Charitable vs WP Simple Pay
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| Feature | Charitable v1.8.13.2 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.9/5 Visit Details | WP Simple Pay v4.17.5 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.4/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 10,000+ | 8,000+ |
| Last updated | October 19, 2026 | October 19, 2026 |
| Editions | Charitable · Charitable Pro ($) · Charitable Recurring Donations ($) | WP Simple Pay Lite · WP Simple Pay Pro ($) |
| Pros | Stripe, PayPal and Square gateways plus offline donations in the free edition; Campaign builder with templates, goals and progress bars; Donor database, reports and CSV export; Built-in reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha and Turnstile spam protection; Usage tracking is opt-in | Payment form block and shortcode for Stripe card payments; Subscriptions available in the free version; Optional hCaptcha or Cloudflare Turnstile on payment forms |
| Cons | Lite card payments carry a 3 percent fee on top of gateway fees; Recurring donations and many integrations need Pro or extensions; Heavy admin with many upsell screens and menus; Large codebase of almost 5,000 files | Lite adds a 3% application fee to each transaction; Custom fields, coupons and on-site overlay forms need Pro; Sends usage data only if the site opts in, and loads Stripe and captcha scripts |
| Mentioned in our posts | 1 | 2 |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Campaign and donation post types, Drag-and-drop campaign builder, Donation form, donate button and donor list shortcodes, Donor and donation records in custom tables, Donation receipts and admin notification emails, CSV export of donations and campaigns, Reports screen and reports REST endpoint, reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha and Turnstile on forms, Campaign, donor and donation blocks and widgets, Recurring donations ($), No 3 percent platform fee on card donations ($) | Payment form block for the block editor, Payment form shortcode, Stripe.js loaded on payment pages, hCaptcha or Cloudflare Turnstile on payment forms, Recurring subscriptions in Lite, 3% application fee on Lite transactions, Custom fields on payment forms ($), No application fee ($) |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | Stripe, PayPal, Square | Stripe |
| Plugins | Elementor | — |
| Other | Google reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile | hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile |
| Requires WordPress | 5.9 | 5.9 |
| Requires PHP | 7.4 | 7.4 |
| Tested up to | 7.1.3 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | Only if you agree | Only if you agree |
| 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 | wpsimplepay.com, api.stripe.com, translations.wpsimplepay.com, connect.wpsimplepay.com, telemetry.wpsimplepay.com, www.google.com, hcaptcha.com, challenges.cloudflare.com, requests.wpsimplepay.com, plugins.svn.wordpress.org, js.stripe.com, js.hcaptcha.com |
| Blocks | 8 | 2 |
| Shortcodes | 13 | 5 |
| Custom tables | 7 | — |