Free tools Giving fee calculator
What your giving platform costs a year
Every processor publishes a percentage. None of them publishes the dollar figure, so a 0.4 point difference on $400,000 stays invisible at $1,600 a year. Put your giving total, your average gift, and your card and bank transfer split in below, and read the answer in dollars.
Rates read off each vendor's own pricing page on
What the arithmetic says
At $400,000 a year, an average gift of $100, and a mix of 60 percent card, 30 percent bank transfer and 10 percent American Express, the gap between the cheapest and the dearest church giving platform below is $4,992 a year for the same 4,000 gifts.
Planning Center Giving lands at $8,048, an effective 2.01%. Givelify lands at $13,040, an effective 3.26%. The second cheapest platform overall sits $432 above the first, which is close enough that the features decide it rather than the rate.
A general fundraising platform costs more again. Donorbox Standard, on Stripe prices the same giving at $19,760, an effective 4.94%.
Those are starting figures. The calculator below replaces them with yours.
The calculator
Your giving, priced
Take last year's online total off the giving report, not the budget. Divide it by the number of gifts to get the average, or leave the average and watch the gift count in the results. Then set the split. Most churches do not know theirs to the point, and a rough split still ranks the platforms correctly, because the percentage rate does the heavy lifting and the flat charge per gift moves the total by a few hundred dollars.
Planning Center Giving is cheapest at $8,048 a year, an effective 2.01%.
$400,000 across about 4,000 gifts a year, 333 a month. Next cheapest is Subsplash Giving at $8,480, and the dearest in the table is Donorbox Standard, on Stripe at $19,760, which is $11,712 more a year for the same giving.
| Rank | Platform | Card | Bank transfer | Amex | Platform charge | Total a year | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Planning Center Giving | $5,880 | $360 | $980 | $828 | $8,048 | 2.01% |
| 02 | Subsplash Giving | $6,240 | $1,200 | $1,040 | $0 | $8,480 | 2.12% |
| 03 | Stripe, on your own giving page | $7,680 | $960 | $1,280 | $0 | $9,920 | 2.48% |
| 04 | PayPal, confirmed charity rate | $5,952 | $2,976 | $992 | $0 | $9,920 | 2.48% |
| 05 | Tithely | $7,680 | $1,560 | $1,520 | $0 | $10,760 | 2.69% |
| 06 | Vanco THRIVE | $7,296 | $1,548 | $1,752 | $648 | $11,244 | 2.81% |
| 07 | Vanco GROW | $8,040 | $1,740 | $1,776 | $0 | $11,556 | 2.89% |
| 08 | Givelify | $7,680 | $3,840 | $1,520 | $0 | $13,040 | 3.26% |
| 09 | Donorbox Standard, on Stripe | $6,000 | $960 | $1,000 | $11,800 | $19,760 | 4.94% |
| Pushpay publishes no rate. Its pricing page asks for a demo and prints no percentage, no per-gift charge, and no monthly figure, checked . Ask for the effective rate and the term length in writing before an elder signs anything. | |||||||
Opens in a spreadsheet. Every row carries the vendor page its rate came from, so the finance team can check the figure without taking your word for it.
The finding
The cheapest platform changes as giving grows
Planning Center Giving holds the lowest card rate in this set at 2.15 percent and the lowest bank transfer rate anywhere at zero percent plus 30 cents. It also bills a subscription that steps with the number of donations you receive in a month, from free at 10 donations to $239 a month above 1,500. Every step is a cliff, and at each cliff a flat-fee competitor takes the lead back until volume grows into the new tier.
Scanned in $5,000 increments at a $100 average gift and a 60/30/10 split, the lead changes hands five times between $15,000 and $1,000,000 of online giving. Two vendors trade it back and forth.
| Annual online giving | Cheapest in the table | Gifts a month |
|---|---|---|
| $15,000 to $55,000 | Subsplash Giving | 13 to 46 |
| $60,000 to $90,000 | Planning Center Giving | 50 to 75 |
| $95,000 to $120,000 | Subsplash Giving | 79 to 100 |
| $125,000 to $240,000 | Planning Center Giving | 104 to 200 |
| $245,000 to $260,000 | Subsplash Giving | 204 to 217 |
| $265,000 and up | Planning Center Giving | 221 and up |
Read the practical rule off that table rather than the number itself. A church sitting just over a Planning Center donation tier is paying for a tier it barely uses, and a church sitting just under the next one gets the best deal in the category. Move the average gift up or down and every boundary moves with it, because the tier is set by the count of donations and not by the dollars.
Vanco publishes the same shape of decision inside one vendor. GROW is $0 a month at 2.90 percent plus $0.45, THRIVE is $54 a month at 2.65 percent plus $0.39. At the split above, the $648 a year starts paying for itself at about $270,000 of online giving. Below that, the cheaper plan wins on arithmetic and the sales conversation usually goes the other way.
The shape
What the same giving costs as it grows
Five church giving platforms priced across the volume range at one fixed split, so the lines are comparable. Stripe, PayPal and Donorbox sit in the table above and not on this chart: the first two are payment processors with no giving records attached, and the third is a general fundraising platform, so putting them on the same axis as a church system compares different purchases.
Computed from published rates read on 29 July 2026, at a 60/30/10 split between card, bank transfer and American Express. Planning Center's line includes its donation-count subscription, which is why it bends.
See the numbers
| Vendor | 100 thousand | 250 thousand | 500 thousand | 1,000 thousand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Planning Center Giving | $2,189 | $5,341 | $9,853 | $19,430 |
| Subsplash Giving | $2,120 | $5,300 | $10,600 | $21,200 |
| Tithely | $2,690 | $6,725 | $13,450 | $26,900 |
| Vanco GROW | $2,889 | $7,223 | $14,445 | $28,890 |
| Givelify | $3,260 | $8,150 | $16,300 | $32,600 |
The lines diverge rather than converge, which is the part a percentage hides. A 1.1 point spread looks like a rounding difference in a contract and costs $13,170 a year at a million dollars of online giving.
The decision
Three moves, in the order they pay
- 01
Move card giving to bank transfer
On Planning Center Giving at the figures set above, the bank transfer share is worth $2,580 a year against putting all of it on cards. That beats most switching decisions and it needs no migration, no new contract, and no vendor call. It needs the giving page to put bank transfer first and somebody to say from the front why it matters. Two rows in the table cannot do this at all: Givelify publishes no bank transfer option, and PayPal charges one confirmed-charity rate on every gift however it arrives.
- 02
Check the plan, not the vendor
Vanco has two plans separated by $648 a year and a quarter of a point on cards. Planning Center's subscription steps with donation count. Donorbox has a $150 a month plan that cuts its platform fee from 2.95 percent to 1.75 percent, so $1,800 a year against a 1.2 point saving pays for itself at about $150,000 of volume on its own published numbers. Repricing your own vendor's plan list takes ten minutes in the calculator above and it does not disturb a single recurring donor.
- 03
Then, and only then, compare vendors
Migrating a recurring donor base is the expensive move, because a share of recurring gifts never gets re-entered. Weigh a switch against the dollar gap in your own row of the table, not against a percentage in a sales deck, and demand the fee schedule in writing before anything is signed. A processor that will not show a rate before signup has told you what the rate is going to be.
Before any of this, price the ledger separately. The processor moves the money and the accounting system has to hold designated funds, produce a statement a giver can hand to a tax preparer, and export for a review. Both figures belong on the same page of the finance report: the full guide to giving platform costs walks the receipting rules alongside the fees, and church accounting software covers the fund side.
The working
How this is calculated
A calculator whose working is hidden is a black box, and a black box about money deserves no trust. Here is every step, so the whole thing can be rebuilt in a spreadsheet and checked against this page.
The formula
gifts a year = online giving ÷ average gift
volume on a channel = online giving × channel share
gifts on a channel = volume on that channel ÷ average gift
channel fee = (volume on channel × percentage rate) + (gifts on channel × flat charge)
channel fee, capped = gifts on channel × [ min(average gift × percentage rate, cap) + flat charge ]
platform charge = (monthly figure × 12) + (online giving × platform percentage)
total a year = card fee + bank transfer fee + Amex fee + platform charge
effective rate = total a year ÷ online giving
Worked once, by hand
$400,000 a year, a $100 average gift, 60 percent card, 30 percent bank transfer, 10 percent American Express, on Planning Center Giving.
- Gifts a year: $400,000 ÷ $100 = 4,000, so 333 a month.
- Card volume: 60 percent of $400,000 = $240,000, across 2,400 gifts.
- Card fee: $240,000 × 2.15 percent = $5,160, plus 2,400 × $0.30 = $720. Total $5,880.
- Bank transfer fee: zero percent of $120,000 is nothing, plus 1,200 × $0.30 = $360.
- Amex fee: no separate US Amex rate is published, so the card rate applies to $40,000, which is $980.
- Subscription: 333 donations a month falls in the 500 tier at $69 a month, so $828 a year.
- Total: $8,048, an effective 2.01%.
What it assumes, and what it leaves out
- One average gift across all three channels. Bank transfer gifts tend to run larger than card gifts, and a larger average means fewer flat charges, so a bank-heavy church usually pays slightly less than this page predicts rather than more.
- Where a vendor publishes no American Express rate, the card rate is applied and the rate table below says so on that row. Amex is a separate agreement at several of these vendors and the real figure can be higher.
- Where a vendor publishes no bank transfer option, that volume is priced at the card rate. That is Givelify on this list.
- International cards, manually keyed cards, chargeback fees, ACH return fees, PCI non-compliance charges, one-time onboarding charges, and refund handling are all left out. Each is published by at least one vendor here and none of them scales with volume in a way a calculator can predict.
- Negotiated rates and volume programs are left out, including Subsplash GrowCurve, whose eligibility thresholds are not published, and any nonprofit discount Stripe grants on request.
- Donor-covered fees are left out. Every platform here can ask a giver to add the fee, and the share who agree is a fact about your congregation that no vendor page can supply.
- Rates change without notice. Confirm the current figure on the vendor's own page before anything is signed, and treat the date on this page as the last time a person read it.
Sources
Every rate, and the page it came from
Each entry below was opened on and the figures are quoted in the vendor's own terms. Where a page omits something the calculator needs, the omission is named rather than filled in.
-
Planning Center Giving
Planning Center GivingUS cards and debit at 2.15% + $0.30 per transaction, ACH bank transfer at 0% + $0.30 per transaction, international cards add 1.5%. The Giving subscription is a flat monthly rate set by donations per month: free to 10, $15 at 75, $32 at 200, $69 at 500, $115 at 1,000, $179 at 1,500, $239 unlimited.
No separate American Express rate is published for the US, so Amex gifts are priced here at the card rate. The ACH percentage is zero with no cap, which makes a large gift by bank transfer cost $0.30 and nothing else.
-
Subsplash Giving
Subsplash pricingGiving at $0 a month, cards at 2.3% + 30 cents, ACH at 1%. A program called GrowCurve is described as taking eligible churches "as low as 1.9%" on cards and "0.5%" on ACH.
No American Express rate is published, so Amex is priced here at the card rate. The GrowCurve thresholds are not published, so no reduced rate is modelled. Ask what qualifies a church, and ask in writing what happens when it stops qualifying.
-
Vanco THRIVE
Vanco eGiving pricing$54 a month, cards at 2.65% + $0.39 per transaction, ACH at 0.90% + $0.39. A footnote sets American Express at 3.99%, and the card footnote applies to every major brand except Amex.
The Amex footnote states the percentage and not the flat charge, so the plan flat charge of $0.39 is applied. Chargebacks are $25 and ACH returns are $5, neither of which this calculator predicts.
-
Vanco GROW
Vanco eGiving pricing$0 a month, cards at 2.90% + $0.45 per transaction, ACH at 1.00% + $0.45, American Express at 3.99%.
The $0 monthly figure carries a condition on the page: a $10 monthly fee applies to a church that does not complete a first meeting with a Vanco giving specialist inside 15 days and have its giving page live inside 30 days. That $10 is not in the figures below.
-
Tithely
Tithely pricingCards and debit at 2.9% + $0.30, American Express at 3.5% + $0.30, ACH bank transfer at 1% + $0.30. The Giving plan is $0 a month.
The other Tithely products are separate subscriptions and none of them is counted here. Church management is $72 a month, a website is $19, a custom app is $89, the all-access bundle is $119.
-
Givelify
Givelify pricingVisa, MasterCard and Discover at 2.9% + $0.30 per donation, American Express at 3.5% + $0.30. No signup fee, no monthly fee, no maintenance cost, no refund fee.
The pricing page names no bank transfer or ACH option. Bank transfer volume is therefore priced at the card rate, which is the honest reading: the saving is a lever this platform does not appear to hand you.
-
Stripe, on your own giving page
Stripe pricing2.9% + 30 cents per successful domestic online transaction, and ACH Direct Debit at 0.8% with a $5.00 cap.
No separate Amex rate is published, so Amex is priced at the card rate. Stripe processes payments and does not keep giving records, produce a year-end statement, or split a gift across funds, so somebody has to build or buy that. Discounted nonprofit rates are not published on the pricing page and are not modelled.
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PayPal, confirmed charity rate
PayPal merchant feesCharity transactions at 1.99% + a fixed fee, the fixed fee being $0.49 in US dollars, with 1.50% added on an international transaction. Standard commercial transactions run 3.49% + the same fixed fee.
The fee schedule publishes one confirmed-charity rate and no separate bank transfer rate, so every gift is priced at 1.99% + $0.49 here, including the bank transfer share. Moving giving off cards therefore changes nothing on this row. The charity rate requires PayPal to confirm the church as a charity first.
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Donorbox Standard, on Stripe
Donorbox pricingThe Standard plan is free monthly and takes a 2.95% platform fee on donation forms, pages and QuickDonate. Stripe processing on top of that is 2.2% + 30 cents on cards, and ACH bank transfer at 0.8% capped at $5. The Pro plan is $150 a month and drops the platform fee to 1.75%.
The platform fee applies on top of processing, so it is added to every dollar here regardless of how the gift arrives. This is a general fundraising platform rather than a church system, and it is in the table to show what the general-purpose option costs against a church processor.
-
Pushpay
Pushpay pricingThe pricing page publishes no percentage, no per-gift charge, and no monthly figure. It asks the visitor to book a demo or call sales. There is nothing to put in the table, so nothing is put in the table.
Ask for the effective rate, the term length, and the early-termination terms in writing. A multi-year agreement nobody at the church can explain to the congregation is not a stewardship decision.
What refused, and what was checked twice
- Planning Center's rates were read in two places on the same day, the pricing page and the Giving product page, because the subscription tiers appear on one and not the other. Both gave the same processing figures.
- The Planning Center Giving support article on processing fees at pcogiving.zendesk.com returned HTTP 403 to an automated request, so nothing on this page cites it.
- Subsplash's Giving product page names the GrowCurve reduced rates and does not print the standard rate, so the standard figures come from the pricing page instead.
- Pushpay publishes no rate at all, as above. Every other row here traces to a page that prints its own numbers.
Church Posting builds Covenant OS, which is in development and not available to buy, so it is not in this table and it is not compared with anything here. The method behind these pages, including what disqualifies a tool and what we refuse to guess at, is on how we review. If you hold an invoice that contradicts a figure above, send it to us. A dated invoice beats a marketing page.
Next
Take the working further
- What giving platforms actually cost your church The same rates in prose, with the receipting rules a treasurer has to follow and the case for pushing bank transfer from the front.
- Giving and accounting, reviewed What each platform is good at, who should skip it, and what to demand in writing before money moves.
- Liturgical calendar Dates for the church year with the seasonal colors and a calendar file you can import.