Transaction costs
Increase donation amount by encouraging supporters to cover transaction costs.
During their donation, you can present supporters with the option to cover the transaction costs associated with the donation they’re making. When a supporter chooses to cover transaction costs, they donate an additional amount that approximately covers the Fundraise Up platform fees and the payment processing fees charged by Stripe or PayPal. With cost coverage, the effective Fundraise Up platform fee averages around 1% across organizations.
Cost coverage modes
The Transaction costs section of your campaign settings offers five modes:
- Adaptive coverage: AI learns which supporters are most likely to cover transaction costs and decides for each one whether to preselect the option. The goal is more completed donations and higher donation revenue.
Other modes aim to maximize the number of donations with cost coverage. Adaptive coverage aims to increase total revenue, even if fewer supporters cover transaction costs.
Adaptive coverage is our recommended mode, and new campaigns use it by default.
From the blog: The Science Behind Adaptive Cost Coverage - Preselected coverage: the option is selected by default, and supporters can clear it. If you can’t use Adaptive coverage, we recommend this mode instead. When the option is preselected, most supporters cover transaction costs.
- Opt-in coverage: supporters need to select the option themselves.
- Mandatory coverage: the fees are always added to the donation, and supporters can’t opt out. This can lower the number of completed donations.
- Disabled coverage: supporters don’t see the option, and your organization pays the fees. The net amount you receive is the supporter’s donation minus the Fundraise Up platform fee and payment processing fees. This can lower revenue, so we don’t recommend it for most campaigns.
Tax deductibility
The tax deductibility of a supporter’s donation extends to the transaction fees covered by the supporter. This is because the supporter is simply increasing the amount of their donation. It is as if the supporter is making a second “cost of business” donation. The supporter’s donation receipt reflects the total donation amount, including the fees they covered.
Reconciliation
For accounting purposes, you may want to track the fees assessed on donations, even if they are covered by supporters. You can do this through Exports — by adding fee-related fields to a donation report — or by syncing fee data to a connected app through Fundraise Up’s built-in integrations.
Across exports and integrations, Fundraise Up records donation amounts at three distinct points in the payment lifecycle. Each represents something different, and they are not always equal.
- Donation Amount is the total charged to the supporter. If the supporter covered transaction costs, this includes their original donation plus the fee coverage amount. If cost coverage was off, this equals what they entered in the donation field.
- Donation Amount Before Fees Covered is the amount the supporter typed into the donation field — their intended donation, before fee coverage was calculated and added. If the supporter did not cover costs, this equals Donation Amount.
- Donation Payout Amount is the net amount your organization receives, as reported by the payment processor after all fees are deducted: Fundraise Up’s platform fee and the payment processor’s own fees.
Why Donation Amount Before Fees Covered and Donation Payout Amount differ
When a supporter opts into cost coverage, Fundraise Up calculates an estimated fee amount before the payment is processed and adds it to the total charge. The actual fees applied by Stripe or PayPal are determined later, during processing, and may differ from that estimate.
Payment method is the main variable: American Express carries higher processing fees than Visa or Mastercard, for example. Processors may also apply additional charges for currency conversion, taxes, or account-specific settings.
As a result, Donation Amount Before Fees Covered reflects the supporter’s original input with fee coverage based on an estimate, while Donation Payout Amount reflects the final net amount after actual processor fees are applied. The difference is typically small but will rarely be zero when cost coverage is on. See how fee coverage and payout amounts are calculated →
Refunds and disputes
When a donation is refunded, Donation Payout Amount becomes a negative number. Payment processors do not return their fees on refunded transactions, so the payout does not cancel out to zero.
In a lost dispute, Donation Payout Amount is also negative, and includes both the transaction fee and the processor’s dispute fee.
Export fields and integration properties
Below are the available fields and properties related to cost coverage.
| Export field | Integration property |
|---|---|
| Converted Donation Amount Before Fees Covered Option ([account currency]) | Converted amount ([account currency]) before fees covered |
| Donation Amount Before Fees Covered | Amount before fees covered |
| Converted Payment Processing Fee ([account currency]) | converted payment processing fee ([account currency]) |
| Payment Processing Fee | payment processing fee |
| Payment Processing Fee Currency | payment processing fee currency |
| Converted Platform Fee ([account currency]) | converted platform fee [account currency] |
| Donation Platform Fee | platform fee |
| Donation Platform Fee Currency | platform fee currency |
| Refunded Platform Fee | refunded platform fee |
| Supporter Covered Fee | supporter covered fee |
This data can also be sent to other apps and services using the JavaScript API. Learn more →
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