What percentage and fixed fees does GoFundMe charge donors and organizers in the U.S. as of 2025?
Executive summary
GoFundMe charges U.S. organizers no platform fee but applies a payment-processing deduction of 2.9% plus $0.30 per donation; donors may also be presented with an optional tip to GoFundMe and recurring donations carry a 5% fee in some cases (organizers can use GoFundMe Pro to avoid that recurring fee) [1] [2] [3] [4]. The company's revenue model therefore relies on voluntary tips and transaction fees rather than a mandatory percentage taken from organizers’ totals [5] [4].
1. Platform fee for organizers: marketed as 0%, reality is nuance
GoFundMe publicly states there is no platform fee for U.S. organizers — campaigns can be started and managed without a mandatory platform cut — a message repeated across company help pages and recent reporting [5] [4] [1]. That 0% claim is accurate as a headline metric, but it excludes the unavoidable payment-processing deduction taken from each donation; in practice organizers receive donations net of transaction fees [2] [6].
2. The fixed and percentage transaction fee: 2.9% + $0.30 per donation
When a donor makes a one-time donation in the U.S., GoFundMe deducts a payment-processing fee equal to 2.9% of the donation plus a fixed $0.30 per donation before the organizer receives funds — a concrete example on GoFundMe’s help pages shows a $50 donation becoming $48.25 after that fee [2] [6] [1]. Multiple independent reviews and platforms reiterate that same 2.9% + $0.30 figure as the standard U.S. processing cost [6] [7].
3. Donor tips and recurring-donation fees: voluntary but material
GoFundMe requests an optional tip from donors to fund operations and customer support; tipping is voluntary and can be set to zero, and organizers are not told whether a specific donor left a tip [2] [5] [7]. Recurring donations are treated differently: supporters who make recurring donations to individuals or charities pay a 5% fee per recurring donation unless the campaign uses GoFundMe Pro, which offers custom pricing that can exempt recurring-donation fees [3] [2] [4].
4. Add-ons, donor-covered fees, and organizational customizations
Organizations using GoFundMe Pro can configure “donor covered fees” or add-on rates up to 5% to shift costs to supporters; admins can change these settings at the organization or campaign level, which means some campaigns may effectively pass processing or platform charges to donors rather than absorbing them [8]. GoFundMe Pro pricing is custom and not standardized in public materials, so exact rates for large organizations or nonprofits may differ from the default public model [3] [4].
5. Conflicting reports and common confusions to watch for
Third-party blogs and comparison sites sometimes report processing ranges (e.g., 2.9%–3.5%) or characterize tips as “automatic” percentages, which can create confusion; reputable GoFundMe documentation consistently cites 2.9% + $0.30 and optional tipping, while some external analyses point to variability depending on payment processors, currency conversions, or platform-specific agreements [9] [10] [1]. This creates an implicit agenda risk: GoFundMe highlights the 0% platform fee headline while critics and competitors emphasize the real cost after processing fees and optional tip behavior [5] [6].
6. Bottom line and reporting limits
As of 2025, the definitive, consistently documented fees in the U.S. are: 0% platform fee for organizers; a payment-processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per donation; optional donor tips; and a 5% per-donation fee on recurring donations unless GoFundMe Pro pricing applies — with Pro offering custom terms [1] [2] [3] [4]. Public sources used for this analysis do not publish a fixed Pro-rate table or exhaustive third-party processor exceptions, so further confirmation from GoFundMe for specific organizational contracts or international edge cases would be required to be more granular [3] [8].