The following is our most current thinking on what are the best online payment services for Churches.
Online Giving Selection Criteria
The criteria we used to select these payment services are:
- Easy to setup – setup within one day, hassle free
- No setup fees
- No monthly fees
- Low transaction fees / simple billing
- 100% cloud based – can do all signups online
- Mainstream service that integrates with 3rd party form builders and such
- Integrates with various WordPress plugins for flexible payment forms
- Has an easy to use API (in case we ever need to do any custom programming with it)
Stripe Fee Information:
Fees are only applied when your organization accepts a donation. There are no setup fees, minimum fees or monthly fees. You can collect one time donations and/or setup recurring donations.
All organizations (whether for profit or non-profit) pay the following simple fee structure:
- 2.9% + $.30 per transaction (ex: $3.20 on a $100 donation)
- No monthly fees
- No failed transaction or refund fees (fees only charged on successful charges)
- Same fees for all cards: Amex, Discover, Mileage cards, etc…
Full detail and latest rate info for Stripe
How to Register for a Stripe Account
- Before you register for Stripe read the rest of this page, especially the information about tithe.ly below.
- Click this link to go to the: “Sign Up Page“.
- Enter an email address and password to create the account – simplest registration form ever!
- Follow the instructions thereafter to setup your account. It is super simple! The most important thing you will need is your Bank Account Number and Routing Code to setup the link with your bank account.
Adding an Online Giving form to your website
In terms of how to add the Stripe donation / payment form to your website (any website where you can either setup a link or embed javascript) there are many options, keep reading.
- We often use a third party tool called JotForm to process all payments on your website. This tool is completely free for any church who is accepting less than 10 payments per month or 1000 non-payment registration forms per month. Once you exceed that limit, you will need to pay $9.95 per month and the limit is then raised to 1000 payment or non-payment enabled forms. It is very easy to integrate Stripe with JotForm, inexpensive and a great way to start (FREE!)
- If you have a WordPress website you can also use Gravity Forms or Ninja Forms. They integrate with Stripe nicely!
- A big recommendation is to use a service called Tithe.ly! They use Stripe behind the scenes. You don’t even need to open a Stripe account directly, they will set it up for you! There are no additional fees for using Tithe.ly and it allows you to setup a MOBILE FRIENDLY giving form on any website very easily.
- And of course, if you have a ChurchBuzz website we take care of all of this for you and setup a Tithe.ly and/or Stripe account for you so you don’t even have to worry about any of this!
Need more help – we love helping churches – email me: patrick@www.churchbuzz.org!