UK Fundraising Platform Fee Calculator
Compare "donor cover fees" lost revenue. Most platforms also charge monthly subscription fees, and some charge you ~5% of your Gift Aid's 25% on top of the covered fees below.
Ask donors to contribute towards fundraising costs (applies to your own form only)
| Platform | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £11,749 | +£1,750 | −£538 | £11,211 | |
| £11,193 | −£1,194 | −£529 | £10,216 | |
| £10,854 | −£855 | −£524 | £10,009 | |
| £10,499 | −£500 | included | £9,999 | |
| £11,237 | −£1,238 | −£530 | £9,469 | |
| £11,399 | −£1,400 | −£533 | £9,466 | |
| £11,649 | −£1,650 | −£536 | £9,463 | |
| £11,999 | −£2,000 | −£542 | £9,457 | |
| £12,053 | −£2,054 | −£542 | £9,457 | |
| £12,084 | −£2,085 | −£543 | £9,456 | |
| £12,107 | −£2,108 | −£543 | £9,456 |
Calculations based on 14k real donations. Platform fees obtained from "donor cover fees" live forms. Stripe fees used 1.5% + £0.20.
No web form should ever cost more than $25/month. After all, it's a form! JustGiving, Donorbox, Raisely, FundraiserUp and a dozen other services exist. All of them take a cut from your donation income, recurring, forever!
They all say their services are "free", but are they really? NOT at all and it's infuriating! Let's talk about that.
In this article, I am going to focus on the UK, as that's where the 10 charities I worked with operate.
TL;DR: You need to own your donation form and have your own "cover our fees" upsell that your org keeps. The "donor covers fees" offered by platforms will cost you thousands!
How does the calculator above parentElementwork?
The calculator above shows you lost income vs. potential gain by simulating incoming donations based on real data obtained from the charities I work with. It will help you estimate how much you'd lose by using each of the donation platforms listed compared to hosting your own form with a plugin like GiveWP.
Simulation based on 14,000 real donations data
To simulate lost income accurately, I obtained 14k donation records over 12 months from the charities I work with. The distribution looks like this:
| Amount Donated | Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| £3-£4.99 | 2,222 | 15.8% |
| £5-£9.99 | 6,012 | 42.7% |
| £10-£19.99 | 5,121 | 36.4% |
| £20-£49.99 | 447 | 3.2% |
| £50-£99.99 | 88 | 0.6% |
| £100-£199.99 | 36 | 0.3% |
| £200-£499.99 | 22 | 0.2% |
| £500-£999.99 | 3 | 0.02% |
| £1000+ | 3 | 0.02% |
So how do you avoid this tax on your non-profit's fundraising success?
Use a flat fee payment form. I compared multiple options and the best I found is GiveWP.
You pay $350/year (~£22/month), and that's it.
I do not have any affiliation with GiveWP. I recommend GiveWP because they excel at what they do and their pricing model is an extremely reasonable flat rate of ~$350/year. Plus, most charities already use WordPress.
When does it make sense to use these platforms?
It only really makes sense for a charity to use a %-cut fundraising platform if you don't have a website or your charity is tiny (makes less than £500 per month). Even then, choose one of the platforms that covers your transaction fees (Stripe/PayPal fees) like Donorbox or FundraiserUp.
Other reasons to avoid donation platforms
As if the above numbers aren't enough, you also end up with a vendor lock-in.
- Your subscription and customer data are now held hostage by these platforms. Instead of the subscriptions and customer records living in your Stripe account, they now live in the platform's Stripe account so that they can take their cut as an "application fee" from your donations and lock your organisation in.
Check this out as an example (real-world screenshot):
- Also, now because your customer data lives on their platform, you need to pay for custom integrations with your CRM.
MoveData.io, as an example, charges $200 per month for a simple Raisely -> Salesforce integration.
And don't even get me started on Zapier! For 500 donations per month × ~20 tasks per flow = 10,000 tasks per month, Zapier's Team plan costs £198.01/mo!
The "donor covers fees" per platform & other fees
To compile the list below, I found live donation forms for each platform and checked the tips requested for £3, £5, £10, £20, £50, £100, £200, £500 and £1000.
Donorbox: Reasonable pricing, passes "donor covered" fees remainder, but integrations are paid
Asks donors to cover the following fees:
- 11.3% for £3
- 9.2% for £5
- 6.8% for £10
- 5.6% for £20
- 4.9% for £50
- 4.6% for £100
- 4.5% for £200
- 4.4% for £500
- 4.4% for £1000
If you use it for free, they charge you 2.95% per donation, but you don't get access to integrations unless you pay $150/month ($1800/year), which also lowers their rate to 1.75%.
Here is a real payment example. Donorbox is one of the few fair platforms that only charges you their flat rate, and passes the rest of the "covered fees" to your charity.
Givey.com: Reasonable pricing, covers Stripe fees, but no embedded forms
Flat rate 5% on all donations, which includes the Stripe transaction fees. That's a good deal and it's unique! But you cannot embed the forms, and must send the traffic to their website.
See Givey's charges and fees page.
FundraiserUp: Reasonable pricing, covers Stripe fees
They ask donors for the following percentages on top of each donation amount:
- 16.7% for £3
- 12% for £5
- 10% for £10
- 8.5% for £20
- 7.5% for £30-£200
- 7% for £1000
Similar to Donorbox, when they ask the donor to cover the fees, they still only take the 4%, not the entire tip. This means the remaining "covered fee" by the donor is used to cover the Stripe transaction fees. Fair!
If the donor does not "cover the fee", they charge your charity 4% of the donation amount. Your charity still needs to pay the Stripe fees.
GoFundMe: Expensive "tip", does not cover Stripe transaction fees
They ask donors to add 16.5% to any amount. It can be turned off.
On top of that, they charge the charity 2.9% + 25p per donation.
Crowdfunder.co.uk: Expensive "tip", does not cover Stripe transaction fees
They ask donors to add 20% to all amounts. It can be turned off.
Plus 1.9% + 20p (per pledge) on UK/EU cards.
WhyDonate: Expensive "tip", does not cover Stripe transaction fees
They ask donors for the following percentages on top of the donation amount:
- 14% for £5-£250
- 11% for £250-£500
- 9% for £500+
They don't take fees from the charity. Your charity still needs to pay the Stripe fees.
Funraisin: Expensive "tip", does not cover Stripe transaction fees
I went through some donation forms and tried the following donation amounts one by one. These are the "cover the fees" they ask the donor to add to the amount:
- 34.3% for £3
- 22.2% for £5
- 13.3% for £10
- 9.2% for £20
- 6.6% for £50
- 6% for £100
- 6% for £200
- 4% for £500
- 2% for £1000
Capped at £20.
They do not publish their pricing, but from third-party sources, it seems that if the donor does not cover the fee, they charge your charity 5%.
Plus, Funraisin charges a fee of 4.75% for each Gift Aid claim.
JustGiving: Worst deal, high donor tip, does not cover Stripe transaction fees, no embedded forms
JustGiving might be the worst of bunch reviewed here. They are expensive, do not cover transaction fees, and you must send your traffic to their website.
- 33.3% for £3
- 20% for £5
- 17% for £10+
Plus 5% on Gift Aid income.
Raisely: High donor tip, does not cover Stripe transaction fees
Based on tests I ran on real Raisely forms, this is how much they ask donors to add:
- 34.7% for £3
- 22.6% for £5
- 13.5% for £10
- 9% for £20
- 6.3% for £50
- 5% for £100
- 4.75% for £200
- 4.6% for £500
- 4.55% for £1000
If you have more than 2000 donations per year, or if you want access to their Pro features, you need to pay AUD$179/month + 10% GST or AUD $1074 + GST if you do it annually.
Enthuse: High donor tip, does not cover Stripe transaction fees
They prompt donors for a tip of 17%, going down to 7% on larger amounts.
- 17% for £3
- 13% for £5
- 9.9% for £10
- 8.4% for £20
- 7.5% for £50
- 7.2% for £100
- 7.05% for £200
- 6.93% for £1000
Monthly fees of £39.99/month for donations and £24.99/month for fundraising forms. They charge 5% if you disable the "cover fees". Not just that, they also take 5% from your Gift Aid claims!
Wrapping up
As you can see, almost all these platforms are masters of deception where they say it's "free to use", but in reality, they are costing your charity anywhere from 5% (reasonable) to 20% (predatory) of your donation income for simply providing you with a form while vendor-locking your org.
All of these platforms run this way. It's called the "tip-based business model" and you want to avoid it as much as possible.
Bottom line:
- Own your donation forms by paying for the software and not per donation.
- Don't fall for the hidden lock-in mechanism where your charity's recurring subscriptions are owned by one of these platforms.