The Top 9 Payment Processing Tools for (Smart) Nonprofits
| Payment Processing Tools for Nonprofits | Integrated with Double the Donation | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| CharityEngine | ✔ | 4.9 out of 5.0 |
| iATS Payments | 5.0 out of 5.0 | |
| Regpack | 5.0 out of 5.0 | |
| Snowball | 4.9 out of 5.0 | |
| Fundly | ✔ | 4.8 out of 5.0 |
| Faithlife | 4.8 out of 5.0 | |
| Stripe | 4.3 out of 5.0 | |
| PayPal | 4.1 out of 5.0 | |
| Braintree | 3.9 out of 5.0 |
- Top Payment Processing Services for Nonprofits
- CharityEngine
- iATS Payments
- Regpack
- Snowball
- Fundly
- Faithlife
- Stripe
- PayPal
- Braintree
If your nonprofit wants to start accepting online and mobile donations, you need to have a payment processing tool.
Payment processing tools complete the backend operations that take funds from your donors’ accounts and deposit them into your nonprofit’s bank account.
While there are hundreds of different payment processing tools that your nonprofit could choose from, we’ve got the best four right here.
Each payment processor comes with pros and cons, but these nine are the cream of the crop and can help you start accepting online donations quickly and easily.
Top Credit Card Processors for Nonprofits
CharityEngine
CharityEngine‘s all-in-one solution provides nonprofits with a suite of tools designed to fulfill their every fundraising need, including secure payment processing. With their PCI-certified payment processing solution, CharityEngine goes the extra mile to ensure your nonprofit and your donors’ data stays as safe as possible. As a comprehensive nonprofit software solution, CharityEngine’s payment processor, donation pages, CRM, advocacy software, and other tools all integrate with each other. This creates a streamlined software ecosystem to help your nonprofit stay organized. Collect donations, process payments, store donor information, create reports, and track campaigns all in the same place with CharityEngine. This platform can be integrated with the industry’s leading matching gift tool.Overview
Integrates with Double the Donation
CharityEngine is designed specifically for nonprofit use, meaning their team understands your organization’s unique data security and billing needs. Get in touch with their team to receive expert support. With CharityEngine, your nonprofit isn’t just investing in a payment processor, but a complete solution that covers nearly every fundraising need. You can ditch the software add-ons, cut costs, and compile your nonprofit software into one comprehensive solution. CharityEngine’s all-in-one solution helps nonprofits cut costs. Instead of paying separately for a payment processor, a donation platform, a CRM, and a marketing platform, you can invest in a single solution: CharityEngine. Contact the CharityEngine team and request a demo to learn more about their comprehensive software.Why We Love It
Pricing
iATS Payments
Overview
iATS Payments was formed two decades ago on a simple premise: to help nonprofits process donations more easily and more efficiently.
With over 20 years in business, iATS Payments has proven that commitment time and time again.
They maintain the highest security standards (level 1 PCI compliance) and offer their nonprofit clients a whole host of fundraising and payment processing solutions.
iATS Payments also integrates with dozens of nonprofit fundraising software providers.
This means that if your mobile bidding provider, text-to-give tool, donation page software, and peer-to-peer platform all use iATS Payments to process donations, your financial reporting is automatically synced and in one place.
iATS Payments is one of the only payment processing tools that works exclusively with nonprofit organizations. Because of this specialization, iATS is able to give their nonprofit clients the best possible customer service in the industry. Plus, the multitude of channel partners that iATS Payments has means that your nonprofit can seamlessly transition all of your payment processing into one, easy-to-use tool, regardless of the different types of software you have. Rates for credit card processing range from 2.49% (for Visa, MasterCard and Discover) to 3.2% (for American Express) per transaction. ACH processing is offered at a flat $0.26 per transaction no matter the amount.Why We Love It
Pricing
Regpack
Overview
Regpack’s registration management software toolkit is complete with an integrated payment processing solution that any nonprofit can leverage. Regpack’s PCI-compliant Level 2 payment processor allows your nonprofit to create customizable forms and collect donations directly from your website.
With Regpack’s payment processor, nonprofits can create customizable one-time and recurring donation plans and implement recurring billing, improving donor retention. Your donors and your team will both receive automated invoices, payment confirmations, and payment failure alerts to create a seamless communication process from start to finish.
In addition to donation management, Regpack is an all-in-one software solution that can assist nonprofits with membership applications, event and gala registrations, and more.
Regpack’s online form builder uses conditional logic to change question forms in real-time based on previous responses. For example, if a supporter attending event selects no for food allergies won’t see any additional questions while a supporter who says yes will have their form change to ask additional questions about their allergies. This system provides supporters with a fully personalized experience, whether they’re filling out a donation form or registering for a nonprofit event. Lengthy forms and data re-entry can lead to form abandonment. But with Regpack’s conditional logic capabilities, your forms only ask questions relevant to the user, encouraging them to see their payment process to completion. Regpack’s processing rates start at 2.1%. Get a quote and request a demo to learn more. Why We Love It
Pricing
Snowball
Overview
Snowball offers a complete suite of fundraising tools, including online giving pages with built-in payment processing functionality. This way, you can bring in increased fundraising revenue, improve donor engagement, and support your cause in any way possible.
Their extensive variety of giving methods allows for donors to choose how they would like to get involved in your organization, whether through a one-time gift or by setting up a recurring donation schedule.
Plus, with text-to-give tools and mobile-friendly donation pages, your supporters can get involved anytime, anywhere.
Snowball’s fundraising tools make sure to follow industry standards when it comes to ensuring maximum financial security and keeping your donors safe. Plus, all donor payment information is stored in a PCI-compliant vault that utilizes tokenization to protect from fraudulent activity. You can get started with Snowball’s Essential Plan for free— complete with a customizable online giving page, a built-in CRM dashboard, and recurring gift functionality. Or, upgrade to the Premium Plan for $549/year for access to unlimited fundraising thermometers, online giving pages, event ticketing, and text-to-give tools!Why We Love It
Pricing
Fundly
Although it isn’t a traditional payment processor, Fundly does offer tools to help nonprofits collect donations online. Between its crowdfunding platform, peer-to-peer services, and other nonprofit tools, it is the perfect option for nonprofits looking to collect donations securely and through a user-friendly interface. For the technical credit card processing step of collecting donations, Fundly gives users the option of going through WePay or Stripe. This platform can be integrated with the industry’s leading matching gift tool.Overview
Integrates with Double the Donation
Fundly is designed with the fundraiser and the donor in mind so you can be sure that your organization will be able to use the platform and your donors will too! Fundly’s platform fee is 4.9% per donation. Additional credit card processing fees will be assessed and determined depending on if you use WePay or Stripe.Why We Love It
Pricing
Faithlife Giving
Overview
If you’re looking for an easy-to-use payment processing software system for a church, Faithlife Giving is the tool for you. Faithlife Giving is an online church giving platform that encourages stewardship practices to cultivate generosity.
This payment processing tool allows churches to collect gifts in several easy, accessible ways—including with a link, from your church website, using a text-to-give number, at an on-site kiosk, or through a custom-branded mobile app. In this way, congregants can give in the way that’s most convenient for them.
Faithlife Giving is a part of an integrated ministry platform with a whole host of other church-based software solutions. As churches become increasingly reliant on technology to run their services, engage with congregants, and collect much-needed funding for their ministry, it’s essential that you find a comprehensive suite of tools to get the job done. Faithlife Giving offers multiple pricing tiers depending on your church’s size and monthly online giving revenue. For smaller churches bringing in less than $7,500/month, the platform is free to use with only a standard processing fee of 2.99% + $0.45. Mid-sized churches can get started with their Premium Plan for only $44.99/month, while congregations with more than $200,000/month in online gifts are encouraged to contact the Faithlife team for a custom quote.Why We Love It
Pricing
Stripe
Overview
Stripe mainly does payment processing for businesses and for-profit entities, but they work with nonprofits as well.
Stripe is an aggregator, meaning that it processes payments through its own merchant account. Nonprofits don’t get to choose their own merchant account like they would be able to with a dedicated payment processor.
However, Stripe does offer mobile payment processing, which is helpful for businesses and nonprofits that need to accept payments on the go at events or gatherings.
All of Stripe’s forms are built to stay on your nonprofit’s website. Donors don’t get redirected to a third-party site where they may or may not finish the donation process. Stripe’s regular payment processing fee is 2.9% + $.30 per transaction. However, nonprofits can contact their sales team for a discounted price if they so desire.Why We Love It
Pricing
PayPal
Overview
PayPal is another payment processing tool that uses its own merchant account to process transactions for businesses and nonprofits.
PayPal is PCI compliant and allows nonprofits to securely process donations both online and on-site (with the help of PayPal Here).
There are no extra fees for account setup, statements, withdrawals, or cancellation.
However, Paypal is also a payment aggregator, and the platform has faced security threats in the past, causing many organizations to turn to PayPal alternatives.
PayPal enables nonprofits to accept donations made with credit cards or with a donor’s PayPal account. PayPal offers a discounted rate for nonprofit organizations. They charge 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction.Why We Love It
Pricing
Braintree
Overview
Braintree Payments, a PayPal company, allows nonprofit to easily accept all kinds of donations, ranging from debit and credit cards to Bitcoin and Apple Pay.
However, Braintree is a payment processor that requires a developers to get up and running. While it is easy to use for your donors, it might be a bit more complicated to set up on your nonprofit’s end.
Braintree does keep all of your donors’ personal information on their servers, and they also make sure that your donation forms are PCI compliant.
The variety of payment options that Braintree Payments accepts means that all of your supporters can give the way they want to. Braintree Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. An additional 1% fee applies to transactions processed outside of your home currency.Why We Love It
Pricing
Additional Payment Processing Resources
Payment Processing Basics
Payment processing might seem like a foreign and complicated concept, but once you know how it works, it actually makes perfect sense!
Take a look at our guide to payment processing for nonprofits to learn more.
The Dangers of Online Fraud
Unfortunately, online payment fraud is a common occurrence. But if your nonprofit knows how to detect and avoid it, life can be a little easier.
Check out this article to learn more about credit card and ACH direct debit fraud.
5 Payment Processing Concepts
You might still have questions about payment processing, and that’s okay! Luckily, we’ve got the perfect resource for you.
Read about these 5 key payment processing concepts to become an expert.
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