Best WordPress Donation Plugins in 2026: Fees, Tiers and Which One Fits

A WordPress donation plugin is chosen on 3 things, and the feature list is not one of them: what the free version costs per donation, which tier recurring gifts sit on and whether your cause needs a donor database or just a form that takes money. So, if you are looking for the best WordPress donation plugin for a charity, a school, a church or a creator, this guide can surely help you shortlist without reading 5 pricing pages.

I build Core Forms, which is one of the options below and is the right pick for only some of the causes on this page, and I will say which. The other 4 were checked against their own pricing pages on the day of writing.

One guide cannot cover every donation plugin, and this one leaves out the hosted platforms, Donorbox and the like, because their fee tables change by feature and a WordPress site should not depend on a screenshot of them. It covers the 4 plugins most people shortlist, the free tiers honestly, and one form plugin for the cause that does not need a fundraising suite.

There is nothing to download. Or, if you are choosing for a client and want a second opinion, I am always available for a chat. Without further ado, let’s get started.

Quick Verdict

• GiveWP for a nonprofit that wants a full fundraising suite, a donor database and reports, and can pay for it.
• Charitable for the same job at a lower price, with the most generous free version of the 4.
• Paymattic for a cause outside the US and Europe that needs Razorpay, Flutterwave or another regional gateway.
• WP Simple Pay for a Stripe-only site that wants a payment form, not a fundraising platform.
• Core Forms for a site that already needs a form plugin and wants a donation form with the same license, without a donor database.

The rest of the page is the reasoning.

What the Free Versions Really Cost

Every plugin here has a free version, and 3 of them charge for it per donation rather than per year. From each plugin’s own pricing or documentation page:

The percentage is on top of the gateway’s own fee, which is roughly 3% again. A church raising $30,000 a year on the free GiveWP with Stripe pays $600 to GiveWP, and on WP Simple Pay Lite pays $900, which is more than the paid license either way. Free is free until the donations arrive.

GiveWP

GiveWP is the most installed donation plugin on WordPress and the one with the longest feature list: campaigns, goals, a donor database, reports, PDF receipts and text-to-give. It has changed hands and its pricing page now lives under Liquid Web’s site.

Its paid tiers, per year on the day of writing:

• Essentials at $199 has the forms, the donor database, Stripe, Square and PayPal, reports and campaigns.
• Pro at $399 adds recurring donations, fee recovery, 15 more gateways, Zapier, Salesforce and the email marketing integrations.
• Elite at $599 adds peer-to-peer fundraising, custom form fields, funds, tributes and a currency switcher.

Recurring donations at $399 is the number to notice. A monthly giving program is the most valuable thing a donation form can build, and on GiveWP it starts on the second tier. The 2% Stripe fee on the free version is lifted with a paid license and the GiveWP pricing page has the current terms.

Pick it when the organization needs the donor database and the reports as much as the form, and the Pro price is a line item it can carry.

Charitable

Charitable does the same job as GiveWP, campaigns, goals, donor management, PDF receipts, at a lower price, and its free version takes no cut.

Its paid tiers, per year on the day of writing, with the regular prices in brackets because the pricing page shows a discount:

• Basic at $69 ($149) for 1 site has the campaigns, PDF receipts and the core gateways.
• Plus at $99 ($199) for 1 site adds recurring donations and fee relief.
• Pro at $199 ($399) for 1 site adds peer-to-peer fundraising.
• Elite at $299 ($599) covers 5 sites.

Recurring donations at $99 is a quarter of GiveWP’s Pro, and the free version being fee-free makes it the honest starting point for a small charity that is not sure it needs a paid plan yet. There is a 14-day refund, and the Charitable pricing page has the tiers.

Pick it when you want a fundraising suite and the GiveWP price is the objection, or when you want to start free without paying per donation.

Paymattic

Paymattic is a payment and donation form plugin from the team behind Fluent Forms, and its distinguishing fact is the gateway list: 15 or more processors, including Razorpay, Flutterwave, Paystack, Mollie and Square, in 157 currencies.

Its paid tiers, on the day of writing, with a discount applied on the pricing page:

• Personal at $95 a year or $279 once for 1 site.
• Agency at $191 a year or $479 once for 20 sites.
• Unlimited at $287 a year or $719 once.

Every paid tier has every feature, and the tiers differ only in site count, which is the cleanest pricing on this page. The free version has Stripe and offline payments without a platform fee, and recurring donations are in the paid version. The Paymattic pricing page has the current numbers.

Pick it when the cause is in India, Nigeria, Kenya or anywhere Stripe and PayPal are not the natural choice, or when you want a lifetime license.

WP Simple Pay

WP Simple Pay is a Stripe payments plugin, not a donation plugin, and it belongs on this page because a lot of donation pages are just a payment form with a suggested amount. It has no donor database, no campaigns and no goals, and it is very good at the one thing it does.

Its paid tiers, per year on the day of writing, at the introductory price the page shows:

• Personal at $49.50 for 1 site, with user-entered amounts.
• Plus at $99.50 for 3 sites, with recurring payments and automatic billing.
• Professional at $199.50 for 10 sites.
• Elite at $299.50 for unlimited sites.

Renewals are at full price, which the pricing page says plainly. The Lite version on WordPress.org adds 3% to every transaction, so the Personal plan pays for itself at about $1,650 a year in donations. The WP Simple Pay pricing page has the terms.

Pick it when the site is on Stripe, the donation page is a payment form and nobody needs a report the Stripe dashboard does not already give them.

Core Forms

Core Forms is a form plugin with payments in the license, and it is on this page for one kind of site: the one that already needs a contact form, a registration form and a newsletter form, and wants the donation form to come from the same plugin at the same price.

What it has for donations:

• Two donation templates, a pledge form that records the gift and a PayPal form that takes it, and the donation form guide builds both.
• Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay and Polar for one-time payments on any form, with the thank-you email sent only after the gateway’s webhook confirms the payment.
• One license, $59 a year or $249 once, for unlimited sites and every feature, including the 71 integrations.

Four fields, then PayPal. The amount is whatever the donor typed.

What it does not have, said plainly: no donor database, no campaign goals, no fee recovery, no PDF receipts and no recurring donations on the form itself. Monthly gifts run through a recurring product in FluentCart, which is a second plugin. A charity that reports to a board wants GiveWP or Charitable, not this.

Pick it when the donation form is one form among many on the site, the gifts are one-time and the reporting happens in the gateway.

The Comparison in One Table

Prices are what each pricing page showed on September 17, 2026, and 3 of the 5 pages show a discount against a regular price, so the number at renewal may be higher.

The Limits

This is a researched comparison of pricing pages and documentation, and Core Forms’ own code. It is not a benchmark, and no plugin here was tested under matched conditions for this page.

Pricing pages on 3 of these plugins show introductory prices against a regular price, and GiveWP’s page does not state site counts. Check the page before buying, because the tier table is the part that changes.

Hosted platforms are left out on purpose. Donorbox, Givebutter and the like are good products with per-donation fees that depend on which features you use, and a fair comparison of them is a different page.

Core Forms is mine. The 4 other plugins are described from their own pages, and where I have said one is the better fit, it is because it is.

What Quietly Ruins a Donation Plugin Choice

Picking the free version and forgetting the percentage. Two or 3% of a year’s donations is the paid license several times over, and the free tier is the expensive one for any cause that raises real money.

Buying the tier without recurring donations. A monthly giving program is the thing that compounds, and a plugin that puts it on the second tier has to be bought at the second tier.

Choosing a fundraising suite for a payment form. A school that takes a one-off gift for the library does not need a donor database, and the suite’s admin screens are a cost in time every week.

Choosing a payment form for a fundraising program. The reverse mistake, and the more expensive one, because the donor history that was never recorded cannot be recovered later.

Final Remarks

You now know what each free version costs per donation, which tier recurring gifts sit on for each of the 5, and which kind of cause each one fits. If you keep one idea from this guide, keep this one: decide whether you need a donor database before you compare anything else, because that answer removes half the list.

When someone asks me which to pick, I tell them 2 things. If the organization reports to anyone, a board, a regulator, a grant funder, buy Charitable or GiveWP, because the reports are the product. And if the donation form is one form on a site full of forms, take it from the form plugin you already pay for and put the money you saved into the cause.

The donation form guide builds the Core Forms version step by step, and the payment form workflow covers Stripe on a form. If you would rather talk it through for a specific site, I am always available for a chat.

I hope the plugin you pick is one you never have to think about on the day the donations come in.

If the gateway is the deciding factor, the Stripe versus Square piece compares the 2 most common ones.

For the other direction, asking for gifts in kind, the donation request form guide covers the workflow.

FAQ

Which WordPress donation plugin is free with no fees?

Charitable and Paymattic both have free versions with no platform fee on donations. GiveWP’s free version adds 2% on Stripe donations, and WP Simple Pay Lite adds 3% on every transaction.

Which donation plugin is best for recurring donations?

Charitable includes recurring donations from its Plus tier at $99 a year, and Paymattic includes them in every paid tier from $95. GiveWP puts them on Pro at $399. WP Simple Pay has them from Plus at $99.50, on Stripe only.

Can I accept donations with a regular form plugin?

Yes, for one-time gifts. Core Forms takes a payment on any form through Stripe, PayPal, Razorpay or Polar, and ships a donation template. It does not keep a donor database or issue PDF receipts, so it suits a site with one donation form rather than a fundraising program.