Brand colors across Checkout and Campaign Pages

Recoloring Checkout to match each nonprofit’s brand had no impact on donation conversion.

What we tested

A nonprofit’s brand matters. Colors, typography, and visual identity help create a consistent experience supporters can recognize and trust.

It’s also a common assumption that carrying that branding into checkout should help more donors complete their gifts. But we wanted to test whether that assumption actually holds up in donor behavior.

Fundraise Up’s Checkout uses a blue primary color that has performed strongly in our previous conversion testing. So the question was: would replacing that proven color with each nonprofit’s own brand color improve donation conversion even further?

To find out, we customized the primary colors in Checkout to match each organization’s brand while keeping the structure, copy, and overall donation experience unchanged. The test ran across both the Checkout Modal and the Campaign Pages.

The goal was simple: determine whether a more branded Checkout experience could outperform our existing conversion-optimized design.

Hypothesis

If we recolor only the primary accent interactions in the donation checkout to match each organization's brand color, the donation conversion rate will increase by more than 1.5% relative, because a checkout that carries the nonprofit's own visual identity should feel like a natural continuation of its site rather than a third-party form.

Test setup

Duration	• Checkout Modal: 30 days • Campaign Pages: 31 days
Timing	August–September 2026
Audience	• Checkout Modal: ~1.85 million visitors who reached the first Checkout screen • Campaign Pages: ~1.45 million visitors who reached the donation form on a Campaign Page
Group split	• 50% control (existing default Checkout design) • 50% test (primary Checkout colors customized to the organization's brand)
Key metrics	• Donation conversion rate • Recurring donation conversion rate • ARPU with LTV (Average Revenue Per User, including lifetime value) • Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU)

Key results

Customizing Checkout with each organization's brand colors did not improve overall fundraising performance.

Campaign Pages

No statistically significant change in donation conversion (−0.06%)
No statistically significant improvement in recurring conversion or revenue
−11.73% in acceptance of the second pre-donation upsell, with no measurable impact on overall conversion or revenue

Conclusion

The hypothesis was not confirmed.

Matching Checkout to each organization's brand colors did not increase donation conversion on either the Checkout Modal or the Campaign Pages. Overall fundraising performance remained essentially unchanged despite the visible difference in the donor experience.

Because the customization did not deliver a measurable fundraising improvement, we won't be rolling out this version. The existing Checkout design will remain in place while we continue testing changes that can meaningfully improve donor conversion and revenue.

What this means for you

It makes sense to want your donation experience to feel fully aligned with your brand. Your website is carefully designed to build trust and connection, so it’s natural to ask whether carrying that same visual identity into Checkout could help more supporters complete their gifts.

In this test, it didn’t. Across more than three million donor visits on Checkout Modal and Campaign Pages, donation conversion and recurring giving remained essentially unchanged when the primary Checkout colors were replaced with each nonprofit’s own brand colors.

That matters because Fundraise Up’s Checkout is designed with conversion in mind. Its experience is shaped by years of testing and millions of donor interactions, so decisions about color, layout, prompts, and flow are based on how supporters actually behave — not simply on what looks most intuitive.

Not every optimization produces a lift, and that’s exactly why we test them. We validate changes against real donor behavior before rolling them out, so nonprofits can rely on a Checkout experience built around what helps more supporters complete their gifts.

→ Explore how Checkout optimizations can improve your fundraising results