Donation processing
Donately
Some links on this page are affiliate links. Disclosure
Donately publishes a complete rate card, which by itself puts it ahead of most of this category. Three structures: $0 with a 4% platform fee, $99/month with 2%, or $5,000 prepaid for 0% up to $1M raised. Payment processing is separate at 2.2–2.9% + $0.30 on cards.
The number that actually matters
ACH is 0.8%, capped at $5 per transaction.
That cap is the most valuable thing on this page and almost nobody talks about it. Run the comparison on a single $10,000 bank transfer:
| Platform | ACH cost on $10,000 |
|---|---|
| Donately | $5.00 |
| Aplos (1% ACH, uncapped) | $100.30 |
| A typical 2.9% card rate | $290.30 |
If you receive major gifts by bank transfer — and most shops receiving five-figure gifts do — that single line can be worth more than the entire subscription. Two $10,000 ACH gifts a year on Donately cost $10 to process. The same gifts through an uncapped 1% ACH rate cost $200.
Where the crossovers fall
Do this with your own online total:
- Under $2,500/mo online ($30k/yr): Standard at 4% costs about $1,200/yr. Growth costs $1,188 + 2% ($600) = $1,788. Standard wins.
- Around $60,000/yr online: Standard $2,400, Growth $2,388. This is roughly the crossover.
- $250,000/yr online: Standard $10,000, Growth $6,188. Growth wins clearly.
- Past $500,000/yr: the $5,000 prepaid Scale plan at 0% beats both, and covers up to $1M.
There are no long-term contracts and Growth cancels anytime, so you can start on Standard and move when your own numbers say to.
The risk worth naming
Donately is a small company — company data listed roughly three employees as of the end of 2024. It is genuinely active: the blog is current, the review corpus runs through 2026, and shops were still switching to it in January 2026.
But you are choosing donation infrastructure for a three-to-five-year horizon, and a three-person vendor holding your payment rails is a real consideration. It doesn’t disqualify them. It does mean you should know how to export your donor and recurring-gift data, and check that you do before you migrate anything important.
What it is not
A CRM. Donately holds transactions and donor contact details, not relationship history, soft credits or household records. Shops that need both typically run Donately for the forms and a donor database behind it, which is a legitimate stack rather than a failure.
Strengths
- ACH at 0.8% capped at $5 — a $10,000 bank transfer costs five dollars to process
- A published rate card with three clear structures and no quote required
- Developer-friendly embeddable forms that live on your own site, not a hosted page
Other options
- Want to pay nothing at all? Zeffy is free at any volume including processing, funded by an optional donor tip at checkout. Read our Zeffy write-up →
- Raising past roughly $40,000 online a year? A flat subscription with no percentage stops the fee scaling with your success entirely. Read our 4aGoodCause write-up →
- Need a donor database? This is a donation layer, not a CRM — no soft credits, no household records, no retention reporting. Read our DonorDock write-up →
Keep comparing
Donately head to head