Should Nonprofits Use Zeffy to Process Donations?
A few weeks ago, I was on a call with a nonprofit client - a small team doing mighty work, like most of you reading this. When I asked about their online donation setup, they told me they’d just switched to Zeffy.
“Wait,” I said, “Zeffy? The one that’s 100% free?”
They beamed. “Yeah, no fees at all!”
Now, I’m the first to celebrate a budget win. But I’ve been doing this long enough to know: in the world of fundraising platforms, “free” usually comes with a footnote.
So I did my homework.
Let's talk about the "100% free" claim
Here’s how it works: Zeffy doesn’t charge the nonprofit directly. Instead, they ask the donor to leave a “voluntary tip” at checkout. This "tip" is theoretically a contribution that covers Zeffy’s costs.
Sounds harmless, right?
Well, here’s what’s really happening. These tips are often pre-selected at 15% of the total donation. If Doris the donor logs on to give $100, she might end up giving $115 — $15 of which goes straight to Zeffy, not the nonprofit. Unless Doris knows to toggle that tip down (or off), she’s unintentionally giving a lot more to a tech company than she planned.
And yes, this happened to me, too. I consider myself tech-savvy, and even I nearly clicked through a Zeffy checkout flow without noticing the tip was automatically added.
So while yes, Zeffy is technically free for the nonprofit, it’s not exactly free for your donors. And that’s where it starts to feel ethically murky.
Why it matters.
Nonprofits don’t just run on donations. They run on trust.
And when a donor like Doris learns later that her “$115 donation” didn’t fully go to the org she loves, that trust takes a hit. It’s death by a thousand checkout screens.
At Nonprofit Marketing Nerds, we work with shelters, food pantries, and mission-driven startups who rely on community-powered giving. These orgs work hard to build relationships with their donors - the kind of relationships that deserve clarity, not checkout tricks.
So when people ask me if they should use Zeffy, I don’t say no because I’m a snob about software. I say no because I think your donors deserve better.
Thinking about switching platforms? Make sure the one you choose reflects the trust and transparency your mission is built on.
But what about features?
That’s the other thing: Zeffy is pretty limited.
Sure, it processes donations. But it doesn’t have crowdfunding tools, text-to-give, peer-to-peer, or even a halfway decent CRM. If you’re planning to grow, you'll likely outgrow Zeffy fast — and then face the headache of migrating platforms (plus all the donor confusion that comes with it).
Don’t make things harder on your future self.
So, what do we recommend?
At Nonprofit Marketing Nerds, we’re big fans of Donorbox — especially for small to midsize orgs who need simplicity, design that doesn’t look like 2007, and tools they can actually use.
It’s a 2.95% platform fee for donations (with the Standard $0 per month package) + a payment processing fee (see below).
Donorbox is super user-friendly, and offers everything from recurring giving to peer-to-peer and even an integrated CRM (that doesn’t make you want to cry). And no surprise tips.
Are we a Donorbox partner? Yes. But this isn’t sponsored. We recommend them because we use them and our clients do, too.
So, should you use Zeffy?
You can. But you might want to ask yourself:
Are you okay with donors unknowingly paying more to a third-party platform?
Are you okay with limited growth tools and features?
Are you okay with trust being a gray area?
Or do you want to set your organization up with a system that’s clear, scalable, and built for the long game?
Still unsure what’s right for your org? We help nonprofits evaluate and implement tools that actually work. I’ll let you decide. But you know where I stand.
