Stripe for Nonprofits: Fees, the Discount and the Stripe You Already Use

connectNPO · Updated October 2026

You may never have signed up for Stripe and still be using it. The form on your website came from a plugin or a giving tool someone chose years ago, and the money reaches your bank through whichever company sits behind it. Which company that is, and whose name is on its Stripe account, decides whether you can apply for the discount yourself.

Two questions about Stripe for nonprofits: are you already using it without knowing, and does its nonprofit discount apply to you? On October 1 and 2, 2026 we followed the Donate link on the home pages of 105 small California nonprofit websites, and Stripe’s payment code loaded on more of the forms than any single tool appeared on: 37 of the 85 that worked.

Stripe for nonprofits: what it costs

For a US card, Stripe charges 2.9% plus 30 cents per successful payment: $1.75 on a $50 gift. A card from outside the US costs 1.5% more, and converting currency costs 1% more. A bank payment by ACH Direct Debit costs 0.8%, capped at $5. Registered nonprofits can apply for a discount.

From the Stripe pricing page and Stripe’s nonprofit fee discount page, read October 2, 2026. Check both before you budget, because prices change.

The nonprofit discount works like a reduced fare on a transit pass: the lower price exists, but you pay the full fare until you apply and are approved.

The nonprofit discount, and who it applies to

Stripe’s fee discount page for nonprofit organizations sets two conditions: the organization is registered as a nonprofit with valid tax documentation, and at least 80% of the money going through its Stripe account comes from tax-deductible donations. Membership fees, tuition, ticket sales, registration fees and auction payments do not count toward that 80%. Check this before you apply: if a big share of your Stripe money comes from a gala’s tickets, you may fall short on that account.

To apply, contact Stripe support and send five things: your Stripe account ID, the email address registered on the account, confirmation of how much of your volume is donations, your tax registration details, and your tax-exempt documents. The page does not print the discounted rate, so the rate you get is the one Stripe confirms for your account. It lists the countries where the discount is offered, the United States among them.

Stripe is the plumbing behind the faucet. Donors see the form, the pipes behind the wall carry the money, and you only learn whose pipes they are when something needs fixing.

The Stripe you may already be using

Of the 85 working Donate links in our count, 37 led to a form that loaded Stripe’s payment code. Only 2 of those 37 sent the donor to a page run by Stripe itself. The other 35 were forms from other tools that loaded Stripe’s code: giving tools such as Givebutter, Donorbox, GiveWP and Zeffy, donor databases, form builders such as Gravity Forms and Jotform, online stores and checkouts, and three forms that were hand-built or whose tool we could not name.

The 37 working donation forms, of 85, that loaded Stripe’s payment code, by the tool that served them. Counted October 1 and 2, 2026. Loading Stripe’s code shows Stripe is wired into the form; it does not prove every gift is paid through Stripe.

Stripe works out of sight inside another tool’s form here, so it does not top a list of tools. PayPal was the tool on 18 forms in the same count (22 with four PayPal pages that blocked our software) and its code appeared inside 6 other tools’ forms, so even counted generously PayPal reaches 28, against 37 for Stripe; we cover PayPal in PayPal for nonprofits. And 25 of the 37 forms with Stripe inside kept the donor on the organization’s own site, where the page can say what the gift does.

That changes the discount question. If your gifts go through a giving tool, the Stripe account may be yours or the tool’s, depending on how the tool is set up. The tool’s help pages, or its support team, can tell you which. The method and limits of the count are in our donation form count.

What forms with Stripe inside offer

We could read 36 of the forms with Stripe inside as they loaded. Monthly giving was on 30 of 35, suggested amounts on 27 of 36, and the option for donors to cover the processing fee on 7 of 35; the counts differ by one because on one form the fields did not load in our browser. These are features of the giving tools, not of Stripe, so they vary with the tool you pick. For what one $50 gift costs on Stripe beside PayPal, Venmo and Square, see Square for nonprofits. Venmo is a separate case: several of these tools loaded Venmo code without showing a Venmo option, as we cover in Venmo for nonprofits.

Receipts and the year-end summary

Stripe can email a receipt for each successful payment, once automatic receipts are turned on in its settings (Stripe’s receipts documentation). When we checked its documentation in October 2026 we did not find a year-end summary: one statement per donor listing all of that donor’s gifts for the year. An organization that wants to send donors such a summary, for gifts taken straight through Stripe, has to build it from Stripe’s records or use a tool that does. What a donor needs for a deduction is a tax question for the donor and their adviser.

One of our sample sites shows what a screen for that job can look like: a year-end statements page that lists each donor, flags the ones to check, and previews the statement. It runs on sample data in demonstration mode; it is shown there as an example, not offered as a product. For the calendar side, see year-end giving.

Whose name is on the Stripe account matters the way the name on a lease does: the person on it is the one who can make changes.

Five questions before you change anything

Before switching payment companies or applying for anything, answer these:

1. 01Which tool takes our gifts today? Click your own Donate button and look at the web address at the top of the screen. If it belongs to a giving tool, that tool’s help pages say which payment company it uses.
2. 02Whose Stripe account is it? Ask the tool whether payments go through a Stripe account in your organization’s name. Stripe’s discount is applied to a Stripe account, and its page does not say how this works when a giving tool holds the account.
3. 03Is 80% of the volume donations? Tickets, tuition, memberships, registrations and auctions do not count as donations under Stripe’s rule. An organization with a large gala may not qualify on that account.
4. 04Will we send a yearly summary? If gifts go straight through Stripe and you plan to send donors a summary of the year, someone has to add each donor’s gifts up. Decide who before December.
5. 05Does the form say what a gift does? Fees are one lever. The form is another: amounts tied to what they pay for, a monthly choice, and a page that works on a phone. Our donation page examples show eight.

If you are weighing the whole cost of a website, not only payments, see nonprofit website cost per year, and for fifteen working examples with give panels you can press, the sample sites.

Comparing donation platforms such as Zeffy or Givebutter? Our Zeffy vs Givebutter comparison shows what donors saw added before they paid, on real nonprofit giving pages. For every option on one page, see our guide to nonprofit payment processing.

Frequently asked questions

Prices from Stripe’s pricing and nonprofit discount pages, read October 2, 2026; check them before you budget. Counts from our visit to 105 California nonprofit websites on October 1 and 2, 2026; no organization is named. This guide is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice.