Donorbox for UK charities: fees, features and what it leaves out at an event

I built the Generosity Works platform myself, so I read other platforms’ pricing pages more closely than is probably healthy. Every figure below comes from Donorbox’s own pages as they stood in October 2026, in the currency they show. Where the page shows US dollars, so do I. I am not here to trash anyone, just to turn the lights on.

What is Donorbox?

Donorbox is an online fundraising platform for nonprofits, built around donation forms you embed on your own website. It is run by Rebel Idealist Inc from Alexandria, Virginia, and has been going since 2014.

Its platform features cover donation forms and pages, donate buttons, text-to-give, peer-to-peer, crowdfunding, memberships, event ticketing and a donor portal, in more than 50 currencies. There is a CRM on top, and a kiosk app for in-person giving. The company says more than 200,000 nonprofits have raised $4 billion through it.

The core product is year-round online giving, and that is where it is strongest.

How much does Donorbox cost a UK charity?

Donorbox costs nothing a month on its Standard plan, then takes a platform fee on every transaction, at a rate set by the plan and by what the money is for. This is the pricing page in October 2026, which shows its prices in US dollars:

Card processing sits on top. Donorbox’s own processing table is for US nonprofits paying in dollars, and it sends everyone else to Stripe and PayPal. For a UK charity on Stripe, the published standard rate for UK cards is 1.5% plus 20p.

Then the add-ons. The Live Kiosk app is $80 a month for the first device on Standard or Pro, with a 1.75% platform fee on kiosk gifts. Donorbox charges no setup or cancellation fees.

I could not find a sterling price list on Donorbox’s site, so I have not guessed one. Ask them what Pro costs in pounds before you budget for it.

Is Donorbox free?

Donorbox is free to join and free each month on the Standard plan, but it is not free per donation. Every gift and every ticket pays the platform fee, so the cost rises with what you raise.

Donorbox’s answer to that is fee cover. Its pricing page suggests letting donors cover all the fees, so the charity gets the full amount of every gift.

Fee cover is normal, and my own platform offers it for card processing. The difference is where the money goes. When a guest covers Donorbox’s fees, part of what they add is the platform fee, and that part goes to the platform rather than the cause.

The Fundraising Regulator’s guidance says platforms should tell donors how much the charity will receive, and make giving without a fee easy where the fee is optional. Worth checking on any form your donors see, whoever built it.

Does Donorbox handle Gift Aid for UK charities?

Yes, for donations. UK donors can mark a gift as Gift Aid on a Donorbox form or at the kiosk, and Donorbox’s Gift Aid guide says Pro and Premium users can add automated claim submission to HMRC.

Useful. Gift Aid adds an extra 25p to every £1 an eligible UK taxpayer gives. But it only applies to gifts.

HMRC’s detailed guidance says payments in return for goods, services or rights are not gifts, and lists admission to events among them. Donorbox’s own guide agrees: if supporters need a ticket to attend, you cannot claim Gift Aid on it. An auction win is a purchase too, with one narrow exception HMRC sets out for items that are sold commercially.

So on a gala night, Gift Aid lives in one place: the gift.

Where the fees land on a £30,000 night

Take a gala that raises £30,000. Say £12,000 comes from tickets sold through Donorbox’s event ticketing, and £18,000 from donations through its forms. Platform fees only, before card processing:

Neither figure is outrageous. For a small charity taking online donations all year, a percentage with no monthly bill is a fair trade.

The trouble is the direction the model moves. Double the night to £60,000 and the platform’s share doubles with it, for the same software and the same evening. A percentage takes more the more generous your guests are. Only a flat fee, or no platform charge at all, leaves every extra pound raised with the cause.

What Donorbox leaves out at a gala

The bigger gap is not the fee. Donorbox’s event ticketing sells tickets, checks guests in with QR codes, and takes extra donations at checkout. Its features page does not list an auction or bidding tool.

That is a reasonable product choice. Donorbox is a donation platform, and a good one. But it means a gala gets assembled from parts: one system for tickets and gifts, another for bids, and a pledge moment improvised on the night.

The pledge is the last place I would want that. Ten lots in a room of two hundred means ten winners, and the pledge straight after the live auction is how everybody else gives. At the Jigsaw Trust gala the auction raised £27,000. The pledge after it raised £30,600, more than the auction itself. That total belongs to the Jigsaw team as much as to me.

A pledge like that needs tiers, a screen the room can watch, and Gift Aid captured while the guest is still in their seat. Those are decisions made months out, not a donate button.

What do Donorbox reviews say?

Donorbox reviews are mostly positive. On Trustpilot it has a TrustScore of 4.3 out of 5 from around 100 reviews, with about 60% five-star and about a quarter one-star.

The praise is consistent: quick, patient support and clean donation pages that donors trust. The complaints are about a dashboard some find confusing, recurring settings that led to a donor being charged wrongly, and problems that took several messages to fix.

Is Donorbox safe? Its events page says its forms are PCI compliant and that it never stores card or bank details.

Is there a Donorbox alternative for event fundraising?

There is, and it is the one I built. If your fundraising happens mostly in one room on one night, the Generosity Works platform was designed for that evening rather than for a donate button.

It covers bidding, ticketing, tiered pledges, Gift Aid capture, card on file and a gala screen in one system. Payments settle into the charity’s own Stripe account, the only deduction is Stripe’s fee, and donors never see a tip prompt. It never takes a percentage of what you raise.

It is free when a charity books me as auctioneer and host, and my fee is the only money Generosity Works takes. The platform is not sold on its own; our pricing page explains why.

I will say plainly where Donorbox is stronger. For year-round online giving, recurring donations and peer-to-peer, it is a mature product. Using it for the donate button on your website and something built for the room on the night is a perfectly sensible split.

Do the sum before you choose

Whichever platform you pick, do one sum first. Take the total you realistically expect from the night. Apply each platform’s fees to it, including card processing and any monthly subscription. Then write down what the charity keeps.

Then ask the harder question: which part of the evening is each system responsible for, and who is answerable for the total?

The generosity is already in the room. That is the belief Generosity Works is built on, and the software’s only job is to get out of its way.

If you have a number to hit this year, and you want the platform, the strategy and the night itself designed as one evening for one fee agreed up front, book a discovery call. Let’s talk about your number.