PayPal or Stripe: Which Should I Choose? (Legacy)
Rob Wu avatar
Written by Rob Wu
Updated over a week ago

On CauseVox, you're given the opportunity to pick between PayPal or Stripe (or both) for donation processing. Here are the differences in each.

Country Availability

While PayPal and Stripe can both accept payments via any major credit card from anywhere around the world, there is a difference in the countries in which accounts can be set up.

PayPal is available in 202 countries with 25 currencies, making them the leading choice for NGOs and social good projects in many countries around the world.

In contrast, Stripe is still new to the game, and is officially available in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with accounts available in beta in 15 other countries, each with corresponding currencies.

While PayPal does offer greater availability, just because you can set up an account in a country doesn't necessarily mean PayPal can always deliver the desired results. Organizations operating in countries in Africa, Latin America, South America, and Asia, can experience some restrictions, meaning they may be only able to send funds, only receive funds from within their country, or they may be able to receive funds into their bank account but not be able to transfer it into their bank account.

If you're looking into creating a fundraising site in a country in Africa, Latin America, South America, or Asia, please reach out to PayPal to confirm that they'll be able to transfer funds into your bank account receive them. If they aren't able to transfer funds, if you have any partners, family, or other contacts in other countries that have fully functioning PayPal access, then you may want to reach out to see if they'd consider receiving funds and transferring them into your account.

For organizations that are looking to receive multiple currencies, it should be noted that both Stripe and PayPal only allow you to set one currency. However, funds can be received from just about anywhere in the world via credit card.

For transactions from one currency to another, PayPal charges an additional 2.5% fee, while Stripe charges an additional 2% fee.

Therefore, if you plan on receiving a large portion of funds in another currency, you may want to choose Stripe. Alternatively, you could choose to set up multiple accounts in Stripe or PayPal set to different currencies and create separate campaigns based on currency.

Integration With CauseVox

While PayPal and Stripe are integrated with CauseVox so that they are both viable options, there are significant differences in how they work for the donor and also have different advantages.

First, when donors give on a campaign site using PayPal, they will be asked to login to their PayPal account to process the donation, or they can use a credit or debit card.

Once in PayPal, donors can pay with their PayPal balance, an existing or new credit card or PayPal's installments or PayPal credit.

If they choose not to login, but to pay with debit or credit card, they will have to reenter some of the information entered on the CauseVox form like name, postal address, and email address. However, donors have the option of donating either through their PayPal account (no credit card required) or by their credit or debit card. Donors never need a PayPal account to donate.

Alternatively, Stripe's integration with CauseVox offers the ability to make the donation process in less steps. Donors never leave your campaign to complete their donation.

With Stripe, donors can input a credit/debit card directly, but they also lose the opportunity to pay via their PayPal account.

However, the CauseVox integration with Stripe supports a few additional features:

  1. The ability to charge fundraisers a registration fee to sign up and participate.

  2. The option to share your campaign on social media once the donation is completed. While with PayPal donors are redirected back to your campaign site, Stripe's confirmation page gives donors the option to share your campaign on social right after they complete their donation.

For a deeper look into how each donation processor works, view our support articles Donation Processing With PayPal and Donation Processing With Stripe.

For more information on how to set up a Stripe or PayPal account, view our article How To Set Up Donation Processing.

Pricing And Bank Transactions

Regarding PayPal's and Stripe's donation processing fees, for business or personal use the standard transaction fee on both platforms is 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

However, regarding the the pricing for nonprofits, there is some differences.

PayPal offers discounted transaction fees for nonprofits with 501 (c)(3) status:

  • More than $100,000 in monthly volume: 1.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

  • Less than $100,000 in monthly volume: 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction.

Stripe has also recently introduced nonprofit pricing for US nonprofits, in beta. Pricing for nonprofits is:

  • 2.2% + $0.30 per donation for non-American Express and 3.5% flat for American Express cards.

You can contact Stripe at [email protected] for additional information on how you can get started.

Additionally, Stripe and PayPal differ in the way they transfer funds into the bank account.

With PayPal, you can login to your PayPal account at anytime during the campaign to request funds be transferred into your bank account. After the request is made, it typically takes 3-5 business days to complete the transfer.

With Stripe, you choose how often you'd like deposits automatically made from your Stripe account into your bank account, as frequent as on a 2 day rolling basis.

You can always contact Stripe or PayPal for additional questions regarding the donation processors.

Additional Notes

  • As long as you are accepting one-time donations on your donation form, you can connect both a Stripe and PayPal account to your campaign. This gives the donor the choice of paying with credit card and Apple/Google pay, or using PayPal.

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