Convene is a quote-only board portal with a purpose-built housing governance, risk and compliance product, which its own site says a wide range of housing associations rely on. Housing associations wanting a published price, or a review cycle built around the housing sector's own code of governance, should compare Decision Time, Governance360, iBabs and BoardServe alongside it.
This is BoardServe's own comparison, written from our own research into what each vendor publishes on its own site. It is not an independent review, and BoardServe is one of the platforms described below. Every claim about another vendor is sourced to that vendor's own material or to a UK government framework listing, with the date we checked it.
It is written for housing association board members, company secretaries and governance leads already using Convene, or with it on a shortlist, who want to know what a genuine alternative looks like for a registered provider rather than for a listed company.
What are the best alternatives to Convene for a UK housing association?
The alternatives worth shortlisting are Decision Time, iBabs, Governance360 and BoardServe. Decision Time and iBabs compete on UK public-sector procurement and per-seat cost, Governance360 on a fully published price list for smaller organisations, and BoardServe on running the board, committee, chair and individual director review inside the same platform as the evidence trail.
None of the four is a like-for-like replacement for every part of Convene's housing product. The right shortlist depends on which of three things the board is actually buying: meeting and pack administration, a governance, risk and compliance suite, or a board effectiveness review cycle. Convene publishes material addressing all three. Most of the alternatives address one or two, and price accordingly.
| Platform | Scope | Published UK price | UK housing-sector evidence | Board review capability, as published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Convene (Azeus) | Board portal plus a housing-sector governance, risk and compliance product | None published; three unpriced tiers | Vendor states a wide range of housing associations rely on it (no customer count published); listed on G-Cloud 14 | Vendor states governance reviews, board evaluations and skills assessments via Convene Assure and its GRC suite |
| Decision Time (Advanced) | Meetings, risk register and grants modules sold as a governance operations suite | None found in this research pass | UK-headquartered in Antrim, Northern Ireland; multiple G-Cloud 14 listings | Not stated in the material found in this research pass |
| Governance360 | Governance portal built around the UK Charity Governance Code's income tiers | £400, £800 and £1,200 a year plus VAT by income band | UK-native and charity-code aligned; no housing-specific client evidence found | Benchmarking and board action plans on the Ultimate tier; no facilitated review service |
| iBabs (Euronext Corporate Solutions UK Limited) | Meeting and board-pack management | £12.64 a user a month on G-Cloud 14 | Vendor states over 30 NHS trusts, with a Salisbury NHS Trust case study; no housing client figure found | Not stated in the material found in this research pass |
| BoardServe | Governance platform built around assessment cycles, with boards, committees and meeting packs | Licensed per organisation, quoted after a walkthrough | UK-built; supports the National Housing Federation Code of Governance | Board, committee, chair and individual director reviews, internal or externally facilitated, tracked to an action plan between cycles |
Sources for the table, all checked on 3 August 2026: Convene pricing page, Convene housing sector page and Convene G-Cloud 14 listing; Decision Time Meetings G-Cloud 14 listing and board-rooms.co.uk overview; Governance360 pricing plans; iBabs G-Cloud 14 listing and Salisbury NHS Trust case study. "Not stated in the material found in this research pass" records what we could and could not find on 3 August 2026; it is not a statement that a capability does not exist. G-Cloud figures are UK public-sector rate card prices and may differ from a commercial quote for the same product.
What does Convene do well for housing associations?
Convene publishes more housing-specific evidence than any other vendor here. It runs a dedicated housing governance, risk and compliance product rather than a generic corporate portal, states that a wide range of housing associations rely on it, sells through G-Cloud 14, and was named first for usability in board management in G2's Winter 2025 report.
Those are four separate, checkable things, and they matter in different ways. The housing sector page states the product was shaped by social housing providers' complex group structures and regulated decision-making, and says the portal supports the NHF Code of Governance (checked on 3 August 2026). The same page states that "with Convene Assure and our GRC suite, you can run governance reviews, board evaluations and skills assessments tailored to the housing sector" (checked on 3 August 2026), so a board comparing on review capability should ask about Convene Assure specifically rather than assume the portal is meetings-only.
The usability recognition is worth weighing properly. Convene's own news page records a 9.67 usability score and first place in G2's Winter 2025 Board Management report, and its G2 profile carries 4.7 out of 5 from 296 reviews (both checked on 3 August 2026). For part-time non-executives who log in eight times a year, ease of use is not a soft factor.
Convene publishes no customer count for its housing base, so the breadth claim is the vendor's own wording rather than an audited figure, and this research pass did not verify it against a client list. Treat it as evidence of sector focus, which it clearly is, rather than as a market-share statistic.
Does Convene publish its prices?
No. Convene's pricing page lists three tiers, Lite, Standard and Enterprise, with no figures against any of them: the calls to action are "Request a Quote" on Lite and Enterprise and "Book a Demo" on Standard. The page's FAQ states the model plainly: "Our pricing model is on a per-user license, per-year basis."
That was the position on the Convene pricing page when we checked it on 3 August 2026. Quote-only pricing is the norm rather than the exception in this market: of twelve vendors in our 3 August 2026 research pass, three published a full price list without a sales call, and six were quote-only with no reliable published figure found anywhere.
Third-party sites do circulate per-user figures for Convene. Our research pass found reported entry pricing of roughly $400 a user a year, and roughly $25 a user a month scaling down at higher user counts, but those figures conflicted with each other across the underlying sources and none came from Convene. We are not repeating them as Convene's price, because they are not Convene's price. The honest comparison is between a vendor that publishes a number and a vendor that quotes one.
What the board needs to decide before switching board portal
- Whether a published price is a procurement requirement. A published price list lets a company secretary put a budget line in a board paper without a sales cycle. A quote-only vendor may still be the right answer, but the board should decide whether it is prepared to run a procurement to find out what the alternative costs.
- Which of the three products you are buying. Meeting and pack administration, a risk and compliance suite, and a board effectiveness review cycle are three purchases that vendors bundle differently. Score each shortlisted vendor against all three, and note which are included rather than sold as an add-on.
- What the NHF Code expects of you specifically. Board effectiveness is one of the four core principles of the National Housing Federation's Code of Governance 2020, alongside mission and values, strategy and delivery, and control and assurance (checked on 3 August 2026). If your association has adopted the Code, the review is an obligation with an evidence trail attached, not an optional module.
- Your procurement route. Convene, Decision Time and iBabs all sell through the UK Government's G-Cloud 14 framework on the Digital Marketplace. If you buy that way today, check whether a shortlisted alternative is on the framework before the business case is written.
- Migration cost and board patience. Changing portal means moving a document library, retraining a board and rebuilding permissions. Given Convene's specific, sourced usability recognition, a switch should be justified by something the board actually needs and cannot get, not by a marginal price difference.
How each alternative fits a housing association
Decision Time
Decision Time is the closest thing in this comparison to a UK public-sector native. It was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Antrim, Northern Ireland, and was acquired in April 2022 by Advanced, a UK enterprise software group (board-rooms.co.uk, checked on 3 August 2026). It sells meetings alongside separate risk-register and grants modules, and appears on G-Cloud 14 under several listings including Decision Time Meetings (checked on 3 August 2026).
It suits housing associations that value a UK-headquartered vendor and want the risk register on the same platform as meetings. We found no published rate card and no consolidated review score in this pass, which is a gap in our research rather than a criticism: it means the cost cannot be benchmarked without asking.
Governance360
Governance360 is the only vendor here with a fully published price list. Its tiers run at £400 a year plus VAT for organisations up to around £500,000 income with up to 10 users, £800 for £500,000 to £3 million with up to 20 users, and £1,200 for £3 million to £15 million or more complex structures with up to 30 users, granular permissions, benchmarking and board action plans (Governance360 pricing plans, checked on 3 August 2026).
It suits small registered providers, almshouse charities and community-led housing organisations whose income sits inside those bands. Most housing associations of any scale sit above the top published band, where custom pricing applies, so the tiers are useful mainly as a floor for the sector rather than as a quote.
iBabs
iBabs is sold in the UK through Euronext Corporate Solutions UK Limited and lists its board portal and meeting management solution at £12.64 a user a month on G-Cloud 14 (checked on 3 August 2026), which is roughly £152 a user a year before any organisation-wide minimum. A third-party review site cites a lower £10 a user figure and a one-off £995 setup fee (board-room.org, checked on 3 August 2026); the two figures do not reconcile, and iBabs does not publish a single commercial price list.
Its published UK evidence is health rather than housing: the vendor states it is used by over 30 NHS trusts and publishes a Salisbury NHS Trust case study (checked on 3 August 2026). It suits a housing board whose core need is packs, minutes and actions at a clear per-seat cost. Our comparison of iBabs alternatives covers that shortlist from the other direction.
BoardServe
BoardServe is a governance platform built around assessment cycles rather than a portal with an assessment module added. A single cycle covers the board, its committees, the chair and individual directors, run internally or by an external facilitator, with 360-degree and external no-login links for people outside the organisation, AI-assisted written reports exported to Word for the board pack, findings carried into an action plan tracked between cycles, and a time-stamped record of every response and request. It also administers boards and committees, assembles meeting packs and keeps attendance, actions and training on track, with calendar circulation and renewal reminders. It is licensed per organisation and quoted after a walkthrough.
It suits a housing association that wants the board effectiveness principle in the NHF Code evidenced continuously, in the same system that holds the papers, rather than assembled from a portal, a survey tool and a consultant's report. Where a board wants an independent facilitator, the platform is what the facilitator works in.
What housing boards get wrong when comparing Convene alternatives
Treating a third-party site's figure as the vendor's price. Directory and review sites publish per-user estimates for quote-only vendors that the vendor has never confirmed. Our own research found the circulating Convene figures conflicted with each other. Check the vendor's own pricing page, and if there is no number on it, say so in the board paper.
Assuming sector presence answers the review question. A dedicated housing product and a board effectiveness review capability are two different things, and a vendor's client count tells you about the first. Ask each shortlisted vendor which of the review lenses it covers, whether committees and individual directors are included, and whether findings become tracked actions or a PDF.
Comparing licence against licence and forgetting the review fee. A portal licence and an externally facilitated review are separate line items in most housing budgets. Published UK review fees run from £675 a day excluding VAT for a sector body (Natspec, checked on 3 August 2026) to £3,000 to £10,000 for a smaller organisation (Governance360, checked on 3 August 2026). Compare the two lines together.
Underweighting usability. Convene's usability recognition is specific and sourced. If a cheaper alternative is harder for a part-time board to use, the saving is paid back in unread papers and chased responses.
Where to start
Write the shortlist as three columns, not one: meetings and packs, risk and compliance, and the board effectiveness review cycle. Ask each vendor, including Convene, to state in writing what is included in the quoted price against each column, and what is charged separately. That single question resolves most of the confusion in this market, because the bundles differ far more than the feature lists suggest.
For the wider sector view before narrowing to Convene specifically, our comparison of board portal software for UK housing associations covers the market by sector fit, and our UK board management software comparison covers it by buyer segment.
If the review cycle is the part your current portal does not settle, BoardServe's board effectiveness reviews covers board, committee, chair and individual director reviews, internal or externally facilitated, with findings tracked to an action plan between cycles and a time-stamped record behind every response. It is licensed per organisation and quoted after a walkthrough, so the scope is agreed against your board's own cycle before any number is discussed.