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JustGiving alternatives for UK charities

JustGiving is the best-known fundraising site in the UK, and for peer-to-peer sponsorship it remains a strong choice — its brand recognition genuinely helps individual fundraisers collect from friends and family. But charities shopping for a platform of their own often find the fit less obvious: the Grow plan adds a tiered monthly subscription (£15–£39 + VAT), text giving carries a 5% fee, Gift Aid processing costs 5% of the claim, there are no charity auctions, and donors are prompted at checkout to add a "voluntary" tip to JustGiving — money that could have gone to your cause.

If any of those points is why you're searching for an alternative, here is an honest look at the options.

What to compare — beyond the headline rate

Any platform comparison should look at five numbers, not one:

  1. Transaction fee — the advertised percentage plus the per-donation fixed fee (the fixed pennies matter enormously for £3–£10 donations).
  2. Gift Aid fee — 5% of the claim is common; DONATE instead takes its fee from the Gift Aid uplift so the donor's original gift passes through intact.
  3. Subscription — a £39/month plan costs a small charity raising £300/month more than its transaction fees do.
  4. Payout and hidden fees — payout charges, donor tipping prompts, currency fees.
  5. Feature coverage — if you need raffles, auctions or text giving and the platform doesn't offer them, you'll pay for a second platform anyway.

The alternatives at a glance

  • DONATE (that's us — run by the National Funding Scheme, a registered UK charity): raffles, auctions, campaigns, text giving, web donations and contactless on one platform. 4.5% + 22p for charities, tiered £6–£12 monthly fee, managed Gift Aid, Gambling Commission-licensed raffles. No donor tipping.
  • Enthuse: strong branded event fundraising and registrations; 1.9% + 30p plus £39.99/month plus a 5% payout fee; no raffles, auctions or text giving. See our detailed DONATE vs Enthuse comparison.
  • GoFundMe: no subscription and simple crowdfunding, but no Gift Aid processing, raffles are prohibited, and there's no UK charity tooling around auctions or text giving.
  • Zeffy / free platforms: genuinely £0 fees funded by donor tips at checkout — weigh how your donors will feel about the tip prompt, and check UK Gift Aid and raffle compliance carefully.

For the full side-by-side numbers — including a £500/month worked example where DONATE delivers £472.75 to the charity versus £470.43 on JustGiving Grow and £447.58 on Enthuse — use our interactive platform comparison. The sliders let you model your own donation mix, and we publish our sources.

JustGiving alternative FAQs

What is the cheapest JustGiving alternative in the UK? ＋

It depends on your donation mix. For charities using Gift Aid and text giving, DONATE typically delivers the highest net amount because there is no donor tipping, no 5% Gift Aid fee on the donation and no large subscription. Platforms with £0 headline fees fund themselves through donor tips instead. Use the interactive comparison tool at nationalfundingscheme.org/compare to model your own numbers.

Can I run a raffle on JustGiving? ＋

JustGiving offers only basic raffle support and most general crowdfunding platforms either prohibit raffles or leave the Gambling Act compliance to you. DONATE runs fully compliant online charity raffles under a Gambling Commission licence, including ticketing, the draw and winner notification.

Is it hard to switch fundraising platforms? ＋

No — most charities run the two side by side for a campaign cycle. Your JustGiving pages keep working while you launch new campaigns, raffles or auctions on the new platform, then you consolidate once you have compared real results.

Try the numbers yourself

The fairest way to choose is to model your own fundraising: compare UK fundraising platform fees with our calculator, or get started with DONATE — there are no setup fees, so trying it costs nothing.