Accepting online donations is essential for nonprofits, churches, schools, and charitable organizations running on WordPress. The right WordPress donation plugins handle everything from payment processing and recurring contributions to donor management and tax receipts. With hundreds of options available, finding the plugin that matches your organization’s needs can feel overwhelming.
After testing and reviewing donation solutions for over a decade, I have narrowed the field to the 8 best WordPress donation plugins available in 2026. Each plugin on this list has been evaluated for ease of setup, payment flexibility, donor management features, and long-term reliability. Whether you need a simple PayPal button or a full fundraising platform with campaign tracking and CRM integration, this guide will help you choose the right tool. This guide is part of our complete WordPress plugins guide, and if you are building a nonprofit site from scratch, start with our nonprofit website guide.
Best WordPress Donation Plugins in 2026
GiveWP
GiveWP is the most feature-rich free WordPress donation plugin available, purpose-built for nonprofits and charitable organizations. The plugin creates beautiful, customizable donation forms that integrate seamlessly with your WordPress site without requiring any coding knowledge. GiveWP supports multiple payment gateways including Stripe, PayPal, and offline donations, giving your supporters flexibility in how they contribute to your cause.
What makes GiveWP exceptional is the comprehensive donor management system included in the free version. You get detailed donation reports, donor profiles with giving history, and customizable email receipts. The form builder lets you create multi-level donation forms where donors choose preset amounts or enter custom values. GiveWP also generates tax-deductible receipts automatically, which is essential for registered nonprofits. The plugin is actively maintained with frequent updates and has a thriving community of nonprofit users.
Key Features
- Purpose-built for nonprofits with customizable donation form builder
- Multiple payment gateways including Stripe, PayPal, and offline donations
- Comprehensive donor management with profiles, history, and giving reports
- Automatic tax-deductible receipt generation for registered nonprofits
- Multi-level donation forms with preset amounts and custom value options
- Actively maintained with frequent updates and large nonprofit community
Best For: Nonprofits and charities that need a full-featured donation management system with detailed reporting.
PayPal Donations
PayPal Donations is a straightforward plugin that adds PayPal donation buttons to your WordPress site with minimal setup. If you already have a PayPal account, you can start accepting donations within minutes. The plugin creates standard PayPal buttons that supporters recognize and trust, leveraging PayPal’s established reputation for secure online transactions.
The plugin supports both one-time and recurring donations through PayPal’s subscription feature. You can add donation buttons to posts, pages, and widget areas using shortcodes or the built-in widget. The settings panel lets you customize button styles, default donation amounts, currency types, and return page URLs. While PayPal Donations lacks the advanced donor management features of more comprehensive plugins, its simplicity is its strength for organizations that just need a reliable way to accept online contributions.
Key Features
- Simple setup that works with any existing PayPal business or personal account
- Supports both one-time and recurring donations through PayPal subscriptions
- Add donation buttons anywhere using shortcodes or the built-in widget
- Customizable button styles, default amounts, and over 25 currency types
- Leverages PayPal’s trusted brand recognition for donor confidence
- Minimal configuration needed with clear, straightforward settings panel
Best For: Small organizations and bloggers who want the simplest possible way to accept PayPal donations.
Charitable
Charitable is a developer-friendly WordPress donation plugin that creates campaign-based fundraising pages on your site. Unlike simple button plugins, Charitable lets you create individual campaigns with their own goals, descriptions, and progress bars. This approach works brilliantly for organizations running multiple fundraising drives simultaneously, allowing donors to choose exactly which cause they want to support.
The plugin is built with extensibility in mind, offering dozens of hooks and filters for developers who want to customize the donation experience. The free version includes PayPal support, campaign management, donor dashboard, and customizable donation forms. Premium extensions add additional payment gateways, recurring donations, peer-to-peer fundraising, and email marketing integration. Charitable is also the most theme-friendly donation plugin, inheriting your theme’s styles automatically for a consistent look.
Key Features
- Campaign-based fundraising with individual goals, descriptions, and progress bars
- Developer-friendly architecture with dozens of hooks and filters for customization
- Donor dashboard showing giving history and profile management
- Automatically inherits your theme’s styles for consistent visual design
- Free version includes PayPal, campaign management, and customizable forms
- Premium extensions for recurring donations, peer-to-peer, and email marketing
Best For: Organizations running multiple fundraising campaigns simultaneously and developers building custom donation experiences.
Donorbox
Donorbox is a hosted donation platform that embeds beautiful, conversion-optimized donation forms directly into your WordPress site. The forms are designed with donor psychology in mind, using smart defaults and minimal required fields to reduce abandonment and increase completion rates. Donorbox processes payments through Stripe, PayPal, ACH bank transfers, and even cryptocurrency, providing the widest payment variety of any plugin in this list.
The recurring donation feature is particularly well-implemented, with donors able to choose weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual giving schedules. Donorbox includes built-in goal meters, donor walls, fundraising thermometers, and campaign pages that update in real-time. The platform integrates with popular CRM tools like Salesforce, Mailchimp, and Zapier for automated donor communication workflows. While the hosted model means a small platform fee on donations, the conversion optimization and feature depth often justify the cost through increased giving.
Key Features
- Conversion-optimized donation forms designed to minimize abandonment rates
- Accepts Stripe, PayPal, ACH bank transfers, and cryptocurrency payments
- Flexible recurring donation schedules including weekly, monthly, and annual
- Built-in goal meters, donor walls, and real-time fundraising thermometers
- Integrates with Salesforce, Mailchimp, and Zapier for CRM automation
- Embeds seamlessly into WordPress without complex server-side configuration
Best For: Nonprofits focused on maximizing donation conversion rates and organizations needing CRM integration.
Seamless Donations
Seamless Donations lives up to its name by providing the most frictionless donation experience for WordPress sites. The plugin creates clean, simple donation forms that can be added to any page or post with a single shortcode. The setup process takes just minutes, requiring only your PayPal email address to start accepting donations immediately.
Despite its simplicity, Seamless Donations includes features that more complex plugins sometimes miss. Donors can designate their contributions to specific funds or purposes, which is valuable for organizations with multiple programs. The plugin tracks all donations in the WordPress dashboard with donor information, amounts, and fund designations. The thank-you page is customizable, and email notifications keep both donors and administrators informed of each contribution.
Key Features
- Frictionless donation experience with clean, simple form design
- Setup takes minutes with just a PayPal email address required
- Fund designation lets donors direct contributions to specific programs
- Complete donation tracking in the WordPress dashboard with donor details
- Customizable thank-you pages and email notifications for donors and admins
- Single shortcode adds donation forms to any page or post
Best For: Small nonprofits and churches that want the simplest possible donation setup with fund designation.
WP Simple Pay
WP Simple Pay connects your WordPress site directly to Stripe for accepting donations through credit cards, debit cards, and Apple Pay. The plugin creates professional payment forms that process transactions securely through Stripe’s PCI-compliant infrastructure, meaning you never need to worry about handling sensitive card data on your own server.
The donation forms support both one-time and recurring payment options, with customizable amount fields and preset suggested amounts. WP Simple Pay works without WooCommerce or any other ecommerce plugin, keeping your site lightweight. The Stripe integration means donations process instantly with real-time confirmation, and Stripe’s dashboard provides detailed transaction reports and payout tracking. The plugin supports over 135 currencies, making it suitable for international organizations.
Key Features
- Direct Stripe integration for secure credit card, debit card, and Apple Pay donations
- PCI-compliant payment processing without storing card data on your server
- Supports both one-time and recurring donation payments with flexible scheduling
- Works standalone without WooCommerce or any ecommerce plugin required
- Customizable forms with preset suggested amounts and custom value fields
- Supports over 135 currencies for international donation acceptance
Best For: Organizations that prefer Stripe over PayPal and want clean, card-based donation forms.
Donation Thermometer
Donation Thermometer adds visual fundraising progress indicators to your WordPress site, showing donors how close your campaign is to reaching its goal. The classic thermometer design is universally understood and creates a sense of urgency that motivates contributions. You can customize colors, sizes, target amounts, and current progress to match your campaign branding.
While Donation Thermometer does not process payments itself, it pairs perfectly with any donation plugin to add visual engagement to your fundraising campaigns. The widget and shortcode placement options let you add thermometers to sidebars, pages, posts, or anywhere your theme allows. Multiple thermometers can run simultaneously for different campaigns, each with its own goal and progress tracking. The plugin updates manually, which gives administrators precise control over the displayed amount.
Key Features
- Visual thermometer progress indicator that motivates donor contributions
- Customizable colors, sizes, target amounts, and current progress display
- Works alongside any payment plugin to add visual engagement to campaigns
- Widget and shortcode placement options for sidebars, pages, and posts
- Multiple simultaneous thermometers for tracking different campaigns
- Manual progress updates giving administrators precise display control
Best For: Organizations running goal-based fundraising campaigns that want visual progress indicators.
WooCommerce Donations
WooCommerce Donations integrates donation functionality directly into your existing WooCommerce store, allowing customers to add donations to their cart alongside regular product purchases. This approach is particularly effective for organizations that already sell products or merchandise, as it turns every checkout into a potential fundraising opportunity without disrupting the shopping experience.
The plugin creates donation products that appear in your WooCommerce catalog like any other item, but with flexible pricing that lets customers choose their own donation amount. All donation transactions are processed through your existing WooCommerce payment gateways, so there is no additional payment setup required. Donation orders appear in your regular WooCommerce order history with full tracking and reporting capabilities. The plugin also supports predefined donation amounts alongside custom values for maximum flexibility.
Key Features
- Integrates donations directly into the WooCommerce shopping cart and checkout
- Turns every purchase into a potential fundraising opportunity at checkout
- Uses existing WooCommerce payment gateways with no additional payment setup
- Flexible pricing lets customers choose their own donation amount
- Donation orders tracked alongside regular orders in WooCommerce reports
- Predefined donation amounts with custom value option for flexibility
Best For: WooCommerce store owners who want to add donation options to their existing checkout flow.
Tips for Choosing the Right WordPress Donation Plugin
Selecting the right donation plugin depends on your organization’s size, technical comfort level, and fundraising goals. Here are the key factors to consider before you install anything:
- Payment gateway preference — If your donors prefer PayPal, plugins like PayPal Donations and Seamless Donations offer the simplest integration. If you want credit card processing with lower fees, WP Simple Pay’s Stripe integration is the better path. For maximum flexibility, GiveWP and Donorbox support multiple gateways simultaneously.
- Recurring donation needs — Monthly giving programs provide predictable revenue. GiveWP, Donorbox, and WP Simple Pay all handle recurring donations well. If recurring giving is central to your fundraising strategy, prioritize plugins with built-in subscription management.
- Campaign-based vs. general fundraising — If you run specific campaigns with goals and deadlines, Charitable’s campaign management or Donorbox’s goal meters give you the tools to track progress publicly. For general ongoing donations, a simpler plugin works fine.
- Existing WooCommerce store — If you already sell products through WooCommerce, the WooCommerce Donations plugin adds donation capability without introducing a separate system. Every checkout becomes a fundraising touchpoint.
- Donor management requirements — Larger nonprofits need donor profiles, giving history, and reporting. GiveWP includes comprehensive donor management in the free version. Smaller organizations may not need this level of detail.
- Budget considerations — All plugins listed here offer free versions. Premium features like recurring donations, peer-to-peer fundraising, and advanced reporting are available through paid extensions. Start with the free version and upgrade only when you need specific features.
No matter which plugin you choose, make sure your site runs on reliable hosting. Downtime during a fundraising campaign means lost donations. If you are just getting started, our guide on how to accept donations on WordPress walks through the entire setup process step by step.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free WordPress donation plugin in 2026?
GiveWP is the best free WordPress donation plugin for most organizations. The free version includes unlimited donation forms, donor management with giving history, multiple payment gateways including Stripe and PayPal, goal tracking with progress bars, and automatic tax-deductible receipt generation. It covers everything most nonprofits need without paying for premium extensions.
Do WordPress donation plugins charge transaction fees?
The plugins themselves are generally free to use. However, payment processors charge their own fees. Stripe and PayPal both charge approximately 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction for standard accounts. Some processors offer reduced rates for registered nonprofits. Donorbox adds a small platform fee on top of payment processing fees. Most other plugins on this list do not add any additional fees beyond what the payment processor charges.
Can I accept recurring donations on WordPress?
Yes, several WordPress donation plugins support recurring donations. GiveWP offers recurring donations through a premium add-on. Donorbox includes flexible recurring schedules in its core platform, including weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual options. WP Simple Pay supports recurring payments through Stripe subscriptions. Monthly giving programs are one of the most effective ways to build predictable revenue for your organization.
Start Accepting Donations Today
Every day without a donation page is a day of missed contributions. The plugins in this guide make it straightforward to start accepting online donations on your WordPress site, regardless of your technical skill level or budget. GiveWP is the strongest all-around choice for most nonprofits. PayPal Donations and Seamless Donations are the fastest to set up. Charitable and Donorbox offer the most sophisticated campaign management.
For a complete walkthrough of setting up your first donation page, read our step-by-step guide on how to accept donations on WordPress. If you are building a nonprofit site from scratch, our collection of best WordPress themes for nonprofits includes designs optimized for fundraising. And if you need a theme that supports fundraising out of the box, take a look at Charitas PRO or Benevolence from our nonprofit theme collection.