Reviews onG2Capterra
3091 reviews trackedThe Bottom Line
Entry price
Free, no paid tier
Biggest pro
Genuinely free with no paid tier: no platform fee, no processing fee, no contact limit and nothing gated behind an upgrade
Biggest con
Nonprofits only. An individual, an informal group or a business cannot open an account, and eligibility needs an EIN or local equivalent plus a bank account in the organization's name
TL;DR - Zeffy
- All-in-one: donations, ticketing, auctions, raffles, memberships, peer-to-peer and an online store, on a built-in donor CRM.
- Free with no paid tier. Zeffy covers every platform and processing fee, so nonprofits keep 100% of what they raise.
- 100,000+ nonprofits, over $2B raised, available in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and Germany.
Pricing: Free forever
Best for: Individuals & startups
4.9/5 across review platforms
What is Zeffy?
Zeffy is a 100% free, all-in-one fundraising platform and donor CRM built specifically for nonprofits. It brings donation forms, recurring giving, event ticketing and registration, guest check-in, online and silent auctions, raffles and lotteries, peer-to-peer and team campaigns, memberships, an online store, and in-person card payments and cash logging into a single system. Because every activity writes to the same contact record, a supporter who buys a ticket, bids on an auction lot and renews a membership is one person in one database, not three exports to reconcile later.
The CRM is not a lightweight add-on. It holds unlimited contacts with no tier above it, full giving history, segmentation, and email and newsletter campaigns with scheduling and automation, alongside automated tax receipts and an open API that reads and writes contacts and payments.
Zeffy is free without conditions. There are no platform fees and no payment processing fees, and Zeffy absorbs the card costs out of its own revenue rather than passing them to the organization or to the donor. The company is funded by optional contributions donors can choose to add at checkout, and the nonprofit is never charged when a donor skips one. There is no paid tier, no contact limit and no feature gating, so nothing is unlocked by upgrading.
More than 100,000 nonprofits use Zeffy and they have raised over $2B on the platform. It is available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Germany. Eligibility is an EIN or the local equivalent plus a bank account in the organization's name, so any registered nonprofit qualifies regardless of size. Support is included at no cost for every organization, by email or by phone, alongside a help center of more than 500 articles. There are no contracts, no setup fees and no minimums.
Each silent auction form holds up to 50 items, per Zeffy's help center. Email campaigns can reach 5,000 recipients per send on the default mailer, or 30,000 with a custom sending domain. That is a per-send cap, not a daily cap.
Available on: Web
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Genuinely free with no paid tier: no platform fee, no processing fee, no contact limit and nothing gated behind an upgrade
- Zeffy absorbs the card processing costs, so the organization receives the full amount a donor gives, whether or not that donor adds a contribution
- Fundraising and the donor CRM are one system, so a ticket buyer, an auction bidder and a member all land on the same contact record
- Automated tax receipts, payment confirmations and thank-you emails out of the box
- In-person card payments and cash logging from a phone, with no hardware to buy
- Available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Germany
Cons
- Nonprofits only. An individual, an informal group or a business cannot open an account, and eligibility needs an EIN or local equivalent plus a bank account in the organization's name
- No auctioneer-led live bidding, paddle raise or fund-a-need, and no live streaming for a hybrid gala, so a large seated event run from a stage is better served elsewhere
- No SMS or text-to-give marketing, and no volunteer management
Ratings Across the Web
4.9(3,091 reviews)
Zeffy holds an aggregate rating of 4.9 out of 5 from 3,091 reviews across G2 and Capterra, last checked September 17, 2026.
Ratings aggregated from independent review platforms. Learn more
Preview
Key Features
Donation forms with one-time, monthly and yearly recurring givingEvent ticketing: unlimited ticket types, group and table tickets, Pay What You Can, discount codes, capacity limits per typeRaffles and lotteriesOnline store with item variants, inventory tracking and a flat shipping feePeer-to-peer and team fundraising with sub-campaigns and leaderboardsOnline and silent auctions with auto-bid ceilings, built-in anti-sniping and automatic card charge at closeMemberships with member-only ticket pricing and renewal remindersDonor CRM: unlimited contacts, custom properties, company and household records, self-updating lists, duplicate detection and mergeGuest check-in from the mobile app or the web manager, syncing in real time, including multi-date eventsIn-person payments: tap a card on the phone with no extra hardware, plus cash logged as a real transactionEmail and newsletters: drag-and-drop builder, self-updating segments, scheduled sends, your own sending domainAutomated tax receipts, payment confirmations and thank-you emailsPublic organization page gathering every campaign in one link, with a newsletter signup (website builder)
Pricing
Free
Zeffy is completely free to use with no hidden costs.
Reviews
$99Free with your review
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4.9/5
Across 3,091 verified user reviews on G2, Capterra
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Zeffy FAQ
How does Zeffy manage to offer all its fundraising tools completely free of charge, including covering transaction and credit card fees?
Zeffy is free with no conditions attached. There is no platform fee and no processing fee, and Zeffy covers the card costs out of its own revenue rather than deducting them or adding them to the donation. The company is funded by optional contributions that donors can choose to add at the confirmation step, and the organization is never charged when a donor declines one. The single exception to free is Donor Mail, physical printed mail at $1 per letter in the US, which is a pass-through for paper and postage rather than a plan.
What specific payment methods can nonprofits accept when using Zeffy for donations and other fundraising activities?
Zeffy accepts all major credit and debit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay across every campaign type, with no fee to the nonprofit. Bank payments, ACH in the US and PAD in Canada, are available on donation forms, shops and raffles, and raffles also accept cheques. Auctions are the exception and take cards and wallets only. In person, the mobile app takes a card by tap and logs cash as a real transaction that decrements inventory like any other sale.
Beyond basic donation collection, what advanced features are available for managing donors within Zeffy's platform?
Zeffy includes a full donor CRM rather than a contact list bolted onto a payment form. Every donor, ticket buyer, auction bidder and member becomes a contact automatically, with no import and no contact limit at any point. On the record you get full giving history, year-to-date giving against last year, custom properties you define, secondary emails that resolve to the same person, a consent record of when and how each contact opted in, and notes. Lists can be manual or automatic, and automatic lists keep themselves current from a filter, so "lapsed donors over $500" is built once. Duplicates are suggested proactively and can be merged, companies and households have their own records, and exports carry your custom properties.
Can Zeffy facilitate in-person transactions for events or sales, and if so, what capabilities does it offer for these scenarios?
Yes, and the phone itself is the card terminal. The free companion app uses the phone's NFC through Stripe, so there is no reader to buy and no hardware to carry. It sells tickets, shop items and merchandise with variants, applies discount codes and Pay What You Can rates, charges sales tax in the US and Canada, and logs cash as a real transaction that decrements inventory and adds the buyer to participant lists. The same app handles guest check-in and ticket scanning, syncing in real time with the web check-in manager so two people can work the door at once. Two limits worth knowing: memberships cannot be sold in person yet, and the app is not available in every country Zeffy serves, Ireland for example.
What customization options are available for nonprofits creating peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns on Zeffy?
Nonprofits can offer their fundraisers extensive customization options for their individual campaign pages. Fundraisers can set objectives, customize form colors and images, add descriptions, and personalize thank you messages to reflect their unique story.
Is Zeffy really free, or is there a catch?
There is no catch and no paid tier. Nonprofits pay nothing for any feature, there is no contact limit, and nothing is unlocked by upgrading because there is nothing to upgrade to. Zeffy covers the payment processing fees itself, funded by optional contributions donors can add at checkout, and the organization keeps the full amount even when a donor adds nothing. Around 60% of donors choose to contribute. The only paid item anywhere is Donor Mail, printed physical mail at $1 per letter in the US.
Who can use Zeffy, and in which countries?
Zeffy is for registered nonprofits only, so an individual or an informal group cannot open an account. In the US, eligibility is an EIN plus a bank account in the organization's name; 501(c)(3) status specifically is not required, any 501(c) type qualifies, and an organization still awaiting its IRS determination can start now and change its type later. Zeffy is available in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Germany. US organizations must be in the 50 states, DC or Puerto Rico, because payments run through Stripe and other territories cannot complete its verification.
What does Zeffy not do?
There is no auctioneer-led live bidding, no paddle raise or fund-a-need, and no live streaming for a hybrid gala, so a large seated event run from a stage is better served by a specialist platform. There is no SMS or text-to-give marketing and no volunteer management. Auctions are capped at 50 items per form. Bulk email sends are capped at 5,000 recipients per send, or 30,000 with your own sending domain, though receipts and confirmations (transactional emails) sit outside that limit.
Source: zeffy.com