull live data from these systems into your spreadsheet analysis tool determines how much manual work is eliminated.
Rows: Nonprofit-Relevant Integrations
Native connections to tools nonprofits commonly use
CRM and Fundraising
- HubSpot (native)
- Salesforce (native)
- Zoho CRM (native)
- Pipedrive (native)
- Bloomerang (via Zapier/Make)
- DonorPerfect (via Zapier/Make)
Marketing and Analytics
- Google Analytics 4 (native)
- Gmail (native)
- Mailchimp (native)
- Facebook Ads (native)
- LinkedIn Pages (native)
- Google Search Console (native)
Data and Operations
- Google Sheets (native)
- Airtable (native)
- Notion (native)
- Slack (native)
- MySQL, PostgreSQL (native)
- BigQuery, Snowflake (native)
Pane has no documented third-party integrations as of early 2026. All data must be imported manually as files. This is not necessarily a dealbreaker for nonprofits that have a regular export workflow from their CRM, but it does mean Pane cannot replace the manual step of exporting and uploading data each time analysis is needed. For organizations where data freshness matters, such as tracking a fundraising campaign in real time or monitoring program enrollment weekly, this limitation is significant.
Which Tool Should Your Nonprofit Choose?
Choose Pane if your nonprofit...
- Primarily analyzes one-off exports from a single system (CRM, financial software, program database)
- Needs AI to do the actual spreadsheet work: cleaning messy imported data, writing formulas, building charts
- Values watching every AI action in the grid and wants full control over each change
- Has a small team with one or two data users who work independently rather than collaboratively
- Wants to experiment with an innovative early-stage AI tool and is comfortable with the risks of a new product
- Does not need to share live dashboards with board members or funders regularly
Choose Rows if your nonprofit...
- Pulls data from multiple sources (CRM, email platform, Google Analytics, financial system) and needs them in one place
- Produces regular reports for boards, funders, or program partners that need to see live, current data
- Has multiple team members who contribute to or review spreadsheet analysis and need shared access
- Needs predictable, budgetable pricing for financial planning and board approval
- Wants a proven platform with a track record, documentation, and customer support
- Uses HubSpot, Salesforce, Gmail, Mailchimp, or Google Analytics and wants to connect them without middleware
Our Recommendation for Most Nonprofits
For the majority of nonprofits, Rows is the more practical choice in early 2026. The combination of transparent pricing, a functional free tier, 60+ live data integrations, collaborative features, and live publishing capabilities covers the full nonprofit data reporting workflow from data ingestion through stakeholder sharing. Rows also has the track record and support infrastructure to be a reliable tool for critical organizational workflows.
Pane is genuinely innovative and worth monitoring as it matures. Its agentic approach to spreadsheet editing is a meaningful advance over tools that only generate text answers about data, and the transparency of watching AI edit your grid is valuable for teams that need to verify every step. If your nonprofit has a solo analyst who primarily works with exported files and wants to experiment with cutting-edge AI tools, Pane is worth exploring on its free tier. As Pane publishes pricing, develops collaboration features, and builds a track record with nonprofit customers, it may become a more broadly competitive option.
Getting Started with Your Choice
Getting Started with Pane
- 1.Visit paneapp.com and create a free account. No credit card is required to start.
- 2.Export a recent data file from your CRM or program database as a CSV and upload it to Pane.
- 3.Try a simple natural language instruction such as "calculate the sum of column C and show me a bar chart by month" to see the agent work.
- 4.Evaluate the free tier for your regular use cases before inquiring about paid plan availability.
- 5.Always anonymize any personally identifiable donor or participant data before uploading to a cloud-based AI tool.
Getting Started with Rows
- 1.Visit rows.com and create a free workspace. No credit card is needed for the free plan.
- 2.Start with a file upload (CSV or Excel) to explore the AI Analyst before setting up live integrations.
- 3.Connect your most-used data source first (Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Mailchimp are popular starting points).
- 4.Build a simple donor or program report and publish it as a live dashboard to share with your executive director or board chair.
- 5.Upgrade to Plus ($8/user/month) when daily refresh and more AI tasks become necessary for your workflow.
Explore More Data Tool Comparisons
Pane and Rows are two options in a growing category of AI-enhanced data tools. Depending on your organization's specific reporting needs, you may also want to explore how these tools compare to dedicated data analysis platforms and business intelligence tools.
Compare Rows' AI-powered spreadsheet and live integrations against Google's free dashboard and visualization platform.
See how Julius AI's specialized data analysis compares to ChatGPT's Advanced Data Analysis mode for nonprofit reporting.
Compare free cloud dashboards against open-source self-hosted business intelligence for nonprofits with technical teams.
No-code AI instant dashboards vs Microsoft's enterprise business intelligence platform for nonprofits.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Pane and how does its AI work inside a spreadsheet?
Pane is an AI-native spreadsheet where you give the AI instructions in plain English and it directly edits cells, writes formulas, builds charts, and transforms data within the grid itself. Rather than generating a text answer about your data, the Pane Agent acts like a skilled spreadsheet user: selecting ranges, inserting functions, and producing visible results you can review and edit. This agentic approach makes every AI action transparent, reversible, and familiar to anyone who has used Excel or Google Sheets.
What is Rows and what makes it different from Google Sheets?
Rows is a cloud-based AI-powered spreadsheet platform that extends the familiar spreadsheet interface with 60+ native live data integrations, an AI Analyst for natural language queries, and collaborative sharing features. Unlike Google Sheets, Rows connects directly to external apps like HubSpot, Salesforce, Gmail, Google Analytics, Slack, and databases without middleware. You can schedule automatic data refreshes, publish interactive live dashboards that stakeholders view without accounts, and use Python-powered analysis for advanced reporting.
Do Pane or Rows offer nonprofit discounts?
Neither Pane nor Rows currently offers a dedicated nonprofit discount program as of early 2026. Rows provides a genuinely usable free plan with 5 AI tasks per month and manual data refresh, accessible to small nonprofits without a budget for paid tools. Pane has a free tier but with undisclosed limits. Nonprofits interested in Rows' paid plans can contact [email protected] directly. For budget-conscious organizations, Rows' free tier or the $8/user/month Plus plan offer the most transparent value.
Can these tools connect to nonprofit CRMs like Bloomerang or DonorPerfect?
Rows does not have native integrations for nonprofit-specific CRMs like Bloomerang or DonorPerfect, but these can be connected via Zapier or Make, which Rows supports natively. Rows does have direct integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho CRM, and Pipedrive. Pane has no documented third-party integrations at all, relying entirely on file uploads. For nonprofits that need their spreadsheet tool to talk directly to their donor database on a scheduled basis, Rows is the only realistic option between these two.
Is my nonprofit's data safe when uploaded to Pane or Rows?
Both tools have taken steps to limit data exposure to AI models. Pane states that spreadsheet data is obfuscated at rest. Rows shares only the minimum necessary data with AI models: table headers, up to 5 sample rows, and basic statistics. For both tools, you should avoid uploading personally identifiable information such as donor names, addresses, or participant health data. Always anonymize or aggregate sensitive data before uploading to any cloud-based AI tool and review each platform's privacy policy alongside your organization's data governance guidelines.
Which tool is better for creating donor reports and board presentations?
Rows has a clear advantage for donor reports and board presentations because of its live publishing and embedding features. You can publish a Rows spreadsheet as an interactive dashboard that board members view in their browser without needing a Rows account, and the data updates automatically based on your refresh schedule. Pane can generate charts from uploaded data, but lacks documented publishing or sharing features that allow external stakeholders to view live data. For reports that need to be refreshed regularly and shared broadly, Rows is the stronger choice.
Need Help Choosing the Right Data Tool?
Selecting the right AI spreadsheet tool depends on your nonprofit's data sources, team size, and reporting requirements. Our team helps nonprofits evaluate and implement tools that fit their actual workflows, not just their feature wish lists.
