Reviews › Nonprofit & Fundraising › Zeffy

Zeffy Review

Nonprofit & Fundraisingvia PartnerStackFrom Free (optional donor tips fund the platform)

Fundraising software with a price nonprofits stopped believing existed: actually free, fees included.

4.1
out of 5.0
Very Good
TomReviewed by Tom · Founder & lead reviewer
Our verdictZeffy's model sounds too good to check out, and mostly checks out: donation forms, event ticketing, raffles, memberships, and a donor CRM at genuinely zero cost - even card processing fees are covered, funded by optional tips donors add at checkout. The tip prompt itself is the honest caveat, and feature depth trails the paid enterprise platforms. For fee-squeezed small nonprofits, the math is hard to argue with.
Disclosure: this review may contain affiliate links. If you sign up through them we may earn a commission at no cost to you. It does not change our score. Learn more.

✓ Pros

  • Actually 100% free - no subscription, no platform cut, and processing fees are covered too
  • Covers the whole toolkit: donation forms, ticketing, peer-to-peer, raffles, memberships, tax receipts
  • Built-in donor management spares tiny teams a separate CRM subscription
  • Automatic tax receipts alone save volunteer treasurers hours every campaign

✗ Cons

  • The donor tip pre-selected at checkout confuses some donors - plan to explain it or field the occasional complaint
  • Available only to US and Canadian registered nonprofits
  • Feature depth is honest-small-nonprofit grade - large shops needing advanced CRM workflows and integrations will feel the ceiling

The problem it solves

Fundraising platforms have normalized a strange tax: a supporter gives $100, and after platform and card fees the charity books $95 or so. Small nonprofits feel every dollar of that. Zeffy's model flips the funding source - the software and even the payment processing cost the nonprofit nothing, and the platform sustains itself on optional tips donors can add on top of their gift at checkout. When a donor gives $100, the organization receives $100. For an organization moving tens of thousands a year through donation forms, that spread is a program's worth of money.

Living with it

The toolkit is broader than free software has any right to be: embeddable donation forms, event ticketing with QR check-in, raffles and auctions, memberships, peer-to-peer campaigns, and a donor database with automatic tax receipts - the exact stack a volunteer-run organization usually duct-tapes from three paid tools. Setup is form-builder simple. The friction point is the tip screen: it arrives pre-filled with a suggested amount, and while donors can set it to zero, some miss that and a treasurer occasionally fields a puzzled email. Organizations that add one explaining line to their donation page mostly make the issue disappear.

Should you buy it?

For US and Canadian nonprofits under roughly seven figures in annual fundraising, trying Zeffy costs nothing and switching back costs nothing - run one campaign beside your current platform and compare what actually lands in the bank account. Larger organizations with major-gift pipelines, complex grant workflows, or deep Salesforce integrations should treat it as a supplement, not a replacement; the free model does not yet buy enterprise plumbing. And any team using it owes donors clarity about the tip - it is the fair price of free, but only if nobody feels tricked.

Best for

Small and mid-sized nonprofits in the US or Canada tired of watching 3-5% of every donation disappear into platform and processing fees.

Ready to try Zeffy?

Start today and see how it fits your workflow. Register through the link below — it costs you nothing extra and helps fund our independent testing.

👉 Register here

Related on SMBToolbox

Best Nonprofit & Fundraising tools →Todoist reviewWise Business reviewDeel review

Community discussion

Used Zeffy? Share your real experience - help others decide, and read what other users think.