What do you need to start taking political donations online?

To get started, you’ll need a campaign bank account in order to accept funds. You’ll also need an EIN, and in most cases, you’ll need to provide some sort of photo ID. If you have those items ready, you can create an account.

Comparing Political Donation Platforms

Q: Should you use PayPal for political online donations?

While the fees are low, PayPal lacks many features that political-based donation processors have, including donor information recording, donor management, and integrated social media tools.

We are often asked by our political website clients (and potential clients) what fundraising services and tools we recommend for their online campaigns. In this article, we’ll walk you through the best political donation platforms, offering a comparison of features, costs, and the pros and cons of partisan vs. non-partisan platforms.

Key Takeaways

Political donation platforms allow users to donate online to political campaigns, candidates, and causes.
For political campaigns in 2025, choosing a platform designed for compliance with current regulations and ease of fundraising is crucial.
Candidates should consider using a donation platform specifically geared for political campaigns to simplify reporting and donor tracking.
There are both partisan and non-partisan donation platforms, each offering different pricing structures.
Before accepting online donations, you must first establish a dedicated political campaign bank account.

What is a political donation platform?

Political donation platforms are websites that allow users to donate online to political campaigns, candidates, and causes. If you are running for office, raising money is vital to success and to help you get your message out. Digital campaigning has made it easy to collect donations online.

Although wealthy donors still contribute the majority of donations to political campaigns, small-dollar donors — those who give $200 or less — now account for a significant portion of campaign funds. In fact, small-dollar donors contributed $3.5 billion to federal candidates in 2022 source: Center for Responsive Politics.

These days, political campaigns and nonprofit organizations face many challenges, and choosing the right donation platform is more important than ever. A donation platform can help campaigns of any size raise money both online and offline.

Finding the right donor system for your needs

Nonprofits have historically relied on the personal relationships between staff and donors to develop a successful fundraising strategy. However, technological advances have helped improve this process. A donor database is a powerful tool for fundraising and donor engagement. It helps you store and manage your donors, track donor activity over time, and measure the impact of your fundraising efforts.

For political candidates, we recommend using a service that is specifically geared for political campaigns. This ensures that the platform complies with necessary regulations and reporting requirements.

Features to look for in political fundraising tools:

A flat-rate pricing structure for easier budgeting.
No setup fees or monthly maintenance fees, just transaction-based fees.
Recurring donation options that allow donors to contribute on a regular basis.
Customizable donation forms with your logo, colors, and branding to maintain consistency across your campaign materials.
Proper donor information collection, including details like employer, occupation, and citizenship status, to ensure compliance with political fundraising laws.
Integration with virtual fundraising events to streamline your campaign’s digital strategy.
Automatic deposits to your campaign bank account.
Analytics tools to track incoming funds, donors, and trends.
Tools to simplify state, local, and FEC reporting for transparency and compliance.

Donation platforms for non-profits may be able to handle some of these requirements. But to make life easier on your campaign treasurer, go with a system specifically designed for political donations and reporting.

Partisan vs. Non-Partisan Fundraising Platforms

Your next decision is whether to choose a partisan or non-partisan platform. The main difference here is the platform’s target audience:

Partisan platforms focus on one political ideology (e.g., Democratic or Republican) and serve campaigns from those political parties.
Non-partisan platforms are open to campaigns from all political affiliations.

Transaction fees typically range from 2.9%–3.9% + $0.30 per transaction, but this can vary based on the platform and the services included.

Below is a summary and comparison of popular online donation services. They all vary a bit in functionality and pricing, but they are all easy to set up and maintain.

All of these services can be integrated into the Online Candidate content management system. It’s typically done through embedding a donation form or linking out to a branded donation page on the service’s website.

Donation Platforms for Non-Partisan Fundraising

Anedot – Donation and payment system for non-profits, political campaigns, and causes. Integrates with multiple services.
RaiseTheMoney.com – Provides campaigns and organizations with a streamlined way to accept online contributions.
FundHero.io is a fundraising service with built-in Contact Relationship Management system. It has a flat monthly fee in addition to its transaction fees.

Donation Platforms for Partisan Fundraising

ActBlue.com – The leading fundraising platform for Democratic campaigns.
WinRed.com – Fundraising platform for Republican, conservative and center-right groups.

Check Terms & Refund Policies Carefully

Especially for partisan platforms, ensure you carefully review their terms of use and refund policies before making a decision.

For state or congressional campaigns, you might need more extensive systems that combine CRM, social media tools, and email marketing features. These integrated services tend to be more expensive. However, many smaller campaigns only need a simple donation platform that integrates with their website, social media, and email.

Which Online Candidate services are best for you?

Integrate your fundraising forms or links directly into your Online Candidate website.

What do you need to start taking donations online?

To get started, you’ll need a campaign bank account in order to accept funds. You’ll also need an Employer Identification Number, or EIN. In most cases, you’ll need to provide a valid photo ID. Having these items ready will streamline the account creation process.

Review your fundraising platform options before choosing which you will use. After you sign up, your credentials will need to be verified before your donation account is activated. You’ll want to start the signup process early just in case there is a glitch in your account verification. Don’t wait until just before your first fundraiser to start the process.

Should you use PayPal for political contributions?

While the fees are low, PayPal lacks many features that political-based donation processors have, including donor information recording, donor management, and social media integration.

While the Online Candidate system supports PayPal by first taking required donor information, it makes the donation a two-step process. While some of our clients today still want to use PayPal, we don’t recommend it.

In this article, we outline the reasons why you don’t want to use PayPal for political campaigns or PACs.

Avoid Non-Political Payment Processors

For the same reasons that we do not recommend PayPal for political donations, we also discourage the use of other business-based payment processing services like Stripe, Venmo, Braintree and WePay. The lack of proper donor data collection and ease of reporting makes it harder for campaigns to comply with political fundraising laws and regulations. If you do go with one these services, it’s likely you’ll need custom programming by a web developer to integrate proper data collection.

Comparing costs between generic and political-specific donation processors

Fees aren’t everything. Just because one vendor charges a higher fee than another doesn’t mean that your campaign will take in less money.

Here’s an example of a local campaign using hypothetical numbers to show how effectively using features can make one platform far more effective than a ‘cheaper’ option.

Suppose one online processor service has a 3% transaction fee. The second has a 6% transaction fee. Which service will leave your campaign with the most money? The first, of course. After all, it takes a smaller bite out of every donation.

Unfortunately, the math isn’t quite that simple…

Say the 3% service is bare bones and allows you to just add a button to your campaign website and a contribution link for your email. Let’s say you bring in $10,000 in donations. After expenses, you are left with $9,700.

Using the 6% service is twice as expensive. It leaves your campaign with $9,300 after deducting costs.

But suppose the higher-cost service has additional tools to facilitate online fundraising. Let us say that besides buttons and email links, the 6% service provides custom contribution pages, social media widgets, and online viral tools. Suppose that extra functionality helps bring in just 10% more in donations.

That extra 10% would provide an additional $1,000, for a total of $11,000. After taking away the 6% fees, you are left with $10,340. That is $1,040 or 11.2% more money in your coffers than the 3% service brought in.

If you can leverage the tools of the 6% service to bring in 20% more, then you could bring in an additional $1,980 or 21% more money.

Keep in mind that the scenario above is just an example, and results can and will vary. Your fundraising success will not only depend on your payment processor, but also how you use your online tools, the size of your campaign, and other factors.

Online fundraising platforms come with bells and whistles for a reason. Plan to use those features to get the most from your efforts.

Which fundraising platform is best for you?

The fundraising system you’ll want to use will depend on your needs and political affiliation.

If you are appealing to partisan Democratic or Republican donors, then ActBlue or WinRed might be a good choice.
If you’re looking for a non-partisan solution, you might want to go with Raise The Money or Anedot.

These recommendations are based on feedback from our clients who have successfully used these platforms.

Again, consider your campaign’s size, political alignment, and the tools you need before making your decision. Start early, compare options, and ensure the platform you choose aligns with your fundraising goals and compliance requirements.

Start your campaign website today and begin accepting contributions online. Still unsure which platform is right for you? Reach out to us for a personalized recommendation based on your campaign’s unique needs.

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