Best Free Donation Plugins for Small Nonprofits (2026)
A free donation plugin is not a free way to collect donations, and the gap between those two things is where most small nonprofits lose money. Every plugin in this article costs nothing to install and every one of them leaves you paying Stripe or PayPal roughly 2.9% plus 30 cents on each gift. On $30,000 a year that is around $1,000, which is considerably more than several paid plugins cost.
Meanwhile one option in this comparison charges no platform fee and absorbs the processing entirely, which makes the genuinely cheapest way to take donations not a free plugin at all. This article prices free properly, covers what free tiers actually withhold, and names the point at which paying a small licence fee saves you money.
Pricing verified August 2026. Related comparisons cover recurring giving and tax receipt compliance in more depth.
What “free” actually leaves you paying
| Route | Licence | Platform fee | Processing | Cost on $30,000 a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free plugin plus Stripe | $0 | 0% | ~2.9% plus $0.30 | ~$1,000 |
| Charitable Plus plus Stripe | $99 | 0% | ~2.9% plus $0.30 | ~$1,099 |
| Donorbox Standard | $0 | 2.95% to 3.95% | Included in fee | ~$885 to $1,185 plus processing |
| Zeffy | $0 | 0% | Absorbed | $0 |
Two things follow. First, the fixed 30 cents matters more than the percentage for organisations receiving small gifts: on a $10 donation, processing takes about 6%, while on a $100 donation it takes about 3.2%. If your average gift is small, your effective rate is much worse than the headline.
Second, a free plugin and a $99 plugin differ by $99, which is trivial against processing costs. So “free” should not be the deciding factor unless your budget is genuinely zero. Choose on what the free tier withholds, which is usually recurring giving and receipting, and both of those are worth more than $99 to a fundraising programme.
The 6 options compared
1. Paymattic
The most generous free tier in this category, and the one most likely to be all a small nonprofit needs. The free version handles both one-time and recurring donations, which is genuinely unusual, since almost every competitor reserves recurring for a paid plan. Donor profiles, a donations dashboard, and subscription management are built in rather than sold as add-ons.
Recurring on a free tier is the single most valuable thing on this page, because monthly donors are worth several times one-time donors and a plugin that blocks them costs you real revenue. Paid plans start around $4.99 a month for a single site with lifetime options available, so the upgrade path is cheap if you outgrow it. What you do not get is fundraising-platform depth: no fund designation, no pledge tracking, no consolidated annual statements. For a small organisation collecting monthly gifts, none of that is missed.
- Free tier: One-time and recurring donations, donor profiles, dashboard
- Paid from: Around $4.99 a month; lifetime available
- Best for: Small nonprofits wanting monthly giving at no cost
- Watch out for: No fund designation or annual statements
2. Charitable
The best free core among dedicated fundraising plugins, covering donation forms, campaigns, donor records, and reporting with no transaction fee. For an organisation that wants campaign pages with goals and thermometers rather than a bare donate button, this is the free tier that provides them.
The limitation is recurring, which sits in the Plus tier at $99 a year, with Basic at $69, Pro at $199, and Elite at $299. Given the arithmetic above, $99 to unlock monthly giving is not a meaningful expense against what monthly donors are worth; treat the free core as the way to start collecting this week and Plus as the obvious upgrade once you have donors to convert. Receipt templates are editable, which matters if you are outside the US and need country-specific fields.
- Free tier: Donation forms, campaigns, donor records, reporting
- Paid from: Basic $69, Plus $99 with recurring, Pro $199, Elite $299 a year
- Best for: Campaign pages with goals, free
- Watch out for: Recurring requires the $99 Plus tier
3. Give
The most capable free fundraising core available, with donation forms, multiple giving levels, donor management, and reporting that goes deeper than anything else free here. If you expect to grow into fund designation and restricted giving, starting on Give means the data model already supports it.
Paid plans are Essentials $199, Pro $399, and Elite $599 a year, which is the steepest upgrade path in this comparison and worth knowing before you build on it. Note also the 2026 change: GiveWP was rebranded to Give and absorbed into Liquid Web Software, with givewp.com no longer operating independently, though the plugin remains actively developed as one of four core products. For a small organisation the free core is genuinely usable; just be aware that unlocking recurring means $399 rather than Charitable’s $99.
- Free tier: Forms, giving levels, donor management, reporting
- Paid from: Essentials $199; recurring at Pro $399
- Best for: Organisations expecting to grow into fund designation
- Watch out for: Expensive upgrade path; rebranded under Liquid Web in 2026
4. Forminator
Free from WPMU DEV, and unusually generous in one specific way: Stripe and PayPal integration including subscription payments are in the free plugin rather than behind a licence. For an organisation that needs monthly giving this week with no budget whatsoever, that combination is rare.
Expect a form builder’s worldview. Submissions are entries rather than donors, so there is no giving history, no fund designation, no receipting beyond a confirmation email, and crucially no donor portal, which means every card update becomes a support request. That last gap is what will eventually cost you recurring donors. Treat it as a bridge: run it while the programme is small, and migrate to Paymattic or Charitable once losing a few monthly donors to expired cards actually hurts.
- Free tier: Stripe and PayPal including subscriptions
- Paid from: Part of the WPMU DEV membership
- Best for: Zero-budget organisations needing recurring immediately
- Watch out for: No donor portal, so card updates become support tickets
5. Seamless Donations
A long-lived free plugin built around PayPal, included because a specific kind of organisation still wants exactly this: PayPal recurring, no Stripe account, no monthly fee, no complexity. For congregations and community groups whose donors are comfortable with PayPal and nothing else, that is a real requirement rather than a legacy preference.
Go in clear-eyed. PayPal-only recurring means no card-account updater and materially weaker retry behaviour than Stripe Billing, so involuntary churn runs higher, and involuntary churn is where monthly giving programmes quietly leak. The interface is dated and development is slow, so verify current WordPress compatibility before installing rather than assuming. It is the right tool for a narrow case and the wrong one for anybody building a serious monthly giving programme.
- Free tier: PayPal donations including recurring
- Paid from: Free
- Best for: PayPal-only donor bases with simple needs
- Watch out for: Higher involuntary churn; check compatibility first
6. Zeffy
Not a plugin, and the reason this article exists in the form it does. Zeffy is a hosted platform for nonprofits charging zero platform fees and absorbing payment processing entirely, funded by optional tips donors may add at checkout. The organisation receives 100% of the intended donation, and donation forms, recurring giving, event ticketing, receipting, and a built-in CRM are all included at no cost.
Against the table at the top of this article, a free WordPress plugin costs a $30,000 organisation around $1,000 a year in processing and Zeffy costs nothing. That is the honest finding, and it would be dishonest to bury it on a site about WordPress plugins. The tradeoffs are real: eligibility is restricted to registered nonprofits in supported countries, your donation pages live on Zeffy’s domain rather than contributing to your own search presence, and you depend on donor tipping remaining sufficient to fund the business. If those are acceptable, start here and spend the saved processing on your cause.
- Free tier: Everything; 0% platform fee with processing absorbed
- Paid from: Nothing, funded by optional donor tips
- Best for: Small registered nonprofits wanting to keep every dollar
- Watch out for: Nonprofit eligibility; pages live on their domain
Comparison table
| Option | Recurring on free | Donor records | Donor portal | Processing absorbed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paymattic | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Best free plugin overall |
| Charitable | No, $99 tier | Yes | Yes | No | Free campaign pages |
| Give | No, $399 tier | Yes, deepest | Yes | No | Growing into fund designation |
| Forminator | Yes | Entries only | No | No | Zero budget, recurring now |
| Seamless Donations | Yes, PayPal | Basic | No | No | PayPal-only donors |
| Zeffy | Yes | Yes, built-in CRM | Yes | Yes | Keeping 100% of donations |
When paying starts saving money
Free tiers are good enough for longer than vendors imply, but four specific gaps cost more than the licence that closes them.
- Recurring giving. Monthly donors are worth several times one-time donors, so any free tier blocking recurring is costing you more than $99 a year almost immediately. This is the first thing to pay for, and Charitable Plus at $99 is the cheapest route among dedicated plugins.
- A donor portal. Without one, every card update is an email to your office and a share of those never happen. Involuntary churn from expired cards is the quiet leak in every monthly giving programme.
- Compliant receipting. If your jurisdiction has specific requirements, editable receipt templates are not optional. Getting this wrong can invalidate your donors’ deductions, which costs more than any licence.
- Fee coverage at checkout. Letting donors opt to cover processing fees recovers most of that ~$1,000, and take-up is high when the box is pre-ticked and clearly worded. Check whether your free tier supports it, because it is close to free money.
That last point is worth acting on today whichever plugin you use. A fee-coverage checkbox is the cheapest improvement available to a small nonprofit and it costs nothing to enable.
Related guides
Frequently asked questions
Is any donation plugin truly free?
The plugins are, and the payments are not. You will pay Stripe or PayPal roughly 2.9% plus 30 cents regardless. The only genuinely zero-cost route in this comparison is Zeffy, which absorbs processing and funds itself through donor tips.
Do nonprofits get cheaper payment processing?
Stripe offers reduced rates for eligible registered nonprofits in several countries, but you must apply; it is not automatic. Do this before launching a giving programme, since the saving compounds across every future gift.
Which free plugin should a tiny charity start with?
Paymattic, because recurring donations on the free tier is the feature that matters most and almost nobody else offers it. Charitable’s free core if you want campaign pages with goals and thermometers.
Should we ask donors to cover the fees?
Yes. Take-up is commonly well above half when the option is pre-ticked and the wording is clear, and it recovers most of your processing cost. Make sure it applies to recurring gifts too, which is a frequent gap.
Can we move from a free plugin later?
Donor records and giving history export reasonably. Active recurring subscriptions do not, because they live with your payment processor and are tied to the original integration. Ask Stripe about migrating subscription objects before switching, or you will ask every monthly donor to re-enter a card.
Is a hosted platform safer than a plugin?
Neither touches card data; both tokenise through the processor. What differs is who owns updates, backups, and uptime. A hosted platform removes that work and your donation pages stop contributing to your own domain, which is the trade.
The verdict
If you are a registered nonprofit in a supported country: Zeffy. Zero platform fee, processing absorbed, receipting and a CRM included. On $30,000 of annual giving it saves roughly $1,000 against any free plugin, and that saving is the whole argument.
If you want it on your own site: Paymattic’s free version, which is the only free plugin here offering recurring donations, donor profiles, and a dashboard without a licence.
If you need campaign pages: Charitable’s free core, upgrading to Plus at $99 the moment you want monthly giving. That $99 is trivial against what recurring donors are worth.
Whatever you choose, turn on fee coverage at checkout and apply for nonprofit processing rates. Between them those two steps recover more than any licence in this article costs, and neither requires changing plugin.
