Every digital transaction has a fee. But credit cards are the worst offenders.The solution? Many church giving platforms have a “Cover The Fee” option for donors. So givers can absorb the fees instead of churches. But this is just playing hot potato. Credit cards don’t care who pays the fees - as long as somebody does.
The worst part?Church giving companies inflate these fees by an undisclosed amount. That’s why you’ll often see their pricing listed as $0/month. Because they don’t really make money off of monthly subscriptions. They make it by keeping a part of every donation your church receives for themselves.
What if we could actually avoid these fees altogether? We can.
The Lowest Rates In The Industry
Nucleus Giving starts with a simple promise: we will never inflate processing fees to keep a cut for ourselves. The result? The lowest processing rates in the industry.
1.9%
Nucleus
2.15% + $0.30
Planning Center
Subsplash
Tithe.ly
Pushpay
Givelify
Breeze
Elvanto
Churchtrac
3.0% + $0.42
EasyTithe
2.99% + $0.30
Rates shown above are for credit/debit card payments only and do not reflect discount and incentives made available by providers.
The Opt-In Method vs. The Opt-Out Method
Nucleus Giving invites every donor to opt-out of the 1.9% fee charged by credit cards - by donating with their bank account. Because a bank account gift costs just 25 cents with Nucleus. The result? 71% of all donations made through Nucleus are with bank accounts.
The Opt-In Method
Tithely, Subsplash, Pushpay, Planning Center, EasyTithe, Givelify, Breeze, Elvanto, Churchtrac, and more.
Donors are invited to opt-in to the fees:
30%
of all donations made with bank accounts
1.49%
Effective Rate For Churches
0.99%
Effective Rate For Donors
2.48%
Total Effective Rate
The Opt-Out Method
Donors are invited to opt out of the fees:
71%
of all donations made with bank accounts
0.00%
Effective Rate For Churches
0.62%
Effective Rate For Donors
0.62%
Total Effective Rate
Effective Rate = The actual fees paid by donor & church combined after every transaction is tallied.
FREE REPORT
The Ultimate Guide To Giving Fees For Churches [2024 Edition]
Still have questions? You’re not alone. Giving fees are complicated by design. See all the numbers in our annual transparency report.
GivingFlow. Nucleus Giving processes donations through your church’s modern & intuitive GivingFlow.
Fast & friendly. Instead of showing your church a big giving form all at once, your GivingFlow gathers info one step at a time - resulting in more completed gifts.
One click away. Your GivingFlow lives on every page of your website. So it’s always easy to find.
Trigger Links. Create custom links to use in emails and on social that take people directly to your GivingFlow.
Effortless Mobile Experience
Perfectly tuned for giving on phones.
Elegant by design. Your GivingFlow fills the frame of your donor’s mobile device creating an immersive experience.
Progress bar. As donors move through your GivingFlow the progress bar fills up with each completed step.
Fees breakdown. Your GivingFlow will transparently show the cost of credit card fees and invite donors to opt-out. The result? 71% of Nucleus donors give with their bank account compared to 30% on other platforms.
Zero-friction bank account giving. Giving with your bank account is as simple as logging in to your online banking. No fussing with routing numbers or anything like that.
Try it yourself. What’s it like to give with Nucleus? Try it yourself. Just click the button below.
Friendly Admin Tools
A powerful control center for your financial team.
Unlimited funds. Easily make a new fund, make another one inactive, and quickly see how much has been given to a fund and how many people have donated to it.
Detailed transaction views. See a running list of gifts given to your church with robust details about each of them.
No volume mininums to meet. Our rates don’t change based on your giving volume, church size, or choice of credit card.
Manage your list of givers. Digital givers get tracked automatically, but you can also add offline givers to keep your records synchronized.
Payments For Events & Merch
The same great experience for other types of transactions.
Events, merch, conferences, and more. Create unlimited custom forms that feel just like your GivingFlow and take a payment along with collecting custom information you need.
Same login and payment methods. Donors use the same login they create for Giving and their saved payment methods and other info are automatically available to them.
Offline signups. Allow folks to choose an offline method of payment during signup so they can bring a check or cash to church and you can track it easily once they bring it in.
Recurring Gifts
See an increase in this major giving category.
Invite recurring gifts with one click. Single-tap options encourage donors to set up recurring donations with no hurdles.
Prioritize the value of automatic donations. Your GivingFlow gently prioritizes recurring giving and leads people to activate regular giving just the way they want.
This stuff works. Your GivingFlow has been specifically tuned to see more donors turn on recurring gifts.
In-Depth Reports
Generate reports with the press of a few buttons.
Custom reports. Build and download custom reports with the giving information your church needs.
Advanced filtering. Filter your transactions by date, fund, frequency, payment type, status, or dollar amount.
Reports for your donors. Givers can sign in and access their giving records directly, keep their contact info up to date, and download their own reports in their own Control Center.
Receipts & Annual Statements
Management is simple.
Automatic, beautiful receipts. Match your church’s colors and logo and you can customize the message.
Issue comprehensive statements to your givers. Before tax time, setup, review, then deliver statements digitally to donors. Need to print some out? You can do that as well.
Unique giver IDs and member IDs for tracking. Each person’s ID is unique to your church on Nucleus Giving. You can also add your own member ID if you need it.
Custom Branding
Make it beautiful.
Your logo and colors. With just a few clicks, match the look and feel of your GivingFlow with your church’s branding.
Light & dark mode. Choose light, dark, or intelligent auto mode for your GivingFlow.
Hosted on your website. Never push donors away to a third-party website, app, or text thread. Your GivingFlow opens beautifully over your church’s website and can be triggered from anywhere.
Advanced Permissions & Privacy
Invite the whole team to help.
Unlimited admins. Invite as many people as you need to help manage your giving.
Church-specific permissions. Special privacy and accountability permissions allow for pastor-level access where leaders can run reports and see giving stats without exposing specific donor names attached to individual gift amounts.
Secure & private by default. The full experience of Nucleus Giving is secure with bank-level encryption.
Empower donors to schedule their gift ahead of time
Funds & Memos
Add & manage unlimited funds with optional memo fields for custom notes
Next Day Deposits
Credit card gifts deposit the day after they’re given (ACH takes a bit longer)
Track Cash & Checks
Add cash, check, and other forms of offline giving to the system quickly and easily to ensure complete records
No Hidden Fees
Your church and donors will never be subject to PCI compliance fees, “security” fees, chargebacks, cancellation fees, or any other fee
Unlimited Users
Never pay per user with Nucleus - invite the whole team to help out
Try a GivingFlow for yourself
What’s it like to donate using Nucleus? We think you should try it out for yourself. Give it a spin below!Nucleus Giving is currently only available to churches located in the USA
Pricing
Giving
Friendly pricing for churches of all sizes. Try us free for 15 days.
Upgrade your new church website with additional Nucleus products. Plus, unlock a 10% discount for every product you add. Save up to 30% on your entire subscription!
“[Church of 700] Data nerd here. I HAD to run the exact numbers. If we had gone with Tithely like we almost did, we would have lost $48k this past year.”
•
Blaine, Administrator
“I know I’m not supposed to say this, but is this the Pushpay killer? We are losing $10,000+ a year in fees, not to mention their ridiculous monthly costs as you grow. I don’t care if Elevation and Gateway use it, if we can save money and reach more people with Nucleus Giving, I’m in!”
•
Alyssa R.
“Since switching, our giving is up 105% from this week last year. We’re thrilled to have Nucleus Giving as a major tool in our church’s growth.”
•
Devin, Lead Pastor
“We use it. Our bookkeeper LOVES it… AND, we are saving around $6000 a year over the last platform we were using. It is a win all around!”
