Stripe makes it easier than ever for donors to make payments to you with debit and credit cards. PayPal also allow you to accept card donations (without forcing the donor to register with PayPal) but that is only if you have a verified Premier or Business account.
Furthermore, we’ve found that some of the less Internet savvy donors can sometimes have trouble finding the pay with card option on PayPal.
We want you to raise the most money possible. And by enabling Stripe (or better yet Stripe and PayPal) you’ll give donors the best possible payment experience.
It’s totally free to setup and should just take you a minute or two.
No problem, in our first few years of operation PayPal was the sole payment method.
Donors will simply see the pay with PayPal option upon donating. Although make sure you have a verified Premier or Business PayPal account (both free to setup) to ensure donors can pay with credit cards without having to signup with PayPal. More on the requirements in the PayPal FAQ link.
In additional to individual users, Stripe is designed to help businesses get paid online too and their terminology reflects that. The fields that can only be completed if you are indeed a business, such as the EIN / company number, are optional.
For the ‘Tell us about your business question’, just add a couple of words about your fundraiser. For the business address field, simply enter your personal address.
Stripe is supported for those resident in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, UK, USA, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, New Zealand and Spain.
The currency Stripe supports depends on where you’re located. This is as follows:
United States: You can charge in US Dollars and receive the funds in USD to a bank account in the US.
Canada: You can charge in Canadian dollars and US Dollars. CAD funds can be transferred to a Canadian bank account and USD to bank accounts in the US or Canada .
United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain: You can charge customers is GBP, EUR, CHF or USD.
Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden: In addition to GBP, EUR and USD, bank accounts in Denmark can receive, funds in DKK, NOK to a bank account in Norway, and SEK to a bank account in Sweden.
Australia: Receive funds in AUD
Japan: Receive funds in a JPY-denominated bank account
If you don’t have a supported bank account for a given currency, Stripe will automatically convert your funds to your default currency so they can be paid out to your local bank account.
You can accept payments in your supported currency from almost any credit card and debit card, no matter where your donor lives.
Payments will be sent to your Stripe account. Money then shows up in your bank account seven days after the payment. That is, if you receive a payment on Friday, the money will be in your bank account by the morning of the following Friday.
Stripe charges a competitive 2.9% + 30¢ per successful donation. For your local rate, please see the Stripe pricing page.
PayPal automatically sends each donor an email receipt. However, this feature needs to be enabled on Stripe if you want to provide email receipts.
To do this, simply login to your Stripe dashboard and click on the ‘Account Settings’ link under your username. Then click on the ‘Emails’ tab and enable receipts
Please note that a receipt will only be sent if you donor leaves their email address and checks the ‘Remember me everywhere’ box when checking out. If you want an automatic acknowledgement of donations (recommended), please enable our automatic thank you emails from your user dashboard – available once your fundraiser is live.
Please read the Stripe FAQ or contact them here. They have an excellent customer service team ready to handle any question that you might have.
