The Online Giving Fee Trap

The Online Giving Fee Trap! Watch out for unnecessary fees when setting up online giving!

Don't Pay More Than You have To

There are a lot of companies out there that allow your church or organization to get set up with online giving including online, mobile, and kiosk. But there are a lot of unnecessary fees! Read this article to be aware of unnecessary fees and how you can avoid them.

Set Up Costs

You should never, and I mean never, pay for set up costs. Especially if those set up costs are for each avenue of giving. For example, some companies have you pay for your online donation avenue and then if you want mobile you have to pay an mobile setup cost on top of that. These costs can be completely avoided and are just an extra cost to your church or organization. Don't pay them just move on to the next company that doesn't require that unnecessary fee.

Service Charges

You should never pay a service charge on top of your transaction fees. This is an unnecessary cost to your church. A service charge can be a set dollar amount or it can be a percentage of your donations but you shouldn't have to pay either. Like in the set up costs if there is a service charge in addition to your transaction costs just move on to the next company that doesn't charge you a service charge.

Transaction Costs

Yes, this is a real fee and no matter where you go you need to pay this. However, be on the lookout for excessive transaction costs. Anything over 3% is a high transaction cost for non-profits and churches. Anything over 5% is high for individuals. If you want to save money look for a company that has a transaction cost split where they charge a different fee for ACH then they do Credit Card. ACH is a cheaper method of accepting donations and you can greatly reduce your transaction costs by asking your donors, or even having the ability for your donors to choose, ACH payment methods.

Monthly or Yearly Costs

This is a little bit of a muddy water cost. A lot of places do charge a monthly cost but there a few that don't. (If the company doesn't charge a monthly cost that mean they are covering that cost for you.) If the transaction rate is the same between two companies and one has a monthly cost then of course go with the one without the monthly cost. However, if they seem comparable in that the transaction rates are significantly lower and the monthly cost is very low then you might have to do some math to see which would be cheaper for your church.

You can find our rates here to compare them with other companies

https://www.continuetogive.com/content/help-rates.html