The best church giving platforms

Zeffy, decisively - it charges churches nothing at all, neither a platform fee nor a processing fee, funding itself from an optional contribution donors can add at checkout. The trade-off is that your givers are shown a prompt to tip Zeffy alongside their gift to the church, which some congregations will find inappropriate in a giving context. Every other platform here charges roughly 2-3% per card transaction, often with a monthly software fee on top.

Card processing generally runs around 2-3% plus a fixed amount per transaction, while ACH bank transfer is considerably cheaper - which is why platforms steer recurring donors toward it. Many platforms add their own software fee as well, either monthly or as a slice of each gift. The fastest way to compare vendors is to ask each for the all-in cost of a $100 card gift and a $100 ACH gift; that single question sorts the field faster than any feature matrix.

On nearly every platform here, yes, usually as a checkbox at checkout, and when churches enable it a substantial share of donors opt in. That effectively removes processing cost from the church, which makes it the highest-return setting in this whole category - and it is very often left switched off. Check yours before you renegotiate anything.

Through a platform built for it. Overflow is the specialist, handling appreciated stock, crypto and donor-advised funds, and SecureGive offers non-cash giving through its Engiven partnership. It matters more than it first appears: giving appreciated stock directly avoids capital-gains tax, so it is often the most efficient route for a wealthier member, and a church that cannot receive it will simply receive less.

For the church, yes - Zeffy takes nothing, including card processing, which it absorbs. The money comes from an optional contribution donors are invited to add on top of their gift. So it is genuinely free to you and quietly funded by your congregation, which is a legitimate model and also a decision worth making consciously rather than discovering later. The underlying processor is Stripe, and eligibility depends on Stripe verification.

One system means one donor record and one set of year-end statements, which is a real administrative saving for a church without staff. A specialist platform usually means lower fees, better non-cash support and faster development. Volume decides it: under a few hundred thousand a year the convenience generally wins, and above that a percentage point of fee difference outgrows the admin saving.

Because the app is not the product. These are web platforms used by an administrator in a browser and by a donor on a payment page; the companion mobile app is peripheral and often attracts a few dozen ratings from people using it for one narrow task. We report those scores and size them honestly, but we do not publish an aggregate rating built on twenty-seven votes as though it were a judgement on a payments platform.

Four things, in writing: the all-in rate on a $100 card gift and on a $100 ACH gift; whether there is a monthly platform fee on top of processing; whether there is a contract, setup fee or cancellation term; and how you export your full donor and transaction history if you leave. The last one is the question vendors answer least readily and the one that matters most in five years.