FörderBase
FörderBase is a German software-as-a-service platform that matches municipalities, non-profit associations and SMEs with over 3,100 active public funding programmes, scoring each one from 0 to 100 and helping draft the resulting application outline.
What is FörderBase?
FörderBase is a German web-based software-as-a-service platform — the wording of its own terms of service — for finding public funding programmes (Fördermittel) and preparing applications for them. It is published not by a company but by an individual: Marcel Bäsler, a sole trader based in Holleben, in the Saalekreis district of Saxony-Anhalt. The product currently runs under his pre-existing consulting activity, Bäsler Consulting, and spinning it out into a standalone company is stated as a medium-term goal rather than an accomplished fact.
The database announces 3,121 active programmes on the home page and “over 3,100” elsewhere. It draws on EU sources (EFRE, ESF+, ELER, LEADER), federal ones (BAFA, KfW, BMWK programmes), the sixteen Länder and private foundations, with an automatic daily import of those sources. Dedicated regional pages cover each Land, and thematic pages cover subjects such as heat pumps, KfW and BAFA schemes, and digitalisation.
Matching works in two stages. A rule-based eligibility gate first removes the programmes an applicant cannot claim and states the reason for each exclusion; whatever survives is then evaluated semantically by GPT-4o-mini, the model the FAQ names explicitly. The result is a score from 0 to 100, broken down into region, applicant and topic components, with a plain-language justification and an indication of how much of the stated financial need the programme would cover.
Around the matching sit an application-outline editor, a deadline calendar, a shortlist, a project management module and a Kommunal module for local authorities. AI usage is metered: monthly credits run to 3 on Free, 50 on the Verein and Starter plans, 250 on Professional and unlimited on Enterprise, while matching campaigns are capped at 1, 8, 8, 25 and 100 per month respectively.
The publisher cites figures to frame the opportunity: a median association-focused programme of €20,000 at a 100% funding rate, and more than 130 programmes below €5,000. A demonstration video on the home page is presented as real footage from the application, and Daniel Krämer is credited for contributions on the AI side.
What it does
- Search more than 3,100 active funding programmes by semantic query and by region, applicant type, topic or amount
- Screen hard eligibility first: nine rules check applicant type, legal form, Land, charitable status and project start date before anything is scored
- Get a 0 to 100 match score broken down by region, applicant profile and topic, with the reasoning stated in plain language
- Draft an application outline section by section with AI assistance, and check it against the programme criteria
- Track deadlines in a calendar with a red-amber-green status system, email reminders and iCal export
- Shortlist promising programmes and compare three of them side by side
- Run the funded project itself: Kanban board, Gantt chart, planned-versus-actual budget and reporting, from the Professional plan up
When to use FörderBase / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if FörderBase is the right fit.
When to use FörderBase
- Registered charitable associations, which get a dedicated rate of €69 per year covering the full Starter scope
- Municipalities and local authorities, addressed by a dedicated Kommunal module with property portfolios, AI-drafted funding strategies and council decision templates
- SMEs and founders looking for innovation, digitalisation or growth funding
- Organisations with no dedicated funding officer, which the publisher describes as typically lacking the resources to track programmes themselves
- Owners of energy-efficiency projects, such as heat pump installations covered by BAFA BEG EM or KfW 458
When not to use FörderBase
- Anyone looking for legal or funding-law advice: the publisher states twice, in the imprint and in §8 of the terms, that the platform does not replace it
- Applicants who need a guarantee: §8(2) of the terms rules out any warranty that a suggested programme applies or that an application will be approved
- Users expecting an official public body — the FAQ states plainly that FörderBase is a private software product
- Organisations outside Germany: the database only covers German and European programmes for German applicants
- Non-German speakers, since the interface and the entire programme database are German-only
How to use FörderBase
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Start with the Schnellcheck if you want a first answer with no commitment: four questions, no account, an immediate result linked to the matching programmes
- Associations that do not yet know what is fundable can begin instead with the Fördermöglichkeiten-Radar
- Create an account — the site advertises two minutes and no credit card for the free plan
- Describe your idea or project; the AI can generate the description from a few keywords if you prefer
- Be specific about what you do, for whom, where, on what budget and to what end: match quality follows description quality
- Run the AI matching and read the ranked list, each programme carrying its score and the reason behind it
- Shortlist the programmes worth pursuing and compare three of them side by side
- Draft the application outline in the editor, section by section, with auto-save and versioning, then export it as a PDF
- Put the deadlines in the calendar and export them by iCal into Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar
- Invite colleagues by email from the single administrator account, within the seat limit of your plan; a paid upgrade is active immediately after payment, with no manual approval step
Pros & Cons
Pros
- The match score is explicit and broken down by region, applicant and topic, instead of an opaque ranking
- A rule-based eligibility gate runs before the AI and discards what could not be funded anyway, stating the ground for exclusion
- The free plan is permanent and needs no credit card, and registered charitable associations pay €69 a year, well below the standard rate
- All seven processors are named, with full addresses and stated purposes
- No tracking or marketing cookies at all; audience measurement is cookieless, with daily hashed IP addresses that are not stored
- A no-training commitment on customer data, repeated in three places on the site
- Data stored on EU servers in Frankfurt, and monthly cancellation from within the account, with no minimum term beyond one month
Cons
- The publisher is an individual sole trader under the German small-business regime (§19 UStG), whose consulting activity is described on his own site as a sideline: there is no legal entity, no commercial register entry, no VAT number and no public incorporation date
- Three pricing generations coexist on the site — €10/€30 in the FAQ, €14/€29/€149 on the plan cards, €19/€39/€199 in the comparison table and the terms — and the VAT statement on the pricing page contradicts §4(2) of the terms
- No API, no mobile application and no browser extension
- Interface and programme database in German only, with a scope limited to Germany
- No trial period on the paid plans, and AI credits and matching campaigns are capped monthly on every plan except Enterprise
- AI processing takes place at OpenAI in the United States, outside the EU, under standard contractual clauses
- No security certification such as ISO 27001 or SOC 2 is claimed or published, and no data processing agreement is offered to customers: the Article 28 agreements cited bind the publisher to his own processors
Pricing & Plans
A permanent free plan is available: Free costs €0 and includes one project, one user, one matching campaign and three AI credits per month. The lowest generally available paid entry point is the Starter plan at €19 per month, or €170 per year. Professional costs €39 per month (€350 per year) and Enterprise €199 per month (€1,790 per year) on request. Registered charitable associations may instead take the Verein plan at €69 per year, which covers the full Starter scope. Annual commitment is presented as three months free. Under §4(2) of the terms the publisher is a small business within the meaning of §19 UStG, so no VAT is charged and the prices shown are final. Payment is handled by Stripe, by Visa, Mastercard, American Express or SEPA direct debit. The minimum term is one month with monthly renewal, cancellation takes effect at the end of the month, consumers have a fourteen-day right of withdrawal under §355 BGB, and any price increase is announced thirty days in advance.
- Free — €0 — one project
- one user
- three AI credits per month
- one matching campaign
- three AI project suggestions
- Verein — €69 per year — the full Starter scope
- reserved for registered charitable associations
- with proof of charitable status presented on request
- Starter — €19 per month or €170 per year — five projects
- three users
- 50 AI credits
- eight matching campaigns
- auto-matching and email alerts
- Professional — €39 per month or €350 per year — unlimited projects
- ten users
- 250 AI credits
- 25 matching campaigns
- project management module
- priority support within 24 hours
- Enterprise — €199 per month or €1
- 790 per year
- on request — unlimited users and credits
- 100 matching campaigns
- Kommunal module
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how FörderBase handles your data.
GDPR overview
The privacy notice is written as an Article 13 and 14 GDPR statement and was last updated on 31 May 2026. It names a legal basis for each processing operation — Article 6(1)(b), (a) and (f) — and lists the rights available under Articles 15, 16, 17, 18, 20 and 21, exercisable at info@foerderbase.de. Seven processors are named individually, each with a full postal address and a stated purpose. The competent supervisory authority is named as well: Landesbeauftragter für den Datenschutz Sachsen-Anhalt, Leiterstraße 9, 39104 Magdeburg. The newsletter uses double opt-in and consent can be withdrawn at any time. The pricing page summarises the posture as “DSGVO-konform · EU-Hosting” — the publisher’s own claim, not a third-party certificate.
Who owns the data?
The imprint and the privacy notice name a single controller: Marcel Bäsler, Ernst-Thälmann-Straße 44, 06179 Holleben. As a sole trader with fewer than twenty people, he states that no data protection officer is required under Article 37 GDPR and §38 BDSG. Registered users keep direct control of their own content: Settings → Profile lets them download their data under Article 20 or delete the account under Article 17, without asking anyone. Deletion can also be requested by email with the subject “Kontolöschung” and is carried out within fourteen days. Passwords are stored hashed, the database enforces row-level security, and traffic is TLS-encrypted.
Reuse rights
Project data entered into the platform is sent to OpenAI LLC in the United States for matching and for drafting, on the basis of standard contractual clauses under Article 46(2)(c) and an Article 28 processing agreement; under OpenAI’s API terms it is not used to train models. Uploaded PDF, DOCX or TXT files are parsed and the extracted text is capped at 12,000 characters. Match scores are presented as decision support rather than an automated decision, and a manual review can be requested under Article 22(3). Evaluations are cached for reuse and deleted together with the project. Only technically necessary cookies are set, for Supabase authentication; there is no tracking or marketing cookie, and audience measurement runs through Pirsch without cookies, hashing IP addresses daily with a rotating salt and storing none.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Storage is declared in the EU: the FAQ states that all data is stored on servers in the EU, on Supabase in Frankfurt. Supabase Inc. is a Singapore company operating those EU servers on AWS, engaged under standard contractual clauses (Article 46(2)(c)). Processing is more distributed. The web application and CDN run on Vercel Inc. (Covina, California), which sees IP addresses and logs, also under standard contractual clauses. The AI processing runs at OpenAI LLC (San Francisco) under standard contractual clauses and an Article 28 processing agreement. Payments go through Stripe Inc. in the United States, which has an EU establishment, Stripe Payments Europe Ltd in Dublin. Three processors stay in Europe: Brevo SAS in Paris for transactional and marketing email, with no transfer outside the EU; n8n GmbH in Berlin for automated workflows, technical metadata only; and Emvi Software GmbH / Pirsch Analytics in Rheda-Wiedenbrück for audience measurement, on German servers. The pricing page condenses all of this into “DSGVO-konform · EU-Hosting”, which holds for storage rather than for the whole chain. Stated security measures: TLS, hashed passwords, row-level security, and payment data never held on the publisher’s servers.
Where FörderBase works
Country-level availability.
Available in
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting FörderBase.
- Identity: the imprint names a natural person, Marcel Bäsler, with no company name. The project page refers to Bäsler Consulting, a trade name registered nowhere and absent from the imprint, and no legal entity exists at all — no commercial register entry, no LEI, no VAT number under §19 UStG. The announced spin-out into a standalone company is a goal, not a completed step, and the only social presence linked from the site is a personal LinkedIn profile, not a company page.
- Prices: three generations coexist on the site. The FAQ still shows an obsolete Starter at €10 per month and a tier called Pro at €30 per month; the plan cards are served with the annual toggle already switched on and display €14, €29 and €149; the current generation, €19, €39 and €199 per month, comes from §4(1) of the terms, the comparison table, the JSON-LD and the project page. Check which figure you are actually charged before subscribing.
- VAT: the pricing page carries the note “all prices plus VAT” while §4(2) of the terms states the opposite — final prices, with no VAT charged because of the §19 UStG small-business regime. The contradiction is unresolved on the site.
- Hosting: the “EU-Hosting” badge sits next to Vercel Inc. in the United States for the web application and OpenAI LLC in the United States for the AI. Only the Supabase database is declared inside the EU, in Frankfurt; the rest of the chain leaves it under standard contractual clauses.
- Over-reliance: the scores are decision support, not a verdict, and a manual review can be requested under Article 22(3) GDPR. The imprint and §8 of the terms both state that the platform replaces no legal or funding-law advice and guarantees neither that a suggested programme applies nor that an application will be approved. Reading the funding directive yourself remains necessary, and the whole evaluation rests on one named third-party model, GPT-4o-mini.
- Figures and claims vary: the number of programmes is given as 3,121 on the home page, “over 3,100” elsewhere and “2,900+” in older metadata. The home page video is presented as real footage from the application, and §9 of the terms targets 99% availability as an annual average, not a service-level guarantee.
- Neighbouring domain and usage rules: foerderscout.de, an earlier project name, is a 353-byte registrar parking page, and a cross-sell link on the site still carries utm_source=foerderscout. §7 of the terms prohibits automated access such as scraping or bots without prior permission.
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low. FörderBase is a web application with nothing to install: the site advertises registration in two minutes with no credit card for the free plan, and immediate access after payment on the paid plans, with no manual approval step. The Schnellcheck works without any account at all. No expert input is required either, since the AI can write the project description from a few keywords. Colleagues are invited by email from a single administrator account per organisation. The only technical step is optional: exporting deadlines by iCal into an existing calendar.
Deployment
Integrations
Supported languages
Behind FörderBase
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
What is FörderBase?
Who is FörderBase for?
Where do the funding programmes come from?
Is FörderBase a public authority or an official funding body?
How does the AI matching work?
How much does FörderBase cost?
Is there a free trial, and what is the minimum term?
Is my data used to train AI models, and where is it stored?
Can I delete my account?
Is there an API or a mobile application?
Should you pick FörderBase?
FörderBase occupies a narrow but real niche: German public funding, for German applicants, in German. Within that scope it does two things unusually well. The eligibility gate runs on hard rules before any AI is involved, so programmes that could never be claimed are removed with a stated reason rather than merely ranked low; and what follows is a score from 0 to 100, broken down by region, applicant and topic, with the reasoning shown. For an organisation with no funding officer — exactly the situation the publisher targets — that transparency is worth more than a longer list of results.
The commercial terms are equally approachable. The free plan is permanent and needs no card, the €69 a year rate for registered charitable associations sits far below the standard price, and paid plans cancel monthly.
Two reservations deserve attention before committing. The publisher is an individual sole trader under the small-business regime, with no legal entity behind the product: no commercial register entry, no VAT number, no public incorporation date, and a spin-out into a company that is stated as an intention rather than a fact. And the site contradicts itself on money: three pricing generations coexist across the FAQ, the plan cards and the terms, and the VAT wording on the pricing page says the opposite of §4(2) of the terms. Neither is disqualifying, but both point to a product maintained by one person with limited editorial bandwidth.
Add the structural gaps — no API, no mobile app, no security certification, AI processing entrusted to a single named US model provider — and the picture is clear enough. FörderBase suits a German-speaking association, municipality or SME that wants to stop missing funding calls, and the sensible way to judge it is on its free plan first.
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