Zeffy review - genuinely 100% free fundraising for tiny nonprofits
The rare fundraising platform that is truly free: $0 platform fee AND $0 processing fee. Funded entirely by optional donor tips. Best-in-class for the smallest budgets.
- Category:
- Donation & Fundraising
- Access:
- Free
- Pricing:
- 100% free: $0 platform fee and $0 payment processing fee. When you raise $100 you keep $100. Zeffy covers all card and ACH costs itself, funded only by an optional tip donors are asked to add at checkout (roughly 60% choose to).
- Our rating:
- 🟢 green
- Verified via:
- Direct application with the vendor
- Eligibility:
- Free for registered nonprofits and charities in the US and Canada; verify your status directly with Zeffy at sign-up. The tradeoff is that every donor is shown a suggested tip to Zeffy, which they can adjust or set to zero.
We have no affiliate relationship with Zeffy. This is a plain link to the official site.
What it is
Zeffy is a fundraising platform - donation forms, ticketed events, memberships, and receipting - that is genuinely, entirely free to nonprofits. Not “free plan with fees,” but zero platform fee and zero payment processing fee.
The honest math
This is the headline: on Zeffy, $100 raised means $100 received. There is no platform percentage and no card or ACH processing deducted, because Zeffy absorbs the processing cost itself. It stays afloat through an optional tip: at checkout, each donor is shown a suggested contribution to Zeffy on top of their gift, which they can lower or set to $0. Around 60% of donors leave something, and that funds the whole platform.
For an organization raising a few thousand dollars a year, this is often the single biggest fee saving available. Compared with a platform charging even 1.5% + 2.2% + $0.30 per gift, keeping 100% adds up fast.
The catch
The tradeoff is the tip prompt. Every donor sees an ask to support Zeffy alongside their donation to you, and some organizations dislike putting a second ask in front of their supporters, or worry a donor thinks the tip is going to the cause. It is adjustable and skippable, but it is always there.
The honest take
For tiny and shoestring nonprofits, Zeffy is hard to beat - the fee math is unbeatable. Just go in clear-eyed about the donor-facing tip prompt. We are not enrolled in any Zeffy affiliate program; the link above is a plain link to their site.
Sources
Last reviewed 2026-07-09.
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