Fundraise Up for UK charities: pricing, donation forms and the event gap

I built the Generosity Works platform myself, so I read other platforms’ pricing pages more closely than is probably healthy. Everything below comes from Fundraise Up’s own pages as they stood in October 2026. I am not here to trash anyone. I just want to turn the lights on.

What is Fundraise Up?

Fundraise Up is an online donation platform for nonprofits, based in Brooklyn, New York, and founded in 2017. When TechCrunch covered its funding in January 2025, it had raised more than $80 million and served more than 3,000 nonprofits, including The Salvation Army UK.

Its features list runs from a checkout and campaign pages to peer-to-peer, pledge tracking and CRM integrations. The donation form is the core product, and almost everything else feeds it.

How much does Fundraise Up cost?

Fundraise Up costs nothing upfront, then takes a share of every donation. Its pricing page in October 2026, priced in US dollars, put it like this:

What the page does not show is the rate. In January 2025, TechCrunch reported a 4% fee per transaction plus processing. By October 2026 the pricing page gave no percentage at all, so get your rate in writing before you compare.

Then add card processing. Stripe’s standard UK rate is 1.5% plus 20p on a standard UK card. Fundraise Up’s knowledge base reports a nonprofit rate of 1.2% plus 20p, but only where more than 80% of your volume is tax-deductible donations. Ticket sales do not qualify.

Is Fundraise Up free?

Fundraise Up is free to start, not free to use. Every donation carries its fee, and the model relies on donors choosing to cover it.

So what does “about 1%” mean? The page defines it as what a nonprofit pays after donors cover transaction costs, and says it varies by organisation. The rest of the fee has not vanished. Your donors paid it.

Fee cover is normal, and my own platform offers it for card processing. The difference is where the money goes: when a donor covers a platform fee, part of their generosity goes to the platform.

The Fundraising Regulator’s guidance, updated on 4 November 2025, asks platforms to show how fees are calculated before donors give their card details.

What are Fundraise Up donation forms like?

Fundraise Up donation forms are its strongest product. The checkout installs as a snippet on your own website, so donors are not sent to another page.

It suggests ask amounts tailored to each visitor, nudges one-off donors towards monthly giving, and offers more than 20 payment options. The company claims three times more donors complete checkout. That is its own figure, not an independent test.

For a charity whose income arrives through its website all year, that is a serious tool. I compared a similar product on my Donorbox page.

Does Fundraise Up support Gift Aid for UK charities?

Yes. Its UK features include Gift Aid, Direct Debit, UK data residency and GDPR compliance.

The Gift Aid screen appears when the gift is in pounds. Donors say whether it is their own money, a company’s, or money they collected, and only their own money reaches the Gift Aid question. That follows HMRC’s own rules: donors must give their own money, and payments for admission to events are not gifts.

Fundraise Up supplies the data. Your charity submits the claim to HMRC.

Where Fundraise Up stops on a gala night

The gap is the room. Fundraise Up’s in-person giving tools, Tap to Donate and Giving Station, are designed for galas. In October 2026 they were in early access and only available for events in the US and Canada.

Its features list has no auction, bidding, raffle or ticketing tool either. That is a fair choice for a donation platform. Its pledges feature tracks a promise from commitment to payment, which is not the same as a pledge moment run live on a screen.

Ten lots in a room of two hundred means ten winners. Everybody else needs a way to give, and the pledge straight after the live auction is it. At the Jigsaw Trust gala, the auction raised £27,000 and the pledge after it raised £30,600. That total belongs to the Jigsaw team as much as to me.

A pledge like that needs tiers, a gala screen and Gift Aid captured in the seat. It is designed months out, not added from a donate button. Whoever holds the room holds the total.

What do Fundraise Up reviews say?

Fundraise Up reviews look strong where the company points you. Its pricing page shows a G2 rating of 4.8 out of 5.

I could not check that myself: neither G2 nor Capterra UK would open for me in October 2026, and its UK Trustpilot profile had no reviews at all. Read the review sites yourself. The conversion numbers on its own pages are case studies, not reviews.

Why the platform I built takes no percentage

The trouble with any percentage is the direction it moves. Double the night and the platform’s share doubles with it, for the same software. A percentage takes more the more generous your guests are.

So I built the Generosity Works platform the other way round:

• No percentage, no added charges. Payments settle into the charity’s own Stripe account. Stripe’s fee is the only deduction, and donors never see a tip prompt.
• Lots are donated. No lot is sold or pushed to the charity, so it keeps 100% of what they raise.
• Built for the room. Bidding, ticketing, tiered pledges, Gift Aid capture and a gala screen, in one system.

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. You can book me through The Charity Auctioneer, for one fee agreed up front that does not move with the total.

And on a night I design, the live pledge comes first and the auction second. The pledge matters more, and it runs straight after the bidding, while paddles are still in hands. The auction shows the room what giving looks like; the pledge lets everyone do it.

Fundraise Up for the website and something built for the room on the night is a sensible split. Do the sum on your real numbers, then ask who is answerable for the total.

The generosity is already in the room. If you have a number to hit this year, book a discovery call. Let’s talk about your number.