NFS Logo

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 monthly subscription (£15 or £39 + VAT, depending on how much you raise), text giving and contactless come through third-party integrations, Gift Aid processing costs 5% of the claim when JustGiving claims it, auctions are not on their site, 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.

Peer-to-peer, without asking supporters to build a page

On JustGiving, a sponsored fundraiser usually has to sign up, create their own page and link it to your charity or event before they can ask anyone for money. Every step is a point where a willing supporter drops out.

Team challenges on DONATE work the other way round. You add your fundraisers or send them an invite, and each one's page, short link and QR code are already set up, linked to your campaign and ready to share. Every donation is credited to the person who raised it and counts towards your total, with Gift Aid managed for you.

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 to £10 donations).
  2. Gift Aid fee: 5% of the claim is common. On DONATE, Gift Aid replaces the fee: a Gift Aided donation carries no percentage fee, the charity keeps the whole gift less 22p plus 60% of the Gift Aid, and our fee is the other 40%.
  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, peer-to-peer team challenges (with pages you set up for your fundraisers), text giving, web donations and contactless on one platform. 4.5% + 22p for charities, or no percentage fee when the donor adds Gift Aid (you keep 60% of the Gift Aid), no subscription (£3 usage fee only in weeks donations reach £10, capped at £12 a month), managed Gift Aid, raffles run under your organisation's own council lottery licence. Donors can add an optional tip for DONATE or choose No thanks.
  • Enthuse: strong branded event fundraising and registrations; plans from £0 to £39.99 + VAT a month, 1.9% + 30p a donation (none on the Donations plan), 0% platform fee and no payout fee listed; raffles, auctions and text giving are not offered on their site. See our detailed DONATE vs Enthuse comparison.
  • GoFundMe: no subscription and simple crowdfunding at 1.9% + 20p for charities, with Gift Aid on UK charity fundraisers claimed by PayPal Giving Fund (the charity receives 100%). Its terms prohibit raffles and auctions, each fundraiser benefits one charity, and text giving is only on GoFundMe Pro, which may not be available in the UK.
  • Zeffy / free platforms: genuinely £0 fees funded by optional donor tips at checkout, with ticketing, raffles and auctions. Weigh how your donors will feel about the tip prompt; Zeffy collects Gift Aid through a Swiftaid connection (not on Tap to Pay) and does not offer text giving itself.

For the full side-by-side numbers, including a £500/month worked example (30% Gift Aid, 40% by text) where the charity receives £473.25 on DONATE, £470.63 on JustGiving Grow, £310.80 on GoFundMe and £273.38 on Enthuse's Donations plan (neither of the last two takes text gifts), 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 and what you need to run. On fees alone, GoFundMe (1.9% + 20p for charities, no subscription, Gift Aid passed on in full) and Enthuse's Donations plan (no payment fee, £39.99 + VAT a month) often leave a charity more than DONATE once it raises a few hundred pounds a month. DONATE has no subscription and runs text giving, raffles, auctions and voting on the same platform, which those platforms do not offer on their sites. Use the interactive comparison tool at nationalfundingscheme.org/compare to model your own numbers.

Can I run a raffle on JustGiving? ＋

JustGiving allows raffles on charity pages only, with the charity holding the lottery licence, and its terms ban them on crowdfunding pages. GoFundMe's terms prohibit raffles. DONATE runs online charity raffles under your organisation's own council lottery licence, including ticketing, the draw and winner notification.

Can a charity set up fundraising pages for its supporters? ＋

On DONATE, yes. In a team challenge you add your fundraisers or invite them, and each one's page, short link and QR code are ready to share, linked to your campaign, so nobody has to build a page or connect it to your charity. On JustGiving, sponsored fundraisers usually create their own pages.

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

For a head-to-head on fees, tips and features, see DONATE vs JustGiving. 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.