No, and unfortunately we have no plans to do this. Charging a service fee depending on the payment provider is a dicey situation, since it’s actually illegal to do this in certain jurisdictions. Also it creates a bad customer experience, since it makes people feel nickel and dimed. (Personally I refuse to do business with anyone who tries to charge me a fee for paying them… do they want my money or not?)
I understand it’s frustrating as a business owner that PayPal or Stripe or whoever gets a cut of everything, but in my opinion the solution is to bake that into the price you charge for your product/service. Charge whatever you have to so you end up with the amount you need, but don’t punish your customer for choosing a more convenient payment method to pay you.
Sorry, but this is common practice among nonprofits and perfectly legal in the US and EU.
We don’t punish our donors, we simply try to provide an (optional) opportunity to ensure as mush as possible of the donation is devoted to our social goals.
This is probably the main reason why both donors and profits prefer SEPA direct debit, not many payment gateways catering for this.
Sorry, but I have studied this issue and it is NOT perfectly legal in the US. I don’t know the situation in the EU, but I do know it’s currently illegal in 11 states in the U.S., including California where we are based.
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No, and unfortunately we have no plans to do this. Charging a service fee depending on the payment provider is a dicey situation, since it’s actually illegal to do this in certain jurisdictions. Also it creates a bad customer experience, since it makes people feel nickel and dimed. (Personally I refuse to do business with anyone who tries to charge me a fee for paying them… do they want my money or not?)
I understand it’s frustrating as a business owner that PayPal or Stripe or whoever gets a cut of everything, but in my opinion the solution is to bake that into the price you charge for your product/service. Charge whatever you have to so you end up with the amount you need, but don’t punish your customer for choosing a more convenient payment method to pay you.
Sorry, but this is common practice among nonprofits and perfectly legal in the US and EU.
We don’t punish our donors, we simply try to provide an (optional) opportunity to ensure as mush as possible of the donation is devoted to our social goals.
This is probably the main reason why both donors and profits prefer SEPA direct debit, not many payment gateways catering for this.
Sorry, but I have studied this issue and it is NOT perfectly legal in the US. I don’t know the situation in the EU, but I do know it’s currently illegal in 11 states in the U.S., including California where we are based.
https://oag.ca.gov/consumers/general/credit-card-surcharges#:~:text=In%201985%2C%20California%20passed%20a,is%20offered%20to%20all%20customers.
https://lawpay.com/about/blog/can-you-charge-a-fee-or-surcharge-for-clients-who-pay-you-with-a-credit-card/
So it’s a murky legal issue at best, and a potential lawsuit at worst. I won’t touch it.
I would suggest if you want to give your donors an option to cover the processing fee, add it as a separate line item.
OK, well. I’ll forget that one 😉