Best Payment Processors For Online Donations

Donorbox offers three pricing tiers, including a Standard plan with no monthly fees, a Pro plan with a reduced platform fee, and a Premium plan for larger organizations with more complex needs. Donorbox’s prices are:

• Transaction fees: 1.5%-1.75% platform fee + payment processing fee (Stripe or PayPal nonprofit fees, see entries below)
• Events: 2.95% platform fee
• Memberships: 2.95%
• Crowdfunding: 1.5%-1.75%
• Peer-to-peer: 1.5% main campaign fee, 2.95% for supporters’ campaigns

You (or your donors) will pay a higher price for your transactions than you would if you just went directly to Stripe or PayPal, but if you can make use of the specialized infrastructure Donorbox offers, it’s easily worth it. And if you don’t need it, the pay-as-you-go pricing makes it easy to walk away or use Donorbox seasonally.

Donorbox features include:

• Customizable donation forms and buttons
• Fundraising pages
• Credit and debit card processing
• Mobile wallet support for Venmo, ApplePay, PayPal, GooglePay, and Mercado Pago
• Payment links
• Support for 44+ currencies and 11 languages
• 15+ integrations
• Fundraising coaching (premium)
• Peer-to-peer fundraising tools (see below)
• Crowdfunding
• Membership infrastructure
• Event ticketing

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a new feature offered by Donorbox that allows your supporters to launch personalized campaign pages to raise money on your behalf.

Donorbox uses, by default, a pay-as-you-go model. If you’re not processing transactions with it, it won’t cost you any money. Custom plans may have different requirements.

While Square doesn’t offer specialized pricing for nonprofits, its feature set is robust enough to handle most of your donation collection needs without having to shell out extra money for software.

Square charges 2.9% + $0.30 for online transactions, including donations.

If you’re mainly accepting donations online, there are cheaper options, but Square’s infrastructure for supporting in-person payments and donations is second to none.

Square features include:

• Donation buttons and templates
• Payment links and QR codes
• In-person transactions with cost-effective hardware
• Recurring payments
• Free online store
• Event ticketing
• Credit and debit card transactions
• Bookkeeping tools
• Customer engagement tools
• Numerous integrations

Square’s pricing is pay-as-you-go, so you’ll only pay for transactions. Square is a payment service provider (PSP), so the account stability and fund hold/freeze issues that are typical in the industry are something to watch out for.

The contracts are all month-to-month, so you don’t have to worry about contracts with lengthy terms or early termination fees.

Stripe charges nonprofits 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction.

Accepting the nonprofit fee will make some Stripe features that would normally be free have an additional cost per transaction.

Stripe is one of the most prolific online payment processors, with powerful eCommerce tools. It also offers many which may be tempting for tech-savvy nonprofits.

Other entries on this list use Stripe as their backend processor, which speaks to how effective its online infrastructure is.

Stripe features include:

• Custom donation forms and buttons
• Ready-made donation forms through Stripe Checkout
• Payment links
• Limited in-person transaction support with Stripe Terminal
• Recurring payments and subscription management
• Free online store
• Credit and debit card transactions
• Supports 47 countries and 135 currencies
• Bookkeeping tools
• Customer engagement tools
• Powerful developer tools
• Numerous integrations

Stripe uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model, so you’ll only pay for transactions.

Using Stripe directly (not through another app/system) comes with a higher learning curve for installation, so making sure you have someone tech-savvy on your team is a major bonus.

Shopify plans range from $9/month to $99/month with a 10% discount if you pay annually.

Shopify Payments uses Stripe by default, so it’s possible to take advantage of Stripe’s 2.2% + $0.30 nonprofit transaction rate.

Using a different processor will add up to a 2% fee on each transaction in addition to what your processor charges.

Shopify offers some of the most thorough eCommerce tools in the business. As it happens, Shopify also has a lot to offer for nonprofits specifically.

Shopify is also a convenient way to get access to Stripe’s payment processing tools without having to implement them yourself.

Shopify features include:

• Donations through Shopify Payments (Stripe by default)
• Reduced transaction fees with advanced plans
• Buy/donate buttons
• Email marketing
• Recurring payments
• POS integrations
• Extensive eCommerce tools
• Unlimited user accounts
• Absurd number of integrations
• Credit and debit card transactions
• Automated tax receipts
• Crowdfunding
• Blogging functions
• Application forms for volunteers

Shopify is a month-to-month service, so you can cancel at any time without worrying about early termination fees or other tricky contract terms.

Watch how many additional features you’re piling on to your monthly fee. These features, while helpful and reasonably priced, can add up to a large monthly payment. If you find yourself in that situation, you might be able to find another payment processor that offers the same features for a smaller monthly fee.

Helcim uses an interchange plus pricing model with nonprofits getting discounted interchange fees. Helcim’s pricing for online transactions starts at interchange + 0.50% + $0.25. These rates decrease as your processing volume goes up.

Additionally, card brands often offer discounted interchange rates for payments processed for qualified nonprofits. Helcim passes on those savings to its customers, so charitable organizations stand to save even more when they begin accepting donations online.

Nonprofits using Helcim can set up a hosted donation page, operate a virtual terminal, set up recurring donations, and much more:

• Recurring donation management
• International payment support
• Hosted donation page
• Donate buttons
• Virtual terminal
• In-person POS options
• Invoicing
• QR code payments
• Payment links
• CRM tools

Helcim users pay monthly and don’t have to worry about any long-term contracts or early termination fees.

If you do choose the interchange-plus plan, you will have to pay a reasonable monthly fee that could negate the cost benefits of this non-traditional plan type, but that’s fairly unlikely.

HMS Gives offers reduced payment processing rates for nonprofits, which can save your organization money. Additionally, Host Merchant Services operates several programs designed to give its customers the best prices available, including a dedicated small ticket program.

All Host Merchant Services clients are put on an interchange-plus pricing plan, with no monthly minimums, long-term contracts, or early termination fees.

Host Merchant Services online processing fees start at interchange + 0.35% + $0.10.

Rates are lower for nonprofits and are lowered as your processing volume increases.

HMS offers strong payment processing features, including accepting mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Android Pay, online reports, next-day funding, and more:

• Virtual payment terminals
• Next-day funding
• Accept all major forms of payment including Apple Pay and Android Pay
• Shopping cart integrations
• Web hosting
• eCheck processing
• Multiple POS options
• Mobile payment processing

Host Merchant Services clients may cancel at any time, as there are no early termination fees or long-term contracts.

You may find HMS lacking in some features you consider essential for your organization. If this is the case, you should look at Donorbox, Square, or Stripe. You may also consider looking into supplementary software specifically designed for nonprofit use that can integrate with HMS.

Clearly Payments offers users the choice between interchange-plus pricing or a subscription pricing model. Depending on your processing volume, either option could save you money.

Clearly Payments’ membership pricing starts at $99/month and $0.08 + interchange per transaction. While you’ll still have to pay a per transaction fee, there may be less cost involved on your end if you process a high volume of donors each month.

Clearly’s interchange-plus pricing for online payments starts at interchange + 0.48% + $0.23 per transaction. You’ll also have to pay a $21/month account fee if you choose this pricing plan. This plan may be a better option for smaller nonprofits with a lower processing volume.

Nonprofits using Clearly Payments can benefit from its subscription/recurring billing management tools, PCI compliance, fraud protection, hosted donation pages, and more:

• Full-service merchant accounts
• Hosted payments page via APIs
• Fraud protection with AVS and CVV checks
• Credit card storage for returning donors
• PCI compliance
• Reports
• Clover and Talech POS integration
• Recurring billing and subscription management

Clearly Payments doesn’t charge early termination fees, so customers are free to leave whenever they’d like. You can take your Clearly Payments data with you when you leave, as the company offers data export options.

Clearly is a great choice for large organizations looking to lower the cost of accepting online donations. If you’re a smaller organization or just process a smaller amount of online donations, you’ll probably find better pricing with Square, Stripe, or Helcim.

PayPal charges registered 501(c)(3)’s 1.99% + $0.49 per transaction.

That being said, there are a lot of various fees (Chargeback Protection, Refund Fees, Instant Transfer Fees, etc.) you might encounter, so check out PayPal’s website to see all of them in detail.

If you’re taking care of a lot of your software and UI needs, PayPal’s simplicity and ease of setup can make it easy to start taking payments quickly. Here are some of the features PayPal offers:

• Donation buttons
• Peer-to-peer donation links through PayPal.Me
• In-person transactions through PayPal Zettle
• Credit and debit card transactions
• Mobile wallet support for Venmo, ApplePay, PayPal, and GooglePay
• Bookkeeping tools
• Over 200 countries and 25 currencies supported
• Numerous integrations

By default, PayPal is a pay-as-you-go service, meaning you’re only paying transaction fees. There’s no commitment. Donor data can be exported as a .csv.

Just be aware that the cost of microdonations through PayPal is very high, so if you have a lot of small donations from a large number of donors, you should consider one of the lower-priced alternatives like Helcim or Square.