Charitable vs PayPal Donations
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| Feature | Charitable v1.8.13.2 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.9/5 Visit Details | PayPal Donations v1.9.11 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free · ★ 4.7/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 10,000+ | 20,000+ |
| Last updated | October 19, 2026 | August 17, 2026 |
| Editions | Charitable · Charitable Pro ($) · Charitable Recurring Donations ($) | Donations via PayPal |
| Pros | Stripe, PayPal and Square gateways plus offline donations in the free edition; Campaign builder with templates, goals and progress bars; Donor database, reports and CSV export; Built-in reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha and Turnstile spam protection; Usage tracking is opt-in | Donate button through a shortcode or widget; Choose standard or custom button images; Sandbox mode for testing |
| Cons | Lite card payments carry a 3 percent fee on top of gateway fees; Recurring donations and many integrations need Pro or extensions; Heavy admin with many upsell screens and menus; Large codebase of almost 5,000 files | Donations go straight to PayPal with no on-site records; Shows admin notices when PHP or WordPress is too old; Only a donate button, no recurring or tiered donations |
| Mentioned in our posts | 1 | 1 |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Campaign and donation post types, Drag-and-drop campaign builder, Donation form, donate button and donor list shortcodes, Donor and donation records in custom tables, Donation receipts and admin notification emails, CSV export of donations and campaigns, Reports screen and reports REST endpoint, reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha and Turnstile on forms, Campaign, donor and donation blocks and widgets, Recurring donations ($), No 3 percent platform fee on card donations ($) | Donate button shortcode, Sidebar donate widget, Standard or custom button image, PayPal sandbox switch for testing, Return page and purpose defaults |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | Stripe, PayPal, Square | PayPal |
| Plugins | Elementor | — |
| Other | Google reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile | — |
| Requires WordPress | 5.9 | 5.5 |
| Requires PHP | 7.4 | — |
| Tested up to | 7.1.3 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | Only if you agree | No |
| External services | wpcharitable.com, nonprofitscore.org, squareupsandbox.com, squareup.com, connect.wpcharitable.com, paypal-sandbox.wpcharitable.com, api-m.sandbox.paypal.com, api-m.paypal.com, www.sandbox.paypal.com, www.paypal.com, plugin.wpcharitable.com, usage.wpcharitable.com, tracking.wpcharitable.com, challenges.cloudflare.com, www.google.com, hcaptcha.com, connect.squareup.com, api.stripe.com | www.paypalobjects.com |
| Blocks | 8 | — |
| Shortcodes | 13 | 1 |
| Custom tables | 7 | — |