Someone handed you online giving and gave you a month. The technical half is smaller than it looks. The donation page itself lives with your giving processor, whether that is Subsplash, Church Center, Tithe.ly or whichever platform your church already pays. Zaap does not process a gift and never touches your church’s money. Zaap holds the link to the page that does.
Americans gave about $152 billion to religion in 2025, according to Lake Institute on Faith & Giving. Your share of that does not move because the page is prettier. It moves because someone could find the link at the moment they wanted it.
The work sorts into five steps, and four of them fit in an afternoon.
Step 1: Pick the processor before you design anything
Two-thirds of congregations now receive gifts online: 67 percent in 2023, up from 31 percent in 2015, according to Lake Institute on Faith & Giving.
Congregations with no digital giving averaged $1,809 in annual per capita giving. Congregations using it heavily averaged $2,428. Source: Lake Institute on Faith & Giving.
Your processor decides nearly everything downstream: which funds a donor can choose, whether recurring giving exists at all, whether text to give comes bundled or costs extra, what the receipt says, and what the fee is. Build the page first and you will build it twice.
Pick on reconciliation, not on the headline rate. Ask each vendor for a sample export before you sign, hand it to whoever manages your books, and let that person veto. A fund structure that does not match your chart of accounts costs your treasurer more hours every month than any fee difference saves.
Step 2: Build the page around one thumb
Pew Research Center found that 91 percent of US adults own a smartphone, and 16 percent rely on one as their only route online. Your donation page is a phone page, whatever it looks like on your desk.
What it needs:
- A fund menu short enough to read at a glance: general and missions, plus whatever else your church genuinely tracks
- A recurring option on the same screen as the one-time amounts, not behind a second tap
- Guest giving, so a first-time visitor is not made to create an account before handing you money
- Credit card and ACH both, since bank transfers cost the church less on larger contributions
- A stated position on fees, which is the next step
Test it with your thumb, standing up, on the church wifi. If finishing a gift takes zooming and two hands, the layout is wrong and the donor is not.
Step 3: Decide who absorbs the processing fee, then say it out loud
Cash has fallen to 14 percent of consumer payments in the Federal Reserve’s 2026 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice. Card processing is now the cost of receiving most gifts rather than an optional extra, and every processor takes a cut. Three positions are defensible.
| Who absorbs the fee | What the donor sees | Why churches pick it |
|---|---|---|
| The church | One amount, no toggle | Nothing sits between the person and the gift |
| The donor | A checkbox that adds the fee | More of each contribution reaches the fund |
| Split by method | ACH absorbed, cards covered | Moves larger gifts to the cheaper rail |
A cover-the-fee checkbox adds the processor’s cut on top of the amount the donor typed, so the fund receives the full amount and the donor pays the difference.
Whichever you choose, write it on the page in one sentence. Churches that leave it unsaid get the same email every January from the member who compared a receipt against a bank statement. Do not print a fee percentage unless you have confirmed it against your processor’s current published rate: rates change and yours may be negotiated.
Step 4: Make the receipt automatic, then read what it says
A donor cannot claim a single contribution of $250 or more without a written acknowledgment from your church, per the IRS rules on written acknowledgments. The IRS sets out what that acknowledgment carries:
- The name of your organization
- The amount of the cash contribution
- A statement that no goods or services were provided in return, where that is the case
- A description and good faith estimate of the value of anything that was provided in return
- A statement that what was provided consisted entirely of intangible religious benefits, where that is the case
A meal, a book or a concert ticket given in exchange for a gift counts as goods or services. The ordinary benefits of membership do not, and the IRS wants it said rather than assumed.
Switch on the per-gift email and the annual statement on day one, send yourself a test gift, and read what arrives. This is general information and not tax advice: have your accountant approve the wording before your first year-end statement goes out.
Step 5: The half nobody plans for
A Zaap page sits at a URL in the format zaap.bio/yourchurch, short enough to say from the stage and short enough to type wrong-handed. Your processor’s donation page is not. The page exists, and nobody can find it when they want it.
Someone hears the announcement on Sunday and opens Instagram on Tuesday. Someone finishes the livestream and goes looking under the video.
So give the giving link one home and point everything at it:
- Put it on a page you control, above service times, the connect card and event sign-ups.
- Put that one page URL in every social bio you own, plus the email footer and the bulletin.
- Print the short URL on anything physical. A processor URL does not survive a bulletin insert.
- Say it the same way every week from the stage until people repeat it back.
A typical church setup looks like this: a giving tile first, then service times, a connect card, events and the sermon playlist.
That is the job Zaap’s link-in-bio tool does. Link folders, a custom domain and embedded videos stop sermons, small groups and the giving link competing for one line, and Zaap syncs the page with your latest YouTube videos and TikToks on its own. Most churches arrive from a plain list of links; Zaap as a Linktree alternative covers the switch and one link for sermons, events and giving covers the layout.
The Contact Form block is a Pro feature, so collecting prayer requests on the page itself sits on a paid plan.
Questions churches ask before launch week
Does Zaap process our donations?
No, your processor holds the gift and Zaap holds the link, so a donation runs on Subsplash, Church Center, Tithe.ly or whichever platform your church already uses. Zaap takes no cut of a gift, because the gift never passes through it.
How much can someone write off for church donations?
That sits between the donor and the IRS. Your job is the paperwork: any single gift of $250 or more needs a written acknowledgment from your church before the donor can claim it. This is general information, not tax advice.
Can people give by text instead?
Through your processor, yes. The text hands the giver the same donation page on their phone rather than a separate app you buy. Subsplash, Church Center and Tithe.ly each bundle it differently, so check the cost and the keyword limits first. Text to give for churches covers what it runs to.
Does online giving replace passing the plate?
Four out of five consumers still used cash in the previous 30 days, per the Federal Reserve’s 2026 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice. Online tithing is an addition to the offering, and churches that sell it as a replacement lose the members who never wanted the app.
What does it cost to put the giving link on a Zaap page?
The Basic plan costs nothing, Pro is $9 a month, Ultra $19 and Agency $49 on monthly billing, with 15 percent off annual billing. Your processor’s fee is separate and always applies.
Your first week
Monday: shortlist two processors and ask both for a sample export. Friday: build the donation page, send yourself a test gift, and read the receipt it produces.
Then do the part nobody schedules. Create your free church page, paste the giving link in as the first tile, add service times and a connect card underneath, and put that one URL in every bio you own. Zaap support runs 24/7 if you get stuck on a Saturday night.
