Ultimeter vs Mission – Donation Plugin for WordPress – Fundraising & Recurring Donations

Mission is a free WordPress donation plugin built for nonprofits. Accept one-time and recurring donations, manage donors and campaigns, give your supporters a self-service dashboard, and track everything from a modern admin, without paying for a single add-on. Most donation plugins lock the features you actually need behind a paid tier. Recurring donations? Add-on. Custom fields? Add-on. Donor dashboards, fee recovery, exports? Add-on, add-on, add-on. Mission takes a different approach: every feature ships in the free plugin, and we’re funded by an optional tip donors can choose to add at checkout. Donors can change the tip, lower it, or set it to zero. 100% of the donation amount always reaches your nonprofit. The result is a donation platform that grows with your organization without surprise upgrade prompts. The plugin you install today is the plugin handling your donations next year, with no upsell screens between you and your supporters. ✨ Why Mission No paid add-ons. Ever. Recurring donations, donor dashboards, campaign management, custom fields, tribute donations, fee recovery, exports, activity logs. All included in the free plugin. There is no “Mission Pro” version, no premium tier, and no upsell at checkout. Modern donation forms that convert. Multi-step forms with suggested amounts, custom amounts, tribute dedications, anonymous donations, optional fee recovery. Built to feel quick and trustworthy on every device. Built for performance. The donation form is built on the WordPress Interactivity API, so there’s no React on the public-facing site, no bloated JavaScript, and fast page loads for your donors. Donor data lives in dedicated database tables, not post meta, so reporting stays fast as your donor list grows into the thousands. 💝 Powerful donation forms The Donation Form block can be dropped into any post, page, or campaign. Configure it once and it adapts to your campaign and your brand: Suggested amounts and an optional custom-amount field, configured per frequency One-time and recurring giving (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually), with per-form control over which frequencies to offer Multi-step layout that keeps the donor focused Cover-the-fees option lets donors absorb processing fees so 100% of their donation reaches your cause Anonymous donation toggle Tribute and memorial dedications, with an optional notification email to the honoree Custom fields per form: text, textarea, select, multiselect, radio, checkbox Built-in client and server-side validation Low-specificity CSS with no !important rules so themes can restyle freely 🔁 Recurring donations included free Recurring donations are the single biggest revenue lever for nonprofits, and they’re the feature other plugins charge extra for. Mission ships them free: Weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual frequencies Automatic renewal with retry on failure Donor self-service: pause, resume, or cancel from the donor dashboard Renewal history tracked per subscription Email notifications for renewals, cancellations, and failed payments Admin controls to pause, resume, cancel, or retry any subscription 👥 A donor dashboard your supporters will actually use Drop the Donor Dashboard block on any page and your supporters get a self-service portal. They can: See a complete donation history Manage recurring donations: pause, resume, or cancel without contacting you Download a receipt for any donation Update their profile and email address Sign in with a magic-link email, so there’s no password to forget Every action your donors can take in the dashboard is one less email in your inbox. 🎯 Campaign management Run a single ongoing campaign or dozens of named campaigns side by side: Set goals by total raised, donation count, or unique donor count Auto-generated campaign pages built on the WordPress block editor Start and end dates per campaign Active, draft, and archived statuses Real-time aggregates that update as donations complete Mission ships eleven campaign and donation blocks: donation form, donate button, campaign card, campaign grid, campaign image, campaign progress bar, campaign statistic, donor wall, recent donors, top donors, and donor dashboard. Mix and match them to build campaign pages that match your brand. Not using the block editor? Every block has a shortcode equivalent that works in page builders like Elementor and Bricks. 📊 Reports and exports you can actually use The admin dashboard surfaces what fundraisers care about: total revenue, donation count, average donation, repeat donor count, top donor, and month-over-month growth, in test and live modes side by side. Need the data outside WordPress? Export donors, transactions, campaigns, and subscriptions to CSV or JSON in a single click. A built-in activity log records every donation, refund, subscription event, webhook, email, and admin action with a 90-day retention window so you can audit anything that happened on your site. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Who Mission is for Mission is built to fit any organization or individual raising money online: Nonprofits and charities Foundations, clubs, and NGOs Churches and faith communities Schools, PTAs, and education nonprofits Political campaigns and advocacy groups Community groups and mutual aid funds Individuals raising for a specific cause 🫙 How the optional tip model works Mission is funded by donor tips, not by selling features. Here’s exactly how that works: At checkout, donors see a small optional tip alongside their donation amount. The tip is preselected at a small percentage by default. Donors can change it, lower it, or set it to zero. 100% of the donation amount goes to your connected Stripe account. Prefer a flat platform fee instead of donor tips? You can switch to a fixed 3% platform fee per form. Source Code The full, unminified source code for this plugin is publicly available on GitHub at https://github.com/mission-wp/mission See the README in the repository for full development setup, contribution guidelines, and a description of the build pipeline. External Services This plugin connects to the following third-party services: Stripe processes donations. Payment data is sent from the donor’s browser to Stripe via Stripe.js, and Stripe sends webhook notifications back for payment, refund, and subscription events. See Stripe’s Terms and Privacy Policy. Mission API proxies Stripe Connect onboarding, payment requests, and webhook forwarding to your site. If you opt in to feature notifications under Tools > Features, your email is also sent here. See Mission’s Terms and Privacy Policy. Gravatar supplies donor avatars in the admin and on the Donor Wall block. Email addresses are hashed before being sent. See Gravatar’s Terms and Privacy Policy.

Ultimeter uses a simple shortcode, widget or block, to display a choice of different meters (a thermometer and a progress bar in the Lite version, with three more added in the Pro version). It then allows you to choose between percentage or currency units (with heaps more metrics in the Pro version). You can specify the total (goal) amount, as well as the total raised (progress) amount. You can even choose the colour of the meter, to keep it in line with your own styles. Features Choice of 3 meters Change the colours to suit your branding Control alignment and size Set goal and current values Choice of either percentage or currency units Automatic formatting of currency values Choice of currency unit Duplicate meters easily Multiple meters per page or site Insert using a shortcode or a block Pro Features Many more meter designs, including a radial meter, a vertical progress bar, and a range of inline and text-based meters. A third measurement unit with custom values – takes a singular and plural form, i.e. boxes, bags etc. Ability to add custom CSS to make even more style changes. A new set of Infinite Meters that count up indefinitely. The ability to upload your own image to use as a meter. This could be a photo, or your company logo. Heaps more styling options, such as the ability to color the progress and goal labels, as well as your milestones. Add milestones to your meters, to proudly display key points in your progress. Track WooCommerce sales progress. Pick a product, and the Ultimeter will display the all-time gross sales figure. Fully integrated with GiveWP. Pick a GiveWP form to track, and display your fundraising progress using any Ultimeter. Fully integrated with Charitable Fundraising Plugin. Pick a Charitable Campaign to track, and display your fundraising progress using any Ultimeter. Fully integrated with Gravity Forms. Pick a form to track, and display the total payments or number of entries. Fully integrated with Fluent Forms. Pick a form to track, and display the number of form submissions. A growing collection of WordPress hooks to allow you to configure more of your meter’s content. Track data from any compatible plugin or external data source via an API. Celebrations – add an exciting animation when you reach your target. ‘Boost’ your progress by a user-specified amount. Great for adding offline payments to donation campaigns. Use our Zapier integration to connect Ultimeter to 2000+ other applications. Ultimeter can now track (nearly) everything! Real-time updating. No need to refresh the page. Your meters will adjust their progress dynamically (Enterprise Edition) Plus: * Regular updates * Our awesome email and personal support To see all the Pro Features, head to the plugin homepage and then compare our simple and affordable plans.