Category guide
Donation processing software
Donation platforms take the money: forms, recurring gifts, and the fees on every gift. Genuinely free options compete head-on with paid ones here, so the real comparison is the fee math on your volume. And not every organization needs a CRM first: a processor keeps donor records of its own, so for many small shops it is the honest first step, with the database decision coming later.
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Compare at a glance
| Tool | Pricing | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4aGoodCause★ Editor's choice |
| Shops that want a payment processor that does not charge per transaction, potentially saving thousands each year. Lighter CRM integration, but great for small shops just taking the next step and looking to cap costs on fees. Plentiful integrations (like Mailchimp and Quickbooks) to make up for fewer built-ins on the CRM. However, the price point justifies this and makes it our top pick for a donor processor. | Visit →Our reader deal$25 in account credit with code 4AGC25 |
| Donorbox |
| Shops that want a low barrier to entry on cost (no payments until you receive donations) with opportunities to unlock substantial features down the road (like their donor CRM). It has earned its place as a trusted brand in the nonprofit community. | Visit → |
| Zeffy |
| Fee-sensitive shops that want to keep every dollar of every gift and are okay with donors being prompted to tip when they donate. | Visit → |
| Givebutter |
| Fee-sensitive shops that are okay with donors being prompted to tip but who also would like the option to do more robust fundraising down the road. | Visit → |
How to choose
Three fee models compete, and your annual online volume decides between them before any feature does.
A percentage of every gift. Donorbox takes about 2.95% (roughly 1.75% on Pro) and gives you the deepest recurring-gift tooling in the class: failed-card recovery, donor portals and CRM integrations. Nothing to pay until money moves, which makes it the natural first platform for a small shop still under the flat-fee crossover.
A flat subscription, and our editor's choice. 4aGoodCause charges from $99 a month, takes no cut of donations, and brings a built-in donor CRM along with the giving pages. The crossover against Donorbox's standard rate is about $40,270 of online giving a year: below it the percentage is cheaper, above it the flat fee wins within its revenue band (Grassroots to $50K online, Growing to $250K, Scale unlimited), and from about $100K the flat plan wins at every volume. The year-by-year math is on our 4aGoodCause page.
Free, funded by donor tips. Zeffy charges the nonprofit nothing at any volume, and Givebutter is 0% with tips on. The tradeoff is that your effective rate depends on how many donors leave the tip in place, which you do not control.
Do the arithmetic on last year's online total first, then test the donor-facing checkout on your phone. Donor experience moves conversion more than a fee point does, and every platform here will let you try a live form before you commit.
See how the processing line is sized in the grassroots stack, the $250k-$1M stack and $1M-$5M.