CAF Donate is the online donation service from the Charities Aid Foundation, and many UK charities use it because CAF is a name trustees know and because there is no subscription. The cost is a percentage of each gift, 4% on one-off donations, and the donor completes the gift on a CAF page. This page compares that with Tinwell, which runs on your own WordPress site for a fixed yearly licence and takes nothing per donation. CAF’s published prices were checked on 12 October 2026.
The short version
| CAF Donate | Tinwell | |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | None | £249 + VAT a year£298.80 a year |
| Per one-off donation | 4% | Nothing to Tinwell.Stripe’s 1.5% + 20p, paid to Stripe |
| Where the donor pays | On a CAF Donate page | On your own WordPress page |
| Donor data | In your CAF account, exported | In your WordPress database and your CRM, in real time |
| Gift Aid | Handled through CAF | Declarations with HMRC wording and a Charities Online CSV export |
| Direct Debit | Check CAF’s current options | ✓Through GoCardless |
| Payout | From CAF, on its schedule | From your own Stripe account |
Rather see Tinwell than read about it? Open the live demo to try the donation form, the donor portal and the admin dashboard with sample data.
What CAF Donate costs
CAF Donate has no subscription and takes 4% of each one-off donation. That 4% covers card processing, so the fair comparison is with Tinwell’s licence plus Stripe’s processing fee, not with the licence alone. CAF’s charges for regular gifts and for Gift Aid handling are set out in its own terms and are not included in the figures below; check them if those are a large part of your income.
What Tinwell costs
A Tinwell licence is £249 + VAT a year for one website, £298.80 in total, and Tinwell takes nothing per gift. Donations go into your own Stripe account at Stripe’s standard UK rate, 1.5% + 20p at the time of writing. See the pricing page for what is included.
A worked example at £60,000 a year
A charity raising £60,000 a year in 2,000 one-off gifts averaging £30:
| Yearly cost | CAF Donate | Tinwellwith Stripe |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription or licence | £0.00 | £298.80£249 + VAT |
| Percentage on £60,000 | £2,400.004% of £60,000 | £900.001.5% of £60,000 |
| Fixed fee on 2,000 gifts | £0.00 | £400.0020p × 2,000 gifts |
| Total | £2,400.00 | £1,598.80 |
| Extra kept for the cause with Tinwell | £801.20 |
That is £801.20 a year kept for the cause, and Tinwell pays for its licence in about 13 weeks. Because CAF’s fee is a straight percentage, the gap grows with income: £251.20 at £30,000 a year, £1,901.20 at £120,000 and £4,284.53 at £250,000. CAF Donate costs less than Tinwell only below roughly £16,000 a year, where 4% of income is under the licence plus Stripe’s fees. Try your own figures on the fee calculator.
CAF Donate’s 4% on one-off gifts. Tinwell is the licence including VAT plus Stripe’s standard UK card rate of 1.5% + 20p. Per-donation pence fees assume an average gift of £30. Not counted: CAF’s charges on regular gifts and Gift Aid, and surcharges on premium or non-UK cards. Logos and names belong to their owners.
The donor’s experience
A CAF Donate button sends the supporter from your website to a CAF page to complete the gift. CAF is a trusted name, which helps, but it is still a redirect to a different domain with a different design, and every redirect loses some of the people who clicked. Your analytics see a click and nothing after it. With Tinwell the entire donation happens on your own page, in your theme, with Apple Pay and Google Pay available on the device, and your analytics see every step, including where people leave so you can fix it.
Where the money and the data go
With CAF Donate the gift is collected by CAF and paid out to your charity on CAF’s schedule, and the donor record lives in your CAF account until you export it. With Tinwell the gift goes into your own Stripe account and the donor record is in your own database from the moment the gift is made. If you use Beacon, Donorfy or Raisely, the donation, donor, schedule and consent are written into your CRM within seconds through its official API, merged into the existing household. There is no export to run and no duplicate to tidy up.
Gift Aid
CAF has a long history with Gift Aid and handles it as part of the service. Tinwell’s approach gives you the declaration and the records: it captures the declaration on your form with HMRC’s wording and the address fields HMRC requires, stores it against the donor and each gift, and exports a CSV laid out for HMRC Charities Online so you can claim directly, with no fee on the Gift Aid. If your charity already claims Gift Aid on other income, this fits into the same routine. The Gift Aid guide covers the rules and the export.
Regular giving
Regular gifts are where cards let charities down: expiries and failed payments end gifts quietly. Tinwell offers Direct Debit through GoCardless on the same form as cards, backed by the Direct Debit Guarantee, and donors can change or pause their gift themselves in the donor portal. See the Direct Debit page.
Trustees and the CAF name
One honest point in CAF’s favour: trustees recognise it, and “we use CAF” answers a question about safety before it is asked. Tinwell’s answer to the same question is different but just as concrete. Payments are taken by Stripe, which is a regulated payment institution handling card data under PCI DSS, so no card details ever touch your website. Tinwell encrypts donation data, keeps a tamper-evident log of changes, and before go-live walks you through a checklist (HTTPS, Stripe tested, Gift Aid wording, privacy notice) that seals a certificate for the site. That certificate is something you can show a board.
When CAF Donate is the right choice
If your website is not WordPress, Tinwell is not an option. If you raise under about £16,000 a year online and have no capacity to look after a Stripe account, CAF’s no-subscription model and its handling of Gift Aid may suit you better for now. For a WordPress charity raising more than that, 4% is an expensive way to pay for a donation page, and keeping the donor on your own site is worth more each year.
Moving from CAF Donate
Keep CAF Donate live while you set up. Install Tinwell, add your Stripe keys (or create a Stripe account first; our onboarding team can help), place the form, run a £1 test, then switch your donate buttons and your next appeal to your own page. Our team does this for you with the free onboarding add-on at checkout; the docs cover it too.
See pricing, compare with JustGiving, Donorbox, Enthuse, GiveWP or Charitable, or take the product tour.