Zeffy Review 2026

Last updated: September 2026

What Is Zeffy?

Zeffy is a 100% free, all-in-one fundraising platform and donor CRM for nonprofits. Founded in 2017 in Quebec, it charges organizations nothing: no platform fee, no payment processing fee, no subscription and no feature gating. Zeffy covers the card processing costs itself and sustains the business entirely on optional donor tips. More than 100,000 nonprofits use it, and they have raised over $2B through it.

The pitch is radical for the category. Most nonprofit platforms (Donorbox, Givebutter, Classy) charge a platform fee of 1.5% to 5% or more on top of payment processing of roughly 2.9% + $0.30. On a $100 donation, the nonprofit nets about $90 to $93 after fees. Zeffy takes nothing from the donation. Instead, the donor is shown an optional tip to Zeffy at checkout, which they can raise, lower or set to $0.

Zeffy reports that about two in three donors leave a tip, and that this covers all processing costs across the platform. Either way, the nonprofit is paid the full original amount.

How Zeffy Works

Zeffy is for registered nonprofits. To open an account you need to be a registered organization with an EIN (or the local equivalent) and a bank account in the organization's name. It is not limited to 501(c)(3) charities: other 501(c) organizations can qualify too, but individuals, informal groups and businesses cannot open an account at all. Support currently covers six countries: the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and Germany.

Once verified, you build forms for whatever you are running: donation forms (one-time and recurring), event ticketing with e-tickets and door check-in, raffles and lotteries, online and silent auctions, tiered memberships, an online store, and peer-to-peer campaigns. Tap to Pay on a phone handles in-person giving. Donors pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay; card payments are processed through Stripe, and funds reach the nonprofit's bank account within a few business days.

Every transaction flows into the built-in donor CRM automatically, so each donor, ticket buyer, bidder and member lands on a record without an import step. The CRM covers giving history, tags and custom fields, segmentation, self-updating lists, duplicate detection and merge, consent records, and email campaigns. What it does not do is wealth screening or predictive donor scoring.

Zeffy Pricing in 2026

Free for nonprofits: zero platform fees, zero payment processing fees, zero monthly subscription, and the same feature set at any size. There is no per-contact tier and no bill that grows with your donor list.

Revenue comes from optional donor tips. The tip prompt appears at checkout with a suggested amount that the donor can adjust to $0 or higher. The nonprofit receives 100% of the donation amount minus only the tip the donor chose to add.

Where Zeffy Wins

• The zero-fee claim is structural, not a promotional rate. Zeffy covers card processing itself, so there is no percentage skimmed off donations and no monthly platform charge to budget for.
• No feature gating. Auctions, peer-to-peer, memberships, Tap to Pay and the CRM are available immediately to every organization, where competitors typically reserve auctions and P2P for premium tiers.
• Broad module coverage in one product. Most nonprofits would otherwise stitch together a donation tool, an event ticketer, an auction platform and an email tool.
• Donor data lands in the built-in CRM automatically from every module, so segmentation and email run off real transaction history without exports.
• Real integrations. Zeffy launched a public API for reading and writing contacts and payments in September 2026, and connects to QuickBooks, Zapier (1,000+ apps), viaSocket and WordPress, plus an AI Assistant inside ChatGPT. Google Analytics, the Meta Pixel and UTM tracking are supported for attribution.

Where It Falls Short

• The tip prompt is the product's real cost, and it lands on your donors rather than on you. The contribution wording and suggested amounts cannot be fully customized, so you cannot tone it down if it clashes with your donor experience.
• Not for live-auction galas. There is no auctioneer-led live bidding, no paddle raise or fund-a-need, and no live streaming for a hybrid room.
• No SMS or text-to-give, and no volunteer management. Teams that fundraise by text, or that need to coordinate volunteers, have to add a second tool.
• Registered nonprofits only, in six countries. Individuals, informal groups and businesses cannot use it at all.
• Vendor concentration risk, plus a couple of hard caps. The model depends on roughly two in three donors continuing to tip, and you have no lever to influence that rate. Auctions are capped at 50 items per form, and bulk email is throttled to 5,000 recipients a day (30,000 with your own sending domain).

Zeffy vs Donorbox vs Givebutter vs Classy

Donorbox charges a 1.5% platform fee on top of payment processing. Cheap, but not free.

Givebutter uses a tip model similar to Zeffy, but adds optional platform fees for organizations that prefer them, and its feature depth sits between Zeffy and Classy.

Classy targets larger nonprofits with deeper campaign and enterprise features at platform fees of 5% or more.

The pattern holds across the category: every alternative charges either a subscription, a platform fee, or both. Zeffy is the only one here where the cost does not move as your donor list grows.

Who Should Use Zeffy

Small and mid-sized nonprofits, especially volunteer-run ones such as PTAs, churches, animal rescues, sports clubs, fire departments and food banks, where a 3% to 8% platform-plus-processing bite is the difference between running a campaign and not running it.

Organizations that need several fundraising formats at once (an event, a raffle, an auction, a shop) and cannot justify separate subscriptions for each.

Skip it if you run an auctioneer-led gala with live bidding and a paddle raise, you fundraise by SMS, you need volunteer management, you are not a registered nonprofit, or you run a major-gifts program built on wealth screening, where the un-customizable tip prompt would also sit in front of high-value donors.

Frequently Asked Questions