Intro to the Best Donation Apps for Shopify
Raising funds for donations through a marketplace like Shopify can be a novel way to set up charity contributions. You can either raise charity funds on behalf of yourself (you represent a charity) or as a dedicated charity organization. Therefore, if you are looking to facilitate donations from your customers, there are a bunch of top donation apps for Shopify that you can consider.
There are all types of ways people prefer to ask for donations. These Shopify apps function in different ways. They can be a pop-up window asking for donations during the product purchase, an incentivised additional product purchase, or a small contribution during check out. In this blog post, let us look at the ten best donation apps for Shopify and how they work:
What are Donation Apps, and How Do They Work?
Donation apps on Shopify are plugins that help you expand your store's functionality, in this case, via asking customers for donations. All donation apps differ and allow you to set up donations in various methods, as mentioned earlier.
We'll go over each app today, discuss its features, pros, and cons to show you a bigger picture and recommend what we believe is the most optimal choice for every Shopify store.
Detailed Review of the Top 10 Donation Apps for Shopify
1) Easy Donation (4.6 rating on Shopify)
Features:
- You can add donations to your cart page or check out page ( For Shopify Plus members)
- Enables a landing page for a non-transaction-based website.
- Can sell non-profit products for charitable causes.
- Provide customers receipts for all their donations.
Pros: A highly customizable app providing excellent customer support with fast response times.
Cons: The app sometimes slows down due to technical glitches.
2) Give and Grow (4.0 rating on Shopify)
Features:
- Supports up to 12 non-profits for your donations across 100 countries.
- Provides real-time impact and data analysis for your donations.
- Enables customers to donate by rounding up their purchase to the nearest dollar.
- You can choose the non-profit organization of your choice.
Pros: It is easy to install and has a wide range of customization options.
Cons: Give and Grow can be expensive and do not provide satisfying customer service.
3) Change Commerce (4.9 rating on Shopify)
Features:
- This donation app supports more than 1.5 million non-profits across the globe.
- Customers can choose the non-profit they want to donate to.
- Enables customers to preset their donations.
- Donations can either be a fixed amount per product or a percentage of the purchase.
Pros: Change Commerce offers a user-friendly dashboard with proactive customer service.
Cons: The price of the Pro subscription can be on the higher side compared to other donation apps.
4) Shop for Good (4.9 rating on Shopify)
Features:
- Incentivises product discount for donations from customers. You can also consider using Shopify discount apps along with Shop for Good to bring in more customers.
- Provides detailed reports and a customizable impact tracker for the donations by your customers.
- Enables donations by letting customers round up their purchases to the nearest dollar.
- Facilitates automatic disbursement for charity, ridding businesses of the need to manage the financial aspects of the donations.
Pros: It is very simple to run charity campaigns on Shop for Good donations app.
Cons: The pricing of this software might not be suitable for a lot f small business owners.
5) Donate Source (5.0 rating on Shopify)
Features:
- Lets Shopify sellers select the page of their choice to integrate a donation option.
- Provides data analysis and charts for all the donations you have contributed.
- Allows you to track donations and automatically send receipts to customers.
- Customers can nominate a donation amount of their choice. You can also set default donation amounts.
Pros: Donatesource is an affordable and easy-to-use donations app for Shopify.
Cons: This is a reliable app without a lot of issues.
6) Donate Mate for Donations (4.9 rating on Shopify)
Features:
- This donation app is compatible with third-party websites and allows donation options to be part of transactions.
- Donation widgets can be added to your homepage, cart, and other product pages.
- Donate Mate does not process or use a third party to manage donation making it a highly secure part of the Shopify ecosystem.
- This Donation app supports multi-currency according to the one available on the online site. You can also connect it with a Shopify translation app to reach more users.
Pros: Donatemate for Donations easily integrates with your business and provides comprehensive customer service.
Cons: There can be glitches in the app that needs regular attention from the customer support team.
7) Share the Love by W3 (4.9 rating on Shopify)
Features:
- This donations app enables customers to contribute either a fixed rate or a percentage of the total purchase.
- The customer can choose the cause they want to donate to, from a list of non-profits.
- Share the Love by W3 provides data analysis and tracking for all the donations received by your business.
Pros: Easy-to-use donations app with a quick response to customer support.
Cons: Share the Love by W3 does not let customers select their desired amount for donating.
8) Sales Countup (5.0 rating on Shopify)
Our eighth pick for this list is sales countup, another five-star rated app. It came out in 2019 and doesn’t have the most amount of reviews. However, it has near to none negative feedback.
Features:
- Sales Countup provides an option to customise widgets where your donations show up.
- Provides the ability to start a crowdfunding campaign.
- Displays the impact that your store has made to customers on product pages.
- Has a free plan available with an affordable price plan for more features.
- Has an option of feedback to add more features that users would like to see.
Cons: Users are only provided with one widget in the free plan.
9) TipGenius
TipGenius is a hybrid app which allows your customers to give tips and donations for your store. It’s a relatively new app founded in 2020.
Features:
- TipGenius offers a pop-up dialogue box which asks your customers for a tip/donation.
- Doesn’t show the pop-up for customers who’ve already added a tip/donation.
- Has the ability to display the pop-up only when certain items are added to cart.
Pros: The pop-up dialogue box is fully customisable.
- TipGenius is easy to install and set up.
- Allows you to select from the currency and amount of your choice.
Cons: There’s no free plan available.
- Store visitors cannot add a custom amount of their choice.
10) Givz
Givz is yet one more new player in the donations app circle. It came out in 2021 and allows you to ask for donations after your customers checkout.
Features:
- You can choose whether you’d like to add a fixed percentage or amount of your customer’s shopping cart. (Eg: 5% or $5)
- Givz enables you to set donations to specific products which may be more expensive than others.
- You can customise the email your customers receive after making the donation.
Pros: The app itself is easy to install and set up.
- The Givz team assists you in creating ideas for your donation campaigns.
- The disbursement of funds is taken care of by Givz themselves at the end of each month.
Cons: Givz is not free to install with subscriptions that may be too expensive for newer businesses.
- Advanced customisations are only available for higher paid plans.
How to Select the Best Donation App for Shopify
Now that we've taken a good look at ten of the best donation apps for Shopify let's look at some pointers that you should check off your list to ensure you get your money's worth. This list will allow you to look at key factors when reviewing different donation apps.
1)Functionality
The app should let you place the donation option conveniently without disrupting the purchasing process. It would also be a great advantage if your customers could select the non-profit organisation. Further, you should be able to utilise data analytics and tracking for all your donations.
2)Price
As always, price is a significant aspect to consider. Don't fall for apps that ask for an amount more significant than what you can afford. Get a donation app that complies with your budget and provides decent features, or at least the ones you need.
3)Trust
The donation app should take care of all the financial aspects of the donation. In addition, the disbursement of the donations should be taken care of by the donations app.
4)Tech Support
One of the many common issues store owners may face while using an app is a bug. The only ones who can help you out with it are the tech support team. Check whether the app you install has a quick tech support team to solve your issues swiftly.
5)Customer Support
Regardless of the type of app, a robust and proactive customer support is always important. Ensure to check with past customers (through reviews) about the customer support of the app you’ve decided to choose.
6)Ease of Setup
The app that you settle for should be easy to install and set up. Many apps on the Shopify store require store owners to know (or have someone who knows) coding. Ensure to check that the app you want only requires a few clicks to install and setup.
7)Integrations
An app that integrates with another platform can help in doing more from within the app itself. For donations, you should see whether the app you have integrates with other platforms to facilitate your campaigns better.
8)User-Friendly
Try looking for an app that doesn’t require you to spend five minutes navigating for a single option. A user-friendly app will ensure to help you find the option that you’re looking for in seconds.
9)Design
One of the best ways to ask donations from your customers is to design the pop-up message according to the theme of your store. Look for an app that enables you to design all donation messages and pop-ups as you’d like.
10)Customisation and Currency Range
Having fixed donation amounts can force your customers to back away if you set it too high. Since every customer may only be able to afford a specific amount, you can tackle this by getting an app that allows your customers to type in the amount that they would like to donate. Also, look for apps that accept different types of currencies, the more the merrier!
Overall Recommendation
So, which is the best donations app for Shopify? It really depends on your needs and what you are looking for in a donations app. Use this blog post to analyze seven of the best donations apps on Shopify. We have also outlined the factors you need to consider when selecting the best donations app for Shopify. Now it’s time to get shopping and start giving back!
FAQs on the Best Donations app for Shopify
1) When do you need a Donations app?
When you want to streamline and improve your charity work through Shopify, it would be ideal to use a donations app to make life easier to manage donations.
2) How do you keep track of your donations?
Some of the best Donations app for Shopify helps you track and provides analysis of all the donations going through your e-commerce business. You can also utilize the impact tracker on the donations app to understand the effectiveness of all your donations.