Buy Me a Coffee – Membership, Paywall & Fundraiser with Stripe & PayPal vs Donorbox – Free Recurring Donation Plugin and Fundraising Platform

User Guide | Demo | Visit Plugin Site Buy Me Coffee is a free WordPress membership plugin, paywall plugin, donation plugin, and creator monetization tool in one lightweight package. Sell paid memberships, protect premium posts and pages, accept tips, collect one-time donations, and run recurring monthly or yearly subscriptions directly through your own Stripe and PayPal accounts — with zero commission and no third-party platform in between. New in 1.2.6: Memberships and content monetization. Create paid membership levels, lock premium posts or pages, show teaser content with a built-in WordPress paywall CTA, and turn readers into paying members without sending them to Patreon, Ko-fi, or an external creator platform. Use it as a self-hosted Patreon alternative, Ko-fi alternative, Buy Me a Coffee alternative, WordPress donation plugin, Stripe donation plugin, PayPal donation plugin, or lightweight membership site plugin. Unlike hosted creator platforms, Buy Me Coffee keeps the payment flow on your WordPress site and sends payments directly to your merchant account. Your supporters pay you — not a middleman. Who Is This For? Buy Me Coffee is built for creators, publishers, educators, nonprofits, and membership site owners who want a direct, self-hosted way to monetize content and accept supporter payments: Bloggers & Writers — Monetize premium articles, paid newsletters, tutorials, and members-only posts Artists & Musicians — Accept donations and one-time tips for your creative work Podcasters & YouTubers — Sell supporter memberships and let your audience support you directly without a middleman Open-Source Developers — Fundraise for your project without a SaaS dependency Nonprofits & Charities — Collect donations with Stripe or PayPal, zero commission Educators & Coaches — Sell paid lessons, course updates, coaching resources, and monthly recurring access Freelancers & Consultants — Let clients or fans tip your work Church & Community Organizations — Accept recurring giving on your own WordPress site Membership Site Owners — Monetize premium posts, tutorials, newsletters, lessons, downloads, or private updates with paid access levels Independent Publishers — Build a lightweight WordPress paywall for subscriber-only content Why Choose Buy Me Coffee? Memberships and content monetization — Create paid membership levels, restrict premium posts, and convert readers into recurring members. Built-in WordPress paywall — Show a preview, then prompt non-members to join with a clean paywall CTA. Zero commission, zero fees — We never take a percentage of your donations. Free means free, forever. Direct payments — Stripe and PayPal deposit funds directly into YOUR bank account. No platform holding your money. No third-party account required — Supporters don’t need to sign up anywhere. They just donate. Self-hosted & private — All donor data stays on your WordPress site. No external tracking, no data harvesting. Recurring subscriptions built-in — Monthly and yearly Stripe subscriptions included free. No paid membership addon required. Modern admin dashboard — A beautiful Vue 3-powered admin panel with dark mode, revenue charts, and activity logs. One-click refunds — Refund any Stripe or PayPal transaction from inside WordPress — no need to log into your gateway dashboard. Full activity logging — Every payment, renewal, cancellation, refund, and webhook event is recorded with a searchable timeline. Key Features Memberships & Content Monetization Turn your WordPress site into a self-hosted membership platform. Create paid membership levels with monthly or yearly pricing, descriptions, and reward bullets. Mark posts or pages as members-only from the editor, choose which membership levels can access each piece of content, and show non-members a word-limited preview followed by a polished paywall CTA. Active members get access automatically based on their subscription status. WordPress Paywall for Premium Content Protect blog posts, pages, tutorials, newsletters, lessons, downloads, private updates, or creator-only resources. Use teaser content to improve conversions, then send visitors straight into the membership checkout flow with the selected level and return URL. Accept Donations via Stripe & PayPal On-site Stripe checkout and PayPal integration let your visitors donate or subscribe without ever leaving your website. Supports 135+ currencies via Stripe and 20+ via PayPal. Credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay — whatever your visitors prefer. Recurring Monthly & Yearly Subscriptions (Stripe) Let your supporters become long-term monthly or yearly members with Stripe recurring subscriptions. Full lifecycle management is included: automatic renewals via webhook, admin cancellation from WordPress, subscription status tracking, and a dedicated subscriber account page. No paid addon required. Membership Members Dashboard Manage active members from a dedicated Memberships screen. Search members by name or email, review their level, billing interval, renewal date, and subscription status, then jump directly to subscription details or cancel a membership when needed. No WooCommerce Required Run paid content, supporter subscriptions, donation forms, and membership checkout without installing WooCommerce or a heavy LMS. Buy Me Coffee is built for creators who want a focused monetization workflow. Supporter Wall & Donor Leaderboard Display a beautiful ranked leaderboard of your top donors on any page with the [buymecoffee_supporters] shortcode. Gold, silver, and bronze badges highlight your top 3 supporters. Choose which fields to display (name, avatar, amount, message) from the admin settings. Gutenberg Block & Shortcodes Add a donation button, inline donation form, or full donation page anywhere on your site using the native Gutenberg block or classic-editor shortcodes: [buymecoffee_button] — Donation button that opens a modal or links to your donation page [buymecoffee_form] — Inline donation form embedded on any post or page [buymecoffee_basic] — Full-page donation template with banner, profile, supporter wall, and form [buymecoffee_supporters] — Public supporter wall / ranked donor leaderboard [buymecoffee_account] — Subscriber self-service dashboard for logged-in recurring supporters One-Click Refunds Issue full refunds for Stripe and PayPal transactions directly from your WordPress admin. A confirmation modal displays transaction details and live gateway response — no need to visit your Stripe or PayPal dashboard. Subscriber Account Page Recurring supporters are optionally assigned a WordPress user account linked to their subscription. Place the [buymecoffee_account] shortcode on any page to give them a self-service dashboard showing active subscriptions, billing history, and payment status. Complete Activity Logging Every event is logged — payments, refunds, subscription renewals, cancellations, webhook events, and outgoing emails. Each supporter and subscription has its own chronological activity timeline. A global Activity Log page provides a filterable, paginated view across your entire donation history. Email Notifications Automatically send a branded thank-you email to donors after every successful payment, and receive an admin notification for each new donation. Both templates are fully customizable with dynamic placeholders: {{donor_name}}, {{amount}}, {{payment_method}}, and more. Supporters Admin Hub A dedicated admin hub with everything in one place: Metric cards — Total supporters, lifetime revenue, active subscribers, average donation amount Top supporters ranking — Your highest-value donors at a glance Configurable display settings — Control exactly what appears on the public supporter wall Shortcode documentation — Copy-paste shortcodes with descriptions, inline in the admin Privacy controls — Mask email addresses, allow anonymous donations, hide donor amounts Customizable Donation Page Appearance Personalize your donation page with a profile image, banner photo, brand accent color, and a custom quote. A live preview updates in real time as you make changes. Styling uses CSS custom properties — no bloated override rules. Modern Vue 3 Admin Panel The entire admin interface is a single-page application built with Vue 3, featuring sidebar navigation, breadcrumbs, a revenue chart dashboard, dark mode with system theme detection, and a responsive layout that works on desktop and mobile. WordPress Multisite Compatible Activate network-wide on WordPress Multisite — each site gets its own isolated tables, supporter records, and plugin settings. Guided Quick Setup Wizard A 5-step onboarding wizard (Welcome → Profile → Form → Payment → Launch) gets you from zero to accepting donations in under two minutes. Includes Stripe API key verification and PayPal credentials setup. Test Mode & Safe Data Reset Switch between Stripe test mode and live mode without changing your configuration. A “Delete all test data” button removes test transactions, supporters, and subscriptions in one click so your dashboard stays clean. Compare: Buy Me Coffee vs. Membership, Donation & Creator Platforms Buy Me Coffee is built for direct, self-hosted WordPress monetization instead of routing supporters through an external platform. Commission: Buy Me Coffee takes 0%. Official Buy Me a Coffee takes a platform fee. GiveWP Free takes 0%. Ko-fi may charge platform fees for some features. Payment routing: Buy Me Coffee sends payments directly to your Stripe or PayPal account. Official Buy Me a Coffee routes payments through its platform. GiveWP routes payments directly. Ko-fi routes payments through Ko-fi. Content monetization: Buy Me Coffee includes paid membership levels, members-only content controls, and a built-in WordPress paywall CTA for premium posts and pages. Recurring subscriptions: Buy Me Coffee includes Stripe subscriptions free. Official Buy Me a Coffee requires a paid plan. GiveWP requires a paid addon. Ko-fi subscriptions stay on Ko-fi. Admin refunds: Buy Me Coffee supports Stripe and PayPal refunds from WordPress. The compared free alternatives do not include the same built-in WordPress refund workflow. Activity logging: Buy Me Coffee includes a full payment, refund, subscription, webhook, and email event log. Supporter wall: Buy Me Coffee includes a built-in [buymecoffee_supporters] shortcode. Admin UI: Buy Me Coffee uses a modern Vue-powered WordPress admin screen with dark mode. Data storage: Buy Me Coffee stores supporter and payment records on your WordPress site. Price: Buy Me Coffee is free forever with no plugin commission. Get Started in 2 Minutes Install and activate the plugin from the WordPress plugin directory Run the Quick Setup wizard (Dashboard → Buy Me Coffee → Quick Setup) Connect your Stripe or PayPal account in Settings Create membership levels if you want to monetize premium content Mark posts or pages as Paid and choose allowed membership levels Add [buymecoffee_button], [buymecoffee_form], or [buymecoffee_basic] anywhere on your site Start receiving memberships, donations, tips, and subscriptions directly to your account — zero commission

Donorbox is a powerful and secure donation management plugin for WordPress. We are the only donation plugin for WordPress that offers a fast feature-filled solution so anyone can raise funds. If you’re looking for the best WordPress donation plugins that can substantially boost donor conversion and online donations, here’s where your search ends. WHY USE DONORBOX The Donorbox free plugin for WordPress will provide you with everything you need to embed a Donorbox donation form into your website. This free WordPress donation plugin will increase your donor conversion rates and recurring donations. We will generate all the embedding code for you. Collect donations online with the best WordPress donation plugin now to take your fundraising to the next level. Here’s why you should be using Donorbox for accepting payments. Fully Customizable Donation Forms Donorbox forms can be ready to deploy in 15 minutes and are even faster to fill in. You can embed the form or use it as a pop-up donation form to accept donations. Brand your fundraising campaign page with your own color scheme, styling, and logo. Create custom input fields to make your forms quick to complete. You can easily collect necessary info from donors. Insert custom donation amounts for donors to select by clicking or allow them to specify their own amount. Easy Fundraising Donorbox accepts multiple currencies via Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Venmo, and Google Pay. ACH payments and direct debit payments are also accepted. It’s a quick and easy checkout process. Collect donations and double them with our seamless employer donation matching feature. Our custom donation forms are localized in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese. You can set this manually or let it auto-detect. Other than this free WordPress plugin, Donorbox also offers Peer-to-Peer fundraising, Crowdfunding, Text-to-Give, Events, Memberships, and more Share the Cause Embed our donation forms into your website. Or set a Donate button in your web pages and emails to deploy them as pop-ups. Accept donations from desktops, mobile phones, and tablets. Automated Actions Monthly recurring donations are easily set up with 1 click. Every donation triggers an automatic personalized receipt email that you only need to set up once. Our payment gateways, Stripe and PayPal, ensure a swift donation process. Most nonprofits have a PayPal account set up, so it should be easier for them to get started. After successful donations, donor records get created on your Donorbox account for easy donor management. Recurring donors get donor login details to manage their own details. Donation Management Manage all donations right from the dashboard. Resend receipts, update donations even after they’ve been made, and refund donations, if needed. Export donation details as a CSV file, for any time period you want. Think tax season or financial year-end reporting. Add offline donations, like cash or checks, to your campaign so your records are accurate. Optional Integrations Donorbox also offers these optional integrations to add even more awesome features to your fundraising campaign: MailChimp: One of the world’s leading email marketing services. Employer Gift Matching: Raise double the donations Salesforce NPSP 3 Integration: A complete donor management solution to easily analyze your donor data and maintain positive relationships. Security Donorbox is fully PCI compliant and our data is protected by SSL/TLS technology. All credit card information is encrypted, tokenized, and stored securely by our payment gateway, Stripe. Payments are processed through Stripe and PayPal. We chose these payment gateways because they operate on the most stringent security protocols and are highly regarded for their data protection standards. We do not share client or donation information with any third party. QUICK INSTALLATION GUIDE – How to Install Donorbox WordPress Donation Plugin How To Embed Donorbox Donation Forms in your WordPress website To begin, go to your WordPress dashboard, find the “Plugins” tab on the left-hand sidebar and click “Add New”. In the WordPress plugin search bar, type “Donorbox” and press enter. Once you have found the Donorbox WordPress donation plugin, click “Install Now”. Once the plugin has been installed, click to activate it. Now, go to Donorbox.org. Click on https://donorbox.org/orgs/new and follow the easy instructions to register an Organisation account. Create a campaign form with our easy-to-use form builder. In your Donorbox dashboard, find the campaign you wish to embed on your WordPress website using the WordPress donation plugin and copy the link to the secure donation page. Head back to your WordPress dashboard and, in the left-hand sidebar, click on “Settings” and then “Donorbox”. Paste your campaign URL into the appropriate textbox and click “Save Changes”. Go back to your WordPress page text editor (not the visual editor) of the donation page that you want to edit. Type in one of the following shortcodes to embed the donation form in your WordPress website using the donation plugin: [donate] [donate url=”nonprofitcampaign”] [donate url=”https://donorbox.org/nonprofitcampaign”] [donate-with-info] [donate-with-info url=”nonprofitcampaign”] [donate-with-info url=”https://donorbox.org/nonprofitcampaign”] Publish your post and wait for your WordPress donations to come in! If you still need help getting your form embedded, please see this guide: how to embed donation form using the Donorbox WordPress donation plugin or you can contact us at [email protected]. We would love to help get you going. WHO USES DONORBOX Donorbox helps over 50,000 nonprofit organizations from 40 countries accept donations for various causes. Universities, animal rescues, political campaigns, research, the possibilities are endless. Our forms are not restricted to any industry or genre. That means anyone can create a Donorbox form. Whether you’re an individual hoping to make a difference or a multinational organization looking to raise funds, Donorbox can be the best WordPress donation plugin for you. HERE’S WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS SAY ABOUT US “Let’s Encrypt uses DonorBox because it is a convenient way for our supporters to contribute to our mission via credit card and it is affordable for us as a nonprofit. Donorbox has helped us increase the contributions we receive.” Sarah Gran Director of Communications at Let’s Encrypt “Before using Donorbox we were constantly having problems with our online donation processing. Donors contacted us monthly having problems setting up their gifts. Since transitioning to Donorbox we have not had a single donor contact us saying they were having trouble setting up a gift. In fact, we’ve had several donors tell us how easy the new process is. The Donorbox team has been extremely responsive when we need help and have already implemented suggestions for future features. I have no hesitations recommending Donorbox to you.” Brandon Jernigan Grad Resources “We needed a straightforward solution to handle donations on our website and have them sync across to Salesforce. Enter Donorbox – a simple, easy to use and customisable donation solution with Salesforce integration. Set up was as simple as creating an account (and donation campaign), adding a plugin to our WordPress site and configuring the connection to Salesforce. Donorbox handles the rest. Support is always prompt to respond and provide helpful answers to our questions and queries. If you’re after a donation system for your website then we’d recommend you give Donorbox a go.” Peter Sillar Logosdor DONORBOX FEES AND COMMISSION Donorbox fees are the lowest of other funding platforms around. Donorbox is free to start and charges a small platform fee of 1.5% for the month’s donations. We charge no setup fee. Check out our pricing guide for details of what your payment processing and Donorbox fees may look like. Additionally, Stripe and PayPal merchant accounts charge 2.9% + $0.30 for credit card processing. These rates can be reduced for registered nonprofits by simply letting them know. To get the nonprofit discount, please email [email protected] and apply at PayPal’s Nonprofit Center. The optional product integrations are priced as follows: MailChimp Integration: $8 / month Employer Gift Matching: $40 / month Salesforce NPSP 3 Integration: $25 / month CONNECT WITH DONORBOX Stay in touch with us for important plugin news and updates: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn