Best WordPress Donation Plugins: Fees Compared
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Charitable is the WordPress donation plugin most charities and small nonprofits should install. Its free version accepts card payments through Stripe and PayPal, Charitable takes no platform fee of its own on any plan, and paid licences start at $69 a year if you need more gateways or recurring giving. That fee point matters more than any feature list, because every donation plugin sits on top of a payment processor, and what a gift really costs you is the plugin’s platform fee plus the processor’s fee, added together.
How much does a WordPress donation plugin really cost?
Two separate charges come out of every online donation. The first is the platform fee, taken by the plugin or the service behind it. The second is the processor fee, taken by Stripe or PayPal. They stack, and a page that quotes only one of them is telling you half the story.
The table below gives the platform fee for each plugin alongside the figures published in the WordPress.org plugin directory.
| Plugin | Price | Platform fee on donations | Active installs | Rating | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charitable | Free version takes Stripe and PayPal donations; paid from $69/year | None, on any plan | 10,000+ | 4.9 / 5 (217) | Most charities and small nonprofits |
| GiveWP | Free version takes Stripe, PayPal and offline donations; paid from $149/year | 2% on Stripe donations in the free version; none once you hold any licence | 100,000+ | 4.6 / 5 (707) | Organisations that need donor records and reporting |
| Donorbox | Plugin free; Standard plan free, Pro $150/month | 2.95% on Standard, 1.75% on Pro (3.95% and 2% for events and memberships) | 8,000+ | 4.8 / 5 (34) | Teams who want donations hosted and handled for them |
| Accept Donations with PayPal & Stripe | Free; Pro version adds recurring donations | None | 10,000+ | 3.8 / 5 (23) | One donate button, nothing more |
| WP Crowdfunding | Free; paid version adds wallets and Stripe Connect | None from the plugin; you set your own campaign commission | 2,000+ | 4.4 / 5 (89) | Campaigns with goals, deadlines and backers |
Prices checked September 2026.
Processor fees sit on top of all of these and you pay them whoever you choose. Donorbox publishes the United States nonprofit rates it passes through: 2.2% plus 30 cents per card donation on Stripe, and 1.99% plus 49 cents on PayPal. Run a $50 gift through Donorbox on the free Standard plan and roughly $2.88 disappears, about 5.8% of the donation. The same gift through Charitable and Stripe loses $1.40.
Which donation plugins are worth installing?
Charitable
Charitable builds donation forms and fundraising campaigns with goals, progress bars and donor receipts. It suits registered charities, churches, schools and small nonprofits who want the money to arrive without an intermediary in the middle.
The free version on WordPress.org is version 1.8.12.3, has 10,000+ active installs, holds a 4.9 rating from 217 reviews and is tested up to WordPress 7.1. Paid licences run from $69 a year for Basic up to $299 a year for Elite, at the prices currently listed.
The capability that decides it: Charitable charges no transaction fee on any tier, and Stripe and PayPal are both built into the free version. A small charity can therefore run end to end and pay nothing except what the card networks take.
The honest limitation: its install base is a tenth of GiveWP’s, so there are fewer third-party tutorials when you get stuck, and gateways beyond Stripe and PayPal, such as Square, Braintree and Authorize.net, need paid extensions.
GiveWP
GiveWP is the most widely installed donation plugin for WordPress and the one built around donor management rather than around a single form. It suits organisations that need to know who gave, how often, and how a campaign performed.
It is on version 4.16.8 with 100,000+ active installs, a 4.6 rating from 707 reviews, tested up to WordPress 7.1 and requiring PHP 7.4. Plans are Basic $149, Plus $349, Pro $499 and Agency $599 a year.
The capability that decides it: donor profiles and donation reporting are part of the core plugin, so recurring supporters, one-off givers and campaign totals all live in one place inside WordPress instead of in a spreadsheet.
The honest limitation, and the thing to read twice: the free version adds a 2% GiveWP fee to Stripe donations on top of Stripe’s own charge. PayPal and offline donations avoid it, and any paid licence or premium add-on removes it, but a free GiveWP site taking card payments is paying more per donation than a free Charitable site.
Donorbox
Donorbox is a hosted fundraising service with a WordPress plugin that embeds its forms. It suits a team with no developer, because the donation form, the recurring billing, the receipts and the donor records are all Donorbox’s responsibility rather than yours.
The plugin is on version 7.1.12 with 8,000+ active installs and a 4.8 rating from 34 reviews. The Standard plan is free and charges 2.95% on donation forms, fundraising pages, QuickDonate and crowdfunding, rising to 3.95% on event ticketing and memberships. Pro at $150 a month drops those to 1.75% and 2%.
The capability that decides it: recurring giving works properly out of the box, including donors updating their own cards, which is the part self-hosted forms most often get wrong.
The honest limitation: two things. WordPress.org flags the plugin as untested with the latest three major WordPress releases, and it lists compatibility only up to 6.8.8. And 2.95% on top of the processor is the most expensive option here for a site taking steady donations.
Donorbox plugin on WordPress.org
Accept Donations with PayPal & Stripe
This is the plugin formerly listed as PayPal Donation, and it does one job: put a donate button or a short form on a page that pays into your PayPal or Stripe account. It suits a personal blog, a club or a project that wants a tip jar rather than a fundraising system.
It is on version 1.5.6 with 10,000+ active installs, a 3.8 rating from 23 reviews, tested up to WordPress 7.0.4. The free version has no platform fee; a Pro version adds recurring donations.
The capability that decides it: there is no account to open anywhere else and no dashboard to learn. You paste in your PayPal email or connect Stripe, drop a shortcode, and you are collecting.
The honest limitation: 3.8 is the weakest rating on this page, and the one-star reviews cluster around breakage after updates. Recurring donations are behind the Pro version, so monthly giving is not free here.
Accept Donations with PayPal & Stripe on WordPress.org
WP Crowdfunding
WP Crowdfunding turns WooCommerce into a backer platform. It suits anyone running campaigns rather than collecting gifts: a goal, a deadline, reward tiers, and often other people submitting projects of their own.
It is on version 2.2.1 with 2,000+ active installs, a 4.4 rating from 89 reviews, tested up to WordPress 7.0.4 and requiring WordPress 5.9 or later.
The capability that decides it: campaign owners submit and manage projects from the front end, and the paid version’s wallet system tracks what each owner is owed and what commission the site keeps, so you are not doing that arithmetic by hand.
The honest limitation: it needs WooCommerce, which is a lot of machinery to install if all you wanted was a donate button. It also has the smallest user base here.
Which donation plugin should you choose?
For most people, install Charitable. No platform fee at any tier, Stripe and PayPal in the free version, and the highest rating on this page. A church or a local charity can be taking donations in an afternoon and paying nothing beyond card processing.
For the harder case, running campaigns rather than collecting gifts, use WP Crowdfunding. Goals, deadlines, reward tiers and front-end project submission are things a donation form does not do. If instead the hard part is donor records and reporting across thousands of supporters, buy a GiveWP licence, which also removes the 2% Stripe fee.
Skip anything WordPress.org has closed. Donations Made Easy – Smart Donations is closed as of 27 July 2023 with a security issue given as the reason, and YITH Donations for WooCommerce is closed as of 19 November 2021 at the author’s request. Neither receives updates. If either is running on your site, deactivate it, delete it, and rebuild the form in Charitable or GiveWP.
One more thing worth doing before you choose: check that your payment gateway plugin is still maintained too, and if you are starting from nothing, our walkthrough of how to accept donations on WordPress covers the account setup first. Charities building a whole site will also want a theme designed for congregations and causes, and a well-placed call to action lifts donations more than any form tweak.
Frequently asked questions
Do WordPress donation plugins take a cut of donations?
Some do and some do not. Charitable charges no platform fee on any plan, and GiveWP charges none once you hold a licence, though its free version adds 2% to Stripe donations. Donorbox charges 2.95% on its free Standard plan. Payment processor fees from Stripe and PayPal are charged separately by those companies and apply whichever plugin you use.
What is the cheapest way to accept donations on WordPress?
Install the free version of Charitable and connect Stripe or PayPal. Charitable takes nothing, so the only deduction is the processor’s own fee. On the United States nonprofit rates Donorbox publishes, that is 2.2% plus 30 cents per card donation through Stripe, or 1.99% plus 49 cents through PayPal.
Do I need a payment processor as well as a donation plugin?
Yes. A donation plugin builds the form, records the gift and emails the receipt, but it never holds money. A Stripe or PayPal account is what actually moves funds into your bank, and you must open one separately. This is why fees stack: the plugin may charge a platform fee and the processor always charges its own.
Can I accept recurring monthly donations for free?
Yes, through Donorbox, whose free Standard plan supports recurring giving in exchange for a 2.95% platform fee. Charitable and GiveWP both put recurring donations behind a paid licence, and the Accept Donations with PayPal & Stripe plugin puts them behind its Pro version. Free in this context means no licence fee, not no cost.
Is the Smart Donations plugin still safe to use?
No. Donations Made Easy – Smart Donations is closed on WordPress.org as of 27 July 2023, with a security issue given as the reason, and it receives no updates. If it is installed on your site, deactivate and delete it, then rebuild your donation form in Charitable or GiveWP.
