GoFundMe fees explained: what it takes in 2026

GoFundMe charges a US organiser 2.90% plus $0.30 on every donation and nothing at all to create or run the fundraiser. A certified charity fundraiser pays 2.20% plus $0.30 instead. That single transaction fee is the whole deduction, which makes GoFundMe simpler to price than most platforms — but the fixed 30 cents is charged per donation rather than per campaign, so the number of people who give changes what you keep. This guide sets out each rate as GoFundMe publishes it, with worked examples computed by the same engine as the GoFundMe fee calculator. Every figure is quoted from GoFundMe's official pricing page and was verified on 3 September 2026.

What GoFundMe charges

GoFundMe's pricing page lists three lines, and only one of them is a cost:

• No fee to create a fundraiser — $0.00. There is no charge to start a fundraiser, to run it, or to withdraw the money afterwards.
• Donor contributions to GoFundMe are optional — $0.00. A donor may add a tip at checkout. It is never required and it never comes out of your total.
• One transaction fee — the percentage and fixed amount below, "automatically deducted from each donation, so you never have to worry about paying a bill".

So the arithmetic is: the percentage on the total raised, plus the fixed amount once for each separate donation. Nothing else is taken by GoFundMe.

For a US personal fundraiser, the fee on $100.00 is $3.20 and you keep $96.80, an effective rate of 3.2%.

The fee is per donation, not per fundraiser

This is the part organisers most often get wrong when estimating. Raising $500 from five donations is not the same cost as raising $500 from thirty. The percentage does not change, but you pay the fixed amount once for every gift. Ten $100 donations and one hundred $10 donations both raise $1,000, and both are charged the same percentage, but the second pays the fixed amount ten times as often.

GoFundMe's pricing page works this exact case: raise $500 from 5 donors and you receive $484.00, with a transaction fee of $16.00. That fee is 2.90% of the $500 total plus five lots of the fixed $0.30.

On GoFundMe's own example of $500 from five donations, the fee on $500.00 is $16.00 and you keep $484.00, an effective rate of 3.2%.

Spread the same $500 across thirty small gifts and the fixed part is charged thirty times instead of five:

The same $500 from thirty donations, the fee on $500.00 is $23.50 and you keep $476.50, an effective rate of 4.7%.

The effective rate rises even though the published rate has not moved. For a fundraiser aimed at a large number of small donations — a school class, a team, a neighbourhood — this is worth modelling before you set a target. It is also the reason the calculator asks for a donation count: the total alone cannot tell you the fee.

Fees by country

GoFundMe publishes one global table of country rates, and this calculator covers the four largest English-language markets on it. The rate depends on where the fundraiser is set up, not on where the donor is; there is no separate international rate for the organiser.

Australia is the outlier: its personal rate is 2.20%, lower than the US, UK and Canadian 2.90%, and GoFundMe notes that the Australian figures include GST. The United Kingdom has the lowest charity rate at 1.90% plus £0.20.

For a UK organiser, the fee on £100.00 is £3.15 and you keep £96.85, an effective rate of 3.15%.

GoFundMe adds one caveat to every country row: "International transaction and conversion fees may apply based on your payment method." Those are charged by the donor's card issuer or bank, not by GoFundMe, so no calculator can predict them.

Certified charity fundraisers

A certified charity fundraiser is one raising money for a registered non-profit that GoFundMe has verified, with the money going to the charity rather than to an individual's bank account. It carries the lower rate in every country.

For a certified charity raising $500 from five donations, the fee on $500.00 is $12.50 and you keep $487.50, an effective rate of 2.5%.

Two limits are worth knowing. First, GoFundMe states that this rate "applies to GoFundMe certified fundraisers only; GoFundMe Pro pricing and fees differ" — GoFundMe Pro is the paid product for non-profits that used to be sold as Classy, and its pricing is not in this calculator. Second, a personal fundraiser that happens to benefit a charity is still charged the personal rate; the lower rate follows the certification, not the cause.

Optional donor tips

GoFundMe does not charge a platform fee. It is funded instead by tips: at checkout, a donor is shown a suggested contribution to GoFundMe on top of their donation, which they can change or remove. GoFundMe's own wording is that "donors can choose to tip GoFundMe, but it's never required".

Tips matter to your donors' total cost, not to yours. A donor who gives $50 and tips $5 pays $55; you are credited with the $50 and charged the transaction fee on that $50. Because the amount is the donor's choice and is never deducted from what you raise, the calculator has no tip control and none of the figures on this page include one.

Working out what to raise

Because the fee comes out of the money before it reaches you, adding the fee percentage to your target undershoots. The fee is charged on the full amount raised, including the part that covers the fee, and the fixed amount is charged per donation on top.

To keep $1,000.00 you charge $1,032.96, and the fee is $32.96.

That figure assumes ten donations. Expect more donations and the target has to rise further, because each one carries another 30 cents. The calculator's "I want to net" mode solves this for any amount, country and donation count, finding the smallest total whose payout lands within one cent of your target.

How GoFundMe compares

Against a general payments processor, GoFundMe's headline rate is close to ordinary card pricing: PayPal charges a US seller 3.49% plus $0.49 on a goods-and-services payment through PayPal Checkout, so a personal GoFundMe fundraiser at 2.90% plus $0.30 is cheaper per transaction, and a certified charity at 2.20% cheaper still. What GoFundMe adds on top of processing is hosting, the donation page, payout handling and its trust and safety work, all paid for by donor tips rather than by a platform fee. The other calculators on this site show the same arithmetic for platforms that do charge one.

The trade-off is control. A payments processor gives you a rate; a fundraising platform gives you a rate plus rules about what can be raised for and how quickly money is released. Compare the two on the terms as well as the percentage.

What this guide leaves out

The calculator models the transaction fee and nothing else, because nothing else is stated on GoFundMe's pricing page. It leaves out the 5% recurring-donation fee, which GoFundMe describes only in its help centre: a donor who sets up a monthly recurring donation pays 5% per donation "to help make this feature possible". It is charged to the donor, not to the organiser, and because it is not on the pricing page it is not modelled here. It also leaves out GoFundMe Pro pricing, which is a separate product with separate rates; the country rates GoFundMe publishes for the many other markets on GoFundMe's global country table, of which only four are covered here; and any card, bank or currency-conversion charge a donor's own provider adds. If you need one of those, the figure is on GoFundMe's own pages rather than this one.

When these rates last changed

GoFundMe's pricing page carries no effective date, so this schedule is dated from the day it was verified: 3 September 2026. That is the first entry in the GoFundMe fee changelog; every later change is recorded there with the date and the rule affected, and the schedule is re-checked at least every 60 days.

The schedule is marked medium confidence. GoFundMe's own fee explainer article corroborates the US personal rate, the $0.00 to create a fundraiser and the optional tips, but no independent source restates the UK, Canadian or Australian rates or the certified-charity rates, which come from the pricing page's country table alone. The methodology explains how that judgement is made, and the whole schedule is quoted line by line, with the verbatim source text behind every rule, in the calculator's fee table. If a figure here disagrees with what GoFundMe shows you, report it and it will be checked against the official page.

Frequently asked questions

Does GoFundMe take a percentage of what I raise?

Yes, one transaction fee per donation: 2.90% plus $0.30 in the United States for a personal or business fundraiser, and 2.20% plus $0.30 for a certified charity fundraiser. There is no separate platform fee, subscription or withdrawal charge.

Is GoFundMe free to start?

Yes. GoFundMe lists $0.00 to create or manage a fundraiser in every country covered here. The transaction fee on each donation is the only deduction.

Why did I receive less than I expected?

Almost always because the fixed part of the fee is charged per donation. A total made up of many small gifts carries the fixed amount many times, so the effective rate is higher than the headline percentage. Enter your donation count in the calculator to see the difference.

Do donors have to tip GoFundMe?

No. The contribution shown at checkout is optional and set by the donor. It is added to their payment rather than taken out of yours, so it changes neither your fee nor your payout.

Where do these numbers come from?

Every rate is quoted verbatim from GoFundMe's official pricing page, saved as a dated snapshot in this repository and checked by a person. The figures in the worked examples above are computed by the same engine that powers the calculator, so the guide and the tool cannot disagree.