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Give Lively calls itself a free fundraising platform. The reality: there's no platform fee, but every donation still loses 2.2% to 3.5% to Stripe processing. On $10,000 raised through credit cards, that's roughly $280 your nonprofit doesn't see.

This review breaks down what Give Lively actually costs, where it works, where it falls short, and how it compares to 5 alternatives, including the only platform with truly $0 in fees.

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Table of contents

• What is Give Lively?

• Give Lively ratings across review sites

• Give Lively user experience

• Give Lively pros

• Give Lively limitations

• Give Lively pricing and the real cost

• Best Give Lively alternatives

• Ready to keep 100% of what you raise?

• Give Lively reviews: FAQ

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What is Give Lively?

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Give Lively is a US-based nonprofit fundraising platform launched in 2015. It offers donation pages, peer-to-peer campaigns, event ticketing, and text-to-give, all without a platform fee. The platform is funded philanthropically, which is why it can run without charging nonprofits a subscription.

The catch: Give Lively doesn't process payments itself. Every donation routes through Stripe, which charges its own fees on every transaction. Those fees are real money that comes out of every dollar your donors give. The "free" label only applies to the software layer, not the cost of moving money.

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Give Lively ratings across review sites

Give Lively gets generally positive ratings across the major nonprofit software review sites. The pattern: high marks for ease of use and value, lower marks for advanced features and customer support.

Capterra (4.1/5):

• Overall: 4.1/5

• Customer service: 3.9/5

• Features: 3.5/5

• Value for money: 3.6/5

Other review platforms:

• G2: 4.8/5

• Software Advice: 4.1/5

• GetApp: 4.1/5

• Trustpilot: 3.3/5

The lower Trustpilot score is worth noting. Trustpilot reviews tend to skew toward customers who had problems and went looking for somewhere to vent, while G2 and Capterra reviews are more often invited from active users. Take the spread as a signal that experiences vary, especially when things go wrong.

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Give Lively user experience

Give Lively does the basics well. Donation pages look clean. Setup is fast. A small nonprofit can launch a campaign in an afternoon without a developer.

The platform's ceiling shows up the moment you need anything beyond a donation form. There's no built-in CRM, so donor data lives in Stripe and exports. Reporting is basic. Integrations are few. If your fundraising program includes auctions, in-person events with point-of-sale, recurring membership management, or e-commerce alongside donations, Give Lively will not be your full stack.

It's a donation-page platform with text-to-give and peer-to-peer bolted on. That's a real product, and for small all-volunteer nonprofits it can be enough. For organizations with a fundraising staff, multi-channel campaigns, or a donor CRM strategy, it's a starting point, not a destination.

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Give Lively pros

1. No platform fee. Give Lively does not charge nonprofits a subscription or a percentage of donations as a platform fee. That's genuinely valuable, and it's why the platform shows up in "free fundraising platform" searches. Just keep in mind that Stripe processing fees still apply on every transaction.

2. Text-to-give that works.

I love the text to give an option that is customizable and tied into a campaign and the ability to have multiple campaigns is awesome.
— Ellie B., Capterra

Text-to-give is well-executed. Donors text a keyword, get a link, donate in seconds. It's a useful feature, especially for live events.

3. Fast setup, low learning curve.

In just a few short weeks of using Give Lively and Salesforce, the Foundation is in a far better position than it was after more than 20 years with Raiser's Edge.
— Christopher L., Capterra

For nonprofits coming off legacy donor management software, the speed of Give Lively's setup is a real upgrade. You can be live and accepting donations the same day.

4. Approachable for first-time online fundraisers.

As a startup nonprofit with limited funds and resources, I often feel alone in trying to gain awareness and funding, but Give Lively's free services are transformative to our organization.
— Verified user, G2

Give Lively's customer base skews toward small, lean nonprofits running their first online campaigns. The interface is built for that audience, and it shows.

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Give Lively limitations

1. The "free" label hides Stripe fees.

Free with no catch? NO! Give Lively requires the user to have a Stripe account which charges for every transaction. Stripe has a nonprofit discount, but they will not tell you what the discount is unless you first set up an account with them.
— Richard Y., Capterra

This is the headline issue. Give Lively bills itself as free. Stripe takes its cut on every donation. On $10,000 raised through credit cards, you're losing roughly $280. On $50,000, that's nearly $1,400 a year that doesn't reach your mission. For more on the hidden costs of "free" platforms, see our breakdown of where the money actually goes.

2. Reporting is basic.

Some features are not customizable. Not all donor data is collected on every transaction due to the payment options some donors select.
— Svetlana I., Capterra

If you need donor segmentation, retention dashboards, lifetime-value reporting, or anything more than CSV exports of recent transactions, Give Lively is not where that lives. You'll either need a separate CRM or accept that your reporting is read-only.

3. Customer support is hit-or-miss.

My biggest issue is the tech support. There was no way to find support once you are logged in. You have to go to the main page not logged in to see the chat option.
— Jeremy W., Capterra

If your nonprofit relies on the platform during a campaign sprint or a giving day, support response times matter. Multiple reviewers flag delayed or unhelpful responses, which is a risk you'll want to weigh against the cost savings.

4. Integration ecosystem is thin.

There are a few add-ons that I think would be helpful, like a CRM integration or the ability to message out from this platform. The offerings are basic but FREE so I'm really not complaining.
— Ellie B., Capterra

Give Lively connects to Stripe and a handful of other tools. If you run on Salesforce, HubSpot, Mailchimp, or QuickBooks, plan on building workarounds, exporting CSVs, or using a third-party connector.

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Give Lively pricing and the real cost

Give Lively itself charges nothing. Every donation, however, runs through Stripe's nonprofit pricing, which deducts a payment processing fee before the funds reach your nonprofit's bank account. Here are the current rates with the standard nonprofit discount applied:

• Major credit cards: 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction

• American Express: 3.5% per transaction

• PayPal: 1.99% + $0.49 per transaction

• ACH bank transfers: 0.8% (capped at $5 per transaction)

• Check disbursement: $0.97 per check

What this looks like in practice: on $10,000 raised through 200 credit card donations averaging $50 each, the math is 200 $0.30 + 2.2% $10,000, which works out to $280 lost to Stripe. Your nonprofit nets $9,720 from $10,000 raised.

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See what Give Lively really costs your nonprofit

Use the calculator below to see what Give Lively's processing fees would cost your nonprofit at your own annual fundraising volume. Enter how much you raise per year and the average donation size, and the calculator will show you exactly what Stripe is taking off the top, and what you'd save on Zeffy.

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Whatever number you plugged in, that's money leaving your account every year, and it compounds. On $50,000 raised, roughly $1,400 in fees. On $250,000, around $7,000. None of it shows up on Give Lively's pricing page, because Stripe is a separate vendor.

For comparison, Zeffy is the only fundraising platform with zero platform, transaction, or credit card fees. The same numbers you just plugged into the calculator would stay $0 on Zeffy. Donors are asked to leave an optional tip at checkout, which they can adjust or skip. That's how Zeffy stays free for 100K+ nonprofits and how those nonprofits have raised $2B+ with $0 in fees.

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Best Give Lively alternatives

If Give Lively's processing-fee math doesn't work for your nonprofit, or if you've already outgrown a donation-page-only tool, here are five alternatives worth comparing.

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1. Zeffy: the only truly free alternative

If you're reading reviews of "free" fundraising platforms, Zeffy is what genuinely zero-fee fundraising looks like. No platform fee, no transaction fee, no credit card processing fee. The only money that leaves your account is the optional tip donors can choose to leave Zeffy at checkout, and they can adjust the amount or skip it entirely.

Zeffy is also broader in scope than Give Lively. Beyond donation pages, you get event ticketing, auctions, raffles, membership management, e-commerce for nonprofit shops, peer-to-peer fundraising, recurring donations, goal progress trackers on campaign pages, and a donor database. For most small and mid-sized nonprofits, that's the full fundraising stack in one place.

Zeffy's core features:

• Donation forms with $0 in fees on every transaction

• Event ticketing and registration

• Auctions and raffles

• Peer-to-peer fundraising

• Recurring donations

• Membership management

• E-commerce for nonprofit shops

• Point-of-sale for in-person donations

• Goal progress trackers on campaign pages

• Email tools and donor database

• Automatic tax receipts

0% processing fees is huge. What makes the service stellar is that everyone and everything (platform, set up, forms, etc) I have worked with has been a breeze to interact with. The 'pay to play' companies need to take some notes from Zeffy.
— Lance N.

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2. GoFundMe Pro (Classy): for orgs that already pay enterprise prices

GoFundMe Pro is the rebranded enterprise version of Classy. Pricing is custom-quoted, which means a sales call, a contract, and a multi-thousand-dollar annual commitment in most cases. If your nonprofit has a dedicated fundraising team, a six-figure annual budget, and complex campaign needs, this can be the right fit. For most small and mid-sized nonprofits, it's overbuilt and overpriced.

Strengths: deep campaign customization, peer-to-peer at scale, advanced reporting, event management.

We have been using Classy for many years now, and have raised tens of thousands of dollars from our growing community of donors. Classy is incredibly easy to use, and has amazing support, even though we're on a completely different time zone to the support team.
— Claire B.

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3. Bloomerang: if you'd rather pay for a CRM than fight free-tool limits

Bloomerang is a donor CRM first, fundraising tool second. If donor retention metrics, segmentation, and email automation are your bottleneck, Bloomerang is built for that. The trade-off is recurring cost: $40 to $125 per month depending on your contact count, plus processing fees on every donation. If you're switching to Bloomerang from a free platform, you're adding a recurring line item to your overhead in exchange for better donor analytics.

The company is made up of genuinely good people who honestly care about improving nonprofits' relationships with donors and helping them reach fundraising goals.
— Karen G.

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4. Donorbox: built for the embeddable-form crowd

Donorbox is built around drop-in donation forms you embed on your existing website. If you already have a strong site and you just need a clean checkout, Donorbox does that one job well. The catch shows up as you scale: Standard charges 2.95% on top of Stripe, Pro adds $150 per month for lower platform fees, and Premium gets custom-quoted. Stack platform fees on top of Stripe and the total cost can pass even Bloomerang's monthly subscription on a busy month.

Overall, Donorbox has been a very reliable and efficient fundraising tool for us. It allowed us to launch digital donation campaigns quickly and professionally, with minimal technical overhead.
— Mohamed O.

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5. Funraise: for growing teams who've outgrown free

Funraise is the all-in-one play: forms, peer-to-peer, events, CRM, automation, all under one roof. The pricing reflects it. Essentials charges 5% platform fee on top of 2.9% + $0.60 processing, and Premium runs $99 per month plus 0-4% platform fee. If your team has scaled past free tools and your fundraising program needs deep automation and a real CRM, Funraise can earn its price tag. For most small and mid-sized nonprofits, it's more platform than needed at a price you don't want to pay.

We have been able to leverage Funraise to boost our Digital Fundraising program over the last 9 years.
— Michelle S.

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Ready to keep 100% of what you raise?

Zeffy is the only fundraising platform with zero platform, transaction, or credit card fees. 100K+ nonprofits | $2B+ raised | $0 in fees.

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Give Lively reviews: FAQ

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