Donorbox and Donor Merchant both charge donations through your own Stripe and PayPal accounts. Donorbox adds a platform fee on top, 2.95% of each donation-form gift on its free Standard plan, while Donor Merchant adds no fee at all. Donorbox does much more outside the donation form, such as hosted pages, events, peer-to-peer and text-to-give, and it works without a WordPress site.
Every Donorbox figure below comes from Donorbox's pricing page and help center, read on October 13, 2026. Prices change, so verify with Donorbox before you decide. We make Donor Merchant, so keep that in mind as you read.
What does Donorbox charge?
Donorbox has three plans. Each takes a platform fee from every gift, and the rate depends on the plan and the feature the gift came through. As published October 2026:
| Plan | Monthly price | Platform fee: forms, fundraising pages, crowdfunding | Platform fee: events, memberships, supporter peer-to-peer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | Free | 2.95% | 3.95% |
| Pro | $150 (a yearly discount is offered; the amount is not stated) | 1.75% | 2% |
| Premium | Quote from sales | 1.6% | 2% |
A few details matter when you compare:
- Processing is separate. Stripe or PayPal charges its own fee on your account. Stripe's published US rate is 2.9% + 30¢ for domestic cards. Stripe offers nonprofits a discount but does not publish the rate, so you apply and ask.
- Bank debit is capped. On US ACH gifts, Donorbox caps its platform fee at $25 per gift.
- There is no donor tip. Donorbox's pricing describes platform fees only. Instead, you can switch on a cover-fees option per campaign. The donor is then asked to cover both the Donorbox fee and an estimate of the Stripe or PayPal fee.
- The cover-fees estimate assumes discounted processing. Donorbox's help center says it calculates covered fees with the lowest Stripe and PayPal nonprofit rates, because it cannot see your actual rate, so "the final amount that you receive may differ." If your Stripe account is on standard pricing, a covered gift can arrive slightly short. Donorbox says its support team may be able to adjust the estimate.
- Some features are monthly add-ons, listed on its help center: Zapier and API access $17 on Standard (included on Pro), Mailchimp $8, Text-to-Give $19 or $50, Double the Donation matching $40 (paid to Double the Donation through a 360MatchPro account, not to Donorbox), HubSpot $50, Salesforce NPSP $50, custom CSS $85, and the Live Kiosk app at $80 a month for the first device ($50 on Premium).
Pro pays for itself only at volume. It lowers the donation-form fee by 1.2 points (2.95% to 1.75%), so the $150 subscription breaks even at about $12,500 a month of form gifts.
What does Donor Merchant charge?
The plugin is free, with every feature included, and it adds no platform fee. You pay Stripe's or PayPal's processing fee on your own account, at whatever rate that account has. Donors can choose to cover it. The amount is calculated so you receive the full gift: on a $100 card gift at 2.9% + 30¢, the donor adds $3.30. Optional paid support plans cost $29 or $149 a month, and nothing in the plugin depends on them. You do need a WordPress site and hosting, which most organizations considering a plugin already have.
How much do you keep from a $100 gift and a $50 monthly donor?
| One $100 gift | Donor Merchant | Donorbox Standard | Donorbox Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | $0.00 | $2.95 | $1.75 |
| Stripe fee | $3.20 | $3.20 | $3.20 |
| You keep | $96.80 | $93.85 | $95.05 |
| $50 a month for 12 months ($600 given) | Donor Merchant | Donorbox Standard | Donorbox Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fees per charge | $1.75 | $3.23 | $2.63 |
| Fees for the year | $21.00 | $38.76 | $31.56 |
| You keep | $579.00 | $561.24 | $568.44 |
| Subscription (whole account, not per donor) | $0 | $0 | $1,800 a year |
If the donor covers fees, both tools can deliver close to the full gift. With Donor Merchant the donor pays $103.30 on the $100 gift and you receive $100.00. With Donorbox the donor also covers the platform fee, so the total is higher, and the amount you receive depends on how close Donorbox's processing estimate is to your real rate.
How do the features compare?
| Donor Merchant | Donorbox | |
|---|---|---|
| Software cost | $0 | Standard $0; Pro $150/month; Premium by quote |
| Platform fee per gift | None | 1.6% to 3.95%, by plan and feature |
| Payment accounts | Your own Stripe and PayPal | Your own Stripe and PayPal |
| Where it runs | Your WordPress site only | Any site (embed code or its WordPress plugin), plus hosted pages |
| Recurring frequencies | Weekly, every 2 weeks, monthly, quarterly, yearly | Up to four per form, chosen from eight intervals including daily, weekly and every 2 weeks |
| Donor self-service | Emailed sign-in link; history, receipts, statements; Stripe recurring donors update a card or cancel; PayPal recurring donors cancel in their PayPal account or reply to a receipt email | Donor account with password; pause, resume, cancel, change amount, update card; PayPal Express plans included, older PayPal Standard plans managed in PayPal |
| Receipts | Email receipt per gift, separate renewal receipt, printable receipt, annual statement | Email receipt per gift, year-end receipts; "Powered by Donorbox" removed on Pro and Premium |
| Where records live | Your WordPress database | Donorbox's servers |
| Export | CSV of donations and donors | CSV of donations, supporters and recurring plans |
| Peer-to-peer and crowdfunding | No | Yes |
| Event ticketing and memberships | No | Yes |
| Text-to-give | No | Add-on, $19 or $50/month |
| In-person kiosk | No | Add-on, $80/month for the first device ($50 on Premium) |
| Employer matching | Optional employer field on the form and receipt; no company lookup | Double the Donation integration, $40/month paid to Double the Donation |
| Zapier and Mailchimp | Outgoing webhooks (usable with Zapier's webhook trigger) and Mailchimp, free | Zapier and API on Pro or $17/month; Mailchimp $8/month |
Donorbox pricing and features as published on donorbox.org and its help center, October 2026. Verify with Donorbox.
What does Donorbox do that a WordPress plugin does not?
Quite a lot, and it is worth being clear about it:
- No website to maintain. Donorbox hosts the forms and pages. Nobody on your team has to update WordPress, plugins or hosting.
- Hosted campaign pages, crowdfunding pages and peer-to-peer campaigns where supporters raise money on your behalf.
- Events and memberships, with ticketing built in.
- Text-to-give and an in-person kiosk, as paid add-ons.
- A CRM. Donorbox CRM segments supporters by giving history, and the pricing page lists it as compatible with every plan.
- A managed move of recurring donors. Donorbox will migrate recurring donors from your old platform for a $195 flat fee on Standard and Pro.
- PayPal recurring donors can self-serve. Plans made through PayPal Express can be paused, edited and canceled in the Donorbox donor portal. In Donor Merchant, PayPal recurring donors cancel from their PayPal account, and the portal asks them to reply to a receipt email for any other change.
Where does Donor Merchant differ?
- No platform fee at any volume. On $30,000 a year of donation-form gifts, Donorbox Standard's 2.95% comes to $885 a year.
- Your records stay in your own database, and the plugin sends nothing to us.
- Exact fee recovery based on the processing rate you enter for your own account.
The limits are real too. Donor Merchant runs only on WordPress, and someone has to keep that site updated. You need your own Stripe and/or PayPal account and pay their processing fees. Only Stripe recurring donors can update a card or cancel in the donor portal today. There is no peer-to-peer fundraising, text-to-give, event ticketing or matching-gift company lookup.
Who should pick which?
Pick Donorbox if you do not have a WordPress site or do not want to maintain one, if you run events, memberships or peer-to-peer campaigns, or if you want text-to-give, a kiosk or Donorbox CRM. For a small organization raising a few thousand dollars a year, the platform fee may cost less than the time a website takes.
Pick Donor Merchant if you already run a WordPress site, most of your giving comes through a donation form and recurring gifts, and you would rather not pay a percentage on every gift as volume grows. It also suits agencies and freelancers who set up giving on several client sites.
How do you move from Donorbox to Donor Merchant?
Your history moves. Your active recurring plans do not, and no plugin can move them.
- Export from Donorbox. The Donations, Supporters and Recurring Plans pages each have an Export button that produces a CSV file.
- Import the history. Donor Merchant's importer reads Donorbox CSV exports. It suggests a column mapping for you to confirm, the preview writes nothing, and imported gifts never send emails. See switching without losing donor history.
- Plan for recurring donors. Donorbox runs the schedule even though the cards sit in your Stripe account. Its help center says recurring plans "will fail to process" if you disconnect that Stripe account. So ask each recurring donor to start again on your new form, and cancel the old plan only after the new one has charged.
- Close the Donorbox account last, if at all. Donorbox says closing is not required, and that closing cancels all active recurring plans immediately and removes access to your records.
The full sequence, with a re-subscribe email you can adapt, is in how to leave a donation platform and keep your donors.
Want to see it first? Download Donor Merchant, connect Stripe in test mode, and make a test gift alongside your Donorbox form.
Sources
- Donorbox pricing (read October 2026)
- Donorbox: How much does Donorbox cost? What are its fees? (read October 2026)
- Donorbox: How do we allow donors to cover processing fees? (read October 2026)
- Donorbox: What fees are included when a donor covers fees (read October 2026)
- Donorbox: How to embed a donation form on WordPress (read October 2026)
- Donorbox: How do recurring donors manage their recurring plan? (read October 2026)
- Donorbox: Updating a card as a recurring donor (read October 2026)
- Donorbox: How to send year-end receipts (read October 2026)
- Donorbox: Exporting a CSV report (read October 2026)
- Donorbox: What happens if we disconnect Stripe (read October 2026)
- Donorbox: How do I close my account? (read October 2026)
- Stripe pricing (read October 2026)
- Stripe: Fee discount for nonprofit organizations (read October 2026)