Zeffy Review (2026)$0, Funded by Donor Tips

The honest scrutiny of 'free': the tip prompt is shown to YOUR donors, with suggested percentages.

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Pricing (2026)

✓ Pricing re-verified 27 Sep 2026

Still genuinely $0 for nonprofits: no platform fee, no transaction fee and no card-processing fee on donations, ticketing, shops, raffles, auctions, peer-to-peer or memberships. Zeffy states it covers transaction and credit-card fees itself and earns only from the optional tip donors are offered at checkout. Their own scale claim on that page: 100,000 nonprofits have raised $2B on Zeffy over seven years without paying a fee. Plans change — always verify the live price on their site.

What the pricing page doesn’t say

The catch

Most give happily, but some organizations feel it inserts a step between donor and cause — and a donor who tips 10% effectively paid a fee, just voluntarily and not from your share. Compare that trade against the 2-5% the paid platforms take from every donation, and for most small nonprofits the math strongly favors Zeffy.

What Zeffy does

Fundraising, ticketing and donation payments for nonprofits with no platform, transaction or card-processing fees. The model is an optional tip prompt shown to your donors at checkout, which they can set to zero. Weigh that against the percentage paid platforms take from every donation.

What buyers report about Zeffy

Recurring themes from the buyer-review sites listed at the foot of this page, read in August 2026. We have not run Zeffy ourselves, so this is other buyers' experience rather than ours. We summarise it here because the complaints are usually the part a vendor page leaves out.

Free costs you nothing unless it costs you donations

Card processing being included is the striking part of that $0 — that is a real cost somebody absorbs, and it is funded by the optional tip your donors see at checkout, which they can set to zero. So there is no plan to weigh and one question that matters: does the tip prompt reduce what you raise? It converts into a clean threshold. A paid platform taking 3% of a $100,000 year costs you $3,000; Zeffy only becomes the dearer choice if the prompt cuts gross donations by more than 3%.

Watch average gift size and checkout completion against whatever you ran before. One set of numbers on their own site is worth checking before it reaches a board paper. The success stories pair an amount raised with an amount saved — $18,345 and $917, $66,102 and $3,305, $89,123 and $4,457. Divide them and seven of the nine come out at exactly 5.00%, the other two at 6.10% and 4.45% (read 27 September 2026), and the headline, $2B raised 'equalling $100M in fees saved', is 5% again.

Those savings are mostly one assumed rate applied to the total raised, not measurements of what each organisation used to pay. Five per cent is a fair proxy for a platform fee plus processing, but it is a model rather than a result — run it against your own last invoice. One practical caution: the tip prompt appears on your checkout, under your name. Go through your own donation flow on a phone and read the wording as your supporters will.

How to actually use Zeffy

Make your first donation to yourself, on a phone. The tip prompt appears on your checkout under your organisation's name, so the only thing worth inspecting before you launch is how that page reads to a supporter — the suggested percentages, how obvious the zero option is, and whether the wording sounds like you. Then set a baseline before you migrate anything. Write down your current average gift size and your checkout completion rate.

Those two numbers are the entire evaluation: Zeffy only becomes more expensive than a 3% platform if the tip prompt reduces your gross donations by more than 3%, and you cannot know that without a before. Move one campaign rather than everything at once. Run a single appeal or one ticketed event through it, compare the two numbers against your baseline, and migrate the rest on the evidence. Since there is no fee and no contract, the only cost of finding out is the setup time.

Distilled from www.zeffy.com/home/free-online-fundraising-platform read on 9 September 2026 — the $0 pricing statement, the 'how we compare' fee table (0% transaction and $0/month platform fees against competitors' 2.2% + $0.30, 6% + $0.79 and 1.75-2.05% per transaction), the zero-fee explanation, and the nine success stories with their raised/saved pairs. Re-read 27 September 2026 by plain fetch of the same page: still $0 with card and transaction fees covered, revenue only from optional donor contributions ('on average, 2 out of 3 donors' tip, per Zeffy), and a pricing FAQ saying there is no paid plan, per-user cost, contract or limit. The success stories have changed: nine raised/saved pairs, seven at exactly 5.00%, GB Sports Academy at 6.10% ($22,747/$1,387) and the new Pointeworks at 4.45% ($378,521/$16,842); the footer claims $2B raised 'equalling $100M in fees saved'. The comparison block is now a $50,000 table against six fee structures from 1.99% + $0.49 to 3.95% + $0.30 + $165/month.

The natural comparison is Givebutter or Donorbox — the close 'free/tip-funded' and low-fee peers — compare the donor checkout experience and what each layers on top of payments.

Visit Zeffy →

Frequently asked questions

Does Zeffy charge credit card processing fees?

No. Zeffy's pricing FAQ (read 27 September 2026) says neither the nonprofit nor the donor is charged for card processing; that cost is covered by the optional contribution donors can add at checkout, which is Zeffy's only revenue. Whether or not a donor adds one, the nonprofit receives 100% of the donation.

What if my donors don't leave Zeffy a tip?

You still keep everything. The FAQ (read 27 September 2026) says donors are never forced to tip, and if they don't the nonprofit keeps 100% of what was raised. Zeffy says two out of three donors tip on average, which covers its costs. The real question is whether the prompt changes your donors' behaviour, so compare your average gift and checkout completion before and after moving.

Is there a paid Zeffy plan with more features?

No. The FAQ (read 27 September 2026) says Zeffy costs $0 with no paid plan above it, no per-user cost, no contract and no limit you outgrow; the smallest nonprofit gets the same product as the largest. The monthly and yearly toggle on the page shows the same $0 on every card. What you trade is the tip prompt on your own checkout.

What should I weigh before buying Financial Operations software?

The bar here is higher than features. Check who actually holds the money and under what licence, whether client funds are segregated, what audit trail and permission controls you get, and how support behaves when something goes wrong mid-transaction. Anything touching payments should be able to answer those in writing; if it cannot, that is your answer.

Is this a hands-on review of Zeffy?

This is a researched assessment, not a hands-on test — where we've used a tool ourselves, we say so explicitly. We name what each tool is good and bad at, and we earn a commission only if you sign up, at no cost to you.

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This is our researched assessment — not a paid placement. The “Visit” links on this page are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you, and it never changes our take. How we review →