Working out what fundraising software costs is harder than it should be. Some vendors publish a full price ladder. Some publish a "starting at" figure with nothing to anchor it. Some publish nothing at all. And the headline number is rarely the whole number, because payment processing is usually priced somewhere else entirely.
So on 3 September 2026 we checked. Every figure below was read off the vendor's own website or help center on that date and is quoted verbatim. We have not used Capterra, G2 or any comparison site, because their numbers for this category are frequently stale and we are not willing to put an unverified figure next to a company's name.
Is Zeffy really free?
For your organization, yes. Zeffy publishes "No transaction fees. No platform fees. No fees period." and states that "100% of all payments you receive through Zeffy go directly to your nonprofit." That is real, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
The cost lands on your donors instead, and the mechanism is worth understanding. Zeffy describes its checkout tip this way: "Completely optional", "Separate from the nonprofit's donation", and — the part that matters — "Set to a suggested amount by default (donors can change it to zero)."
So the contribution is pre-selected. A donor who doesn't want it has to notice it and take it down to zero. A donor who doesn't notice, pays it. Non-profits posting on Zeffy's own feedback board have reported a default of around 17% on smaller gifts, on a request titled "Voluntary Contribution Defaults to $0" that carries 224 votes; Zeffy's product team closed that request in March 2026 having concluded its "current approach is the best balance."
In fairness, Zeffy publishes an average contribution of roughly 4%, so what donors actually pay is well below the default. Both figures are true, and quoting only the higher one would overstate it.
What you cannot do is adjust any of it: "The wording and suggested amounts in the contribution dropdown cannot be customized."
Two other mechanics, both in Zeffy's own words. You do not keep your own payment account — "We cannot connect your existing Stripe account to Zeffy as this would prevent us from covering the transaction fees on your behalf." And payouts run on their schedule: weekly by default, "every Monday", after an anti-fraud review, and "payouts cannot be triggered manually."
If online donations are the only thing you will ever take in, that is a trade worth weighing. It is also worth asking what happens the first time you sell a ticket to an event, take a class registration, or open the gift shop — and whether you want each of those living on a separate system with its own fees.
How much does Givebutter cost?
Givebutter has a free tier and, since recently, a paid one.
Free works on the same principle as Zeffy's: with optional donor tips switched on, platform and processing fees are 0%, "covered by 92% of donors" in their published figure. Switch tips off and the published rate is "a flat 3% platform fee ... plus standard processing fees (2.9% + 30¢ for cards, 1.9% + 30¢ for ACH)."
Givebutter Plus starts at $29 a month billed annually and is priced by contact count, rising through $79, $129, $179 and $279 a month to "Custom" above 10,000 contacts. Exceed a tier and you pay overage — "you'll only pay for additional contacts in increments of 100."
How much does Little Green Light cost?
Little Green Light publishes the clearest price ladder of anyone here, and deserves credit for it. "One simple plan with everything you need." Pricing runs from $45 a month for up to 2,500 constituents to $135 a month at 50,000, with 10% off for annual prepay, and above that "Add $15/mo for each additional 10k tier."
Every feature is in every tier and users are unlimited — the price moves only with your record count. Card processing is separate and does not go to them: "Starting at 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction paid to the payment processor (no fee to LGL)."
One limitation they publish plainly: they do not sell into the EU, UK or Switzerland.
How much does Bloomerang cost?
Bloomerang publishes "starting at" figures: the Giving Platform at "Starting at: $242 /month, billed annually", CRM at $125 a month, Volunteer at $119, and Fundraising at $40 — though that last one carries an asterisk reading "Must be purchased as part of bundle with Bloomerang CRM," so it is not a standalone price.
Here is the part we would want to know as a buyer. Bloomerang describes its model as "a predictable, constituent-based pricing model", but publishes no record or contact count against any of those prices. You cannot tell from the pricing page what $242 a month actually buys you.
Their payment processing is published too, but in the help center rather than on the pricing page. On Bloomerang Fundraising it is 3.95% + $0.30 for Visa, Mastercard and Discover, 4.95% + $0.30 for Amex, and 1.95% for using your own processor. On Bloomerang CRM it is 3.2% + $0.30.
How much does Blackbaud Altru or Raiser's Edge NXT cost?
There is no way to find out from their website. We checked the Blackbaud pricing page, the Altru product page, the Raiser's Edge NXT product page and the enterprise CRM page. None carries a figure, a range or a starting-from number. The only route is a form.
Blackbaud answers the question directly in its own FAQ, which we will quote rather than characterize. Asked "Why doesn't Blackbaud list pricing on the website?", they answer: "Blackbaud uses a tailored pricing model because each organization has unique needs."
To be fair to them: Blackbaud does publish payment processing rates for Blackbaud Integrated Payments. What is not published is the cost of the software.
What does Clerestory cost?
3% per transaction, and that is the whole of our price. No license fee, no per-seat pricing, no modules, no support tiers, no minimum and no contract. You never receive a bill from us, because the fee comes out at the time of the payment — and if you refund a gift, our 3% comes back with it.
Stripe processes the payment on your own Stripe account at 2.2% + $0.30, the non-profit rate our customers receive.
But the number that actually matters is the all-in one, so here it is. Across every payment we processed through August 2026, our customers' all-in cost — software and card processing together — was 3.148%. Bare Stripe at its standard 2.9% + $0.30, with no software at all, would have cost 3.177% on the very same payments.
Our platform and their card processing together came to less than processing alone.
That works because donors are offered the choice to cover the processing fee. The choice is theirs, it starts at zero, and you word it however you like — and through August 2026 they covered 44% of all fees.
So what will it actually cost you?
The number worth comparing is your all-in cost per dollar raised — license, platform fee and card processing combined. Ask every vendor on this page for it.
Then notice how few of them can answer. Bloomerang publishes "starting at $242 a month" but no record count, so you cannot work out what you would actually pay. Blackbaud publishes no license price and no billing unit at all, so neither can they. Little Green Light publishes its whole ladder and deserves credit for it — though a subscription is a fixed cost you carry in a lean year exactly as you do in a good one.
Ours is computable to three decimal places, and the working is above.
What none of them documents
We also checked the four platforms that publish pricing against a handful of things our own customers need, reading their public help centers rather than guessing. Three gaps were consistent, and we state them carefully because absence of documentation is not proof of absence:
- Sales tax on retail items. None of the four documents applying a tax rate to a merchandise sale. Zeffy says so outright: "Zeffy does not to currently automate taxes on your tickets."
- Liability waivers captured at registration. None documents a native waiver field. Zeffy is explicit: "While Zeffy doesn't have a specific function to add a waiver to your forms, we offer two different types of workarounds!"
- A correct tax receipt per legal entity. Several can route money to more than one bank account; none documents issuing the right receipt for the right 501(c) entity on each payment.
Several things we expected to find missing were not missing, and it is worth saying so. Givebutter and Bloomerang both sell physical card readers. Zeffy, Little Green Light and Bloomerang all document inventory that decrements. Zeffy and Little Green Light both support memberships that expire on a fixed shared date rather than a rolling one. If you have read elsewhere that these platforms cannot do those things, that is out of date.
How we checked
On 3 September 2026 we fetched each vendor's own pricing page and help center and recorded verbatim what it says. Where a page did not exist we say so. Where a vendor publishes a price somewhere other than its pricing page — Bloomerang's processing rates, for instance — we went and found it.
Prices change and pages move, and every figure here is quoted as it stood on 3 September 2026. If anything is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
