Donation processing
Donorbox alternatives
If you are shopping to replace Donorbox, the shortlist below is ordered by the situation you are in rather than by which vendor pays most. Every price is real and dated, and where staying put is the right answer, we say so.
Checked Aug 3, 2026
Some links on this page are affiliate links. Disclosure
Why shops leave Donorbox
- The fee grows with your success. A percentage of everything raised means a good year costs you more. At roughly 2.95%, doubling online giving doubles the platform fee, for a product that isn't doing twice the work.
- Pro is a real jump. About $150/mo plus roughly 1.75% only makes sense past around $150k in online giving. Between roughly $40k and $150k there's a band where neither Donorbox tier is the cheapest option available.
- It isn't a donor database. Donation records aren't relationship history. No soft credits, no household records, no retention reporting — a major-gifts program needs a CRM behind it.
- Free competitors exist and are legitimate. Zeffy and Givebutter cost nothing on the tip model. If your online volume is small, a percentage fee is money spent on a problem you don't have yet.
What to move to
| Tool | Pricing | Move here if | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4aGoodCause |
| Online giving is past roughly $40,000 a year | Visit → |
| 2 | DonorDock |
| What you actually need is the database, not the checkout | Visit → Our reader deal10% off first payment |
| 3 | Givebutter |
| Events and peer-to-peer matter as much as the donate button | Visit → |
| 4 | Zeffy |
| You'd rather your donors carry the cost than your budget | Visit → |
1. 4aGoodCause — Online giving is past roughly $40,000 a year
This is the crossover. A flat subscription — $99/mo Grassroots ($1,188/yr), $249/mo Growth ($2,988/yr), $429/mo Scale ($5,148/yr), no percentage taken from donations — costs less than a ~2.95% fee above about $40k online, and the gap widens every year you grow. Built around monthly giving with recurring pages, donor records and a campaign builder in one tool. Every tier published; first month free.
2. DonorDock — What you actually need is the database, not the checkout
About $98/mo Entry, $300/mo Grow, $585/mo Amplify, unlimited contacts on every tier. Soft credits, household records, follow-up tasks and an ActionBoard that tells you who to contact today. If you're shopping because donor data is scattered, keeping your checkout and adding a CRM is the cheaper, better move. Ninety-day money-back guarantee and a reader discount through this site.
3. Givebutter — Events and peer-to-peer matter as much as the donate button
0% platform fee with donor tips on, roughly 3% with tips off, processing fees either way. Ticketing, auctions, campaign pages and peer-to-peer in one modern package — considerably more event machinery than Donorbox carries, at no subscription cost. Same tip-dependence caveat as Zeffy.
4. Zeffy — You'd rather your donors carry the cost than your budget
Free at any volume, including processing fees — a $100 gift deposits $100. Covers donations, ticketing, raffles and memberships, running on Stripe underneath. The tradeoff is that it's funded by an optional tip donors are asked for at checkout, so your net per gift depends on donor behaviour rather than a fixed rate. For a shop under roughly $40k online, this is very hard to beat on cost.
Donorbox is priced as a percentage, which is the right structure at low volume and the wrong one once you grow. Most alternative searches come from one of those two ends — a shop too small to be paying anything, or a shop big enough that the percentage has become a real line item.
Find which end you’re on
Multiply last year’s online giving by 2.95%. That’s your platform fee, excluding card processing.
Under about $40,000 online? Your fee is roughly $1,200 or less. Zeffy at $0 or Givebutter at 0% with tips on will both beat it, and no flat subscription will. The tradeoff is real but modest: both are funded by an optional donor tip, so your net per gift depends on how many donors leave it on.
Between roughly $40,000 and $150,000? This is the band where a flat subscription wins. 4aGoodCause at $1,188/yr takes no percentage at all, so at $100,000 online you pay $1,188 instead of about $2,950. Donorbox Pro doesn’t help here — at about $150/mo plus roughly 1.75%, it costs more than Standard until you’re past roughly $150k.
Past $150,000? Compare Donorbox Pro (about $1,800/yr plus roughly 1.75%) against 4aGoodCause Growth ($2,988/yr, no percentage). At $200,000 online, Pro runs about $5,300 and Growth about $2,988. The flat subscription is still ahead, and it stays ahead.
Card processing fees apply on top of all of these, typically around 2.2–3% plus a fixed amount per transaction. Zeffy is the exception.
What the percentage is actually buying
Don’t switch on the fee alone. Donorbox’s recurring-gift management is the best thing about it, and it produces revenue: a donor portal that lets people update their own card, automatic retries and dunning on failed payments, and prompts to upgrade a monthly gift. Card failure alone silently kills a meaningful share of monthly donors at platforms that don’t chase them.
Work out what share of your online revenue is recurring. If it’s substantial, price the retention tooling on any alternative before you move — saving $1,500 in fees while losing $4,000 in lapsed monthly gifts is a bad trade that shows up two quarters later.
The migration cost nobody quotes
Recurring donors have to re-enroll. Cards on file stay with the payment processor and don’t transfer between platforms. Ask in writing whether token migration is possible; assume it isn’t. Then run a real re-enrollment campaign with a deadline, call your larger monthly donors personally, and do the whole thing in a quiet month.
Compare every option in donation processing, or see what a shop your size should be running in the recommended stacks.