Online Giving Fees
Online Giving is included with all ChurchTrac Standard and Plus plans through our integration with Stripe. ChurchTrac offers this integration at no cost. However, there are transaction fees charged by Stripe for accepting donations online.
Stripe Transaction Fees
Below are negotiated fees for ministries using ChurchTrac:
Credit Card Fees: 2.9% + $.30 per transaction
ACH (US ONLY): $0.25 flat rate per transaction
ACH (US ONLY): $1.50 instant verification*
*Instant verifications are a one-time fee for each bank account that a donor connects. After this initial fee, ACH transactions will have a flat rate of $0.25/transaction.
If your ministry is designated as 501(c)(3) status, you can qualify for Stripe's reduced Non-Profit Pricing. This reduced pricing is lower than the advertised price above.
Stripe Non-Profit Pricing
To qualify for Stripes greatly reduced pricing, Email nonprofit@stripe.com with the following:
- Your EIN, or a letter from the IRS designating your 501(c)(3) status
- Confirmation of the primary email address associated with your Stripe Account
- Confirmation that greater than 80% of your payment volume will be tax-deductible donations.
Donors can Help Cover the Credit Card Fees
You can give your donors the option to help cover the credit card processing fees when making a donation. This is a feature that must be enabled if you wish to present this option to your donors. When the donor chooses to help cover the fee, they are not actually "paying" the Stripe fee on behalf of the church; they are simply increasing the amount of their donation to help the church cover the estimated fee that will be charged by Stripe. Ultimately, your church is solely responsible for the fees charged by Stripe. When enabled, and when the donor chooses this option, we add 3% (plus 30 cents) to the original amount they intended to give. See the note below for more information.
When the donor chooses the option to help cover the card processing fees, the donor should get credit for the full amount (including the added amount to help cover the fee) for tax purposes. The donor's contribution statement will reflect this.
To enable this option, navigate to "Online Giving Options" from the Online Giving Tab in ChurchTrac. When enabled, a donor who uses a debit or credit card will be presented with an option to help cover the card processing fees (this option may also be presented to donor when we do not know what method they will use to give). When the donor selects a saved bank account (ACH) instead of a credit card, the option to cover the fee is not shown.
When the donor chooses to help cover the fee, they are not actually "paying" the Stripe fee on behalf of the church; they are simply agreeing to increase the amount of their donation to help the church cover the estimated fee that will be charged to the church by Stripe. Ultimately, your church is solely responsible for the fees charged by Stripe. When the donor chooses to help cover the fee, the amount ChurchTrac adds to the donation may not be an exact match to the fee that Stripe charges. The amount we add for the estimated fee will be 3% of the original donation amount, plus 30 cents. The actual fee Stripe charges will be based on the rate that Stripe has offered your church.
There are a few reasons why the estimated fee amount may not match the actual Stripe fee. First, we do not know the card processing rate that Stripe charges your church. Therefore, we cannot determine the actual fee that Stripe will charge until after the transaction is complete. Additionally, when we add the estimated fee to the original donation amount, the processing fee also increases because the total amount of the donation is now higher. To keep things simple, we just add a flat 3% plus 30 cents to the original donation amount when the donor chooses to help with the estimated fees.
Stripe collects their fee based on the rate they have offered you, and the difference is deposited by Stripe into your church's bank account. When the donor chooses the option to help cover the card processing fees, the net deposit should be close to the original amount the donor wanted to give. For most donations, the estimated fee should be within a few cents of the actual fee. The discrepancy will be larger for bigger donations, or if your rate with Stripe is lower than their published rate. We offer this as a feature to allow the donor to help you offset the cost of the fees that Stripe charges. ChurchTrac does not collect or charge any fees associated with online giving, nor does ChurchTrac receive any part of the fee charged by Stripe.