Why your church should own its own Stripe account (and why we charge 0% on donations)

Online giving is one of those areas where the architecture really matters. Where the money sits, who holds it, who decides when you get paid, those are not technical details, they are the difference between a tool you use and a middleman you depend on. ChurchLinker is firmly in the first camp.

Every church that takes donations through ChurchLinker connects its own Stripe account. We don't have a pooled balance, we don't custody funds, and we don't take a cut of any gift. Here's why we built it that way and what it means for your church in practice.

Your church is the merchant

When a member taps Give in the app or on the member portal, the Checkout Session is created on your church's Stripe account. The card is charged to your account. The money lands in your Stripe balance. Stripe pays out to your bank on its normal payout schedule. ChurchLinker creates the session on your behalf, that's the only role we play in the money flow.

Practically, that means three things. First, you can log in to dashboard.stripe.com any time with your own credentials and see every transaction, refund and payout. Second, if a donor disputes a charge or needs a refund, you handle it from your own Stripe dashboard, not by emailing us. Third, if you ever leave ChurchLinker, the Stripe account, payment history, and recurring donors all stay with you. We're a tool, not a middleman.

About Stripe's processing fee

Stripe is not free, and we wouldn't pretend otherwise. They charge a small processing fee per successful UK card charge, typically around 1.5% + 25p at the time of writing, and that goes to Stripe, not to us. The live current rate is published at stripe.com/gb/pricing.

On a £20 gift that works out to roughly 50p in fees. On a £100 gift, around £1.75. For some churches that sounds expensive next to cash. For most churches, when you do the full maths, it's the opposite.

The maths usually beats cash

Three things tilt the balance in Stripe's favour for the average UK church.

*Gift Aid uplift.* If a UK taxpayer ticks the Gift Aid box, HMRC adds 25p for every £1 donated. A £20 Gift Aided gift becomes £25 in the church's accounts before Stripe's fee, or £24.50 after. That same £20 in the offering plate, with no declaration on file, is just £20. The Gift Aid uplift more than covers Stripe's fee on every Gift Aided card donation.

*Recurring giving stays put.* Members who set up a standing order through their own bank often forget about it, miss it when they switch accounts, or quietly stop after a tough month. Recurring Stripe donations renew automatically inside the same Stripe account, members can manage them from their portal, and you have visibility into who's giving and when. Churches consistently see recurring revenue go up after switching from standing orders to in-app recurring giving.

*Time savings on counting and claiming.* Cash needs counting, banking and a Gift Aid spreadsheet. ChurchLinker generates HMRC-ready Gift Aid and GASDS schedules from your Stripe data in seconds. The hours your treasurer doesn't spend on admin are real money even before the Gift Aid uplift.

What ChurchLinker takes: nothing

We take no application fee, no transaction fee, no platform cut. 0%. The donation amount the member entered is the donation amount that arrives in your Stripe balance, minus only the standard Stripe processing fee that goes directly to Stripe.

We're not a giving platform that bolts a CRM on the side and skims donations to pay for it. We're a church management system. We charge a flat monthly subscription based on the size of your congregation (and a generous free tier for small churches), and that's it. The economics work because we charge fairly for the software, not because we tax your giving.

How to set it up

From your dashboard, go to Settings → Giving & Stripe and click Connect Stripe. You'll be redirected to Stripe's secure onboarding flow, where you'll need three things: your church's legal name and address, your charity number (if applicable) and a UK bank account for payouts. Allow 5 to 10 minutes.

If you already have a Stripe account, you can sign in and authorise ChurchLinker. If you don't, Stripe will walk you through creating one from scratch. Either way, the account belongs to your church when you're done.

Once you return to ChurchLinker, you'll see the connection live with charges-enabled and payouts-enabled indicators. Stripe sometimes takes a few minutes to 24 hours to finish verifying your details for payouts. Once that clears, money starts hitting your bank on Stripe's normal payout schedule (typically 2 to 7 working days after the charge, depending on your account history).

One last thing: dignity, not friction

There's a quiet reason this matters that's worth saying out loud. Giving is a deeply personal act for people of faith, it's tied to stewardship, gratitude, and trust. The technology around it should be invisible and dignified, not awkward or extractive. A frictionless tap-to-give in your church's own app, with Gift Aid added in one tick and the money landing in the church's own bank, gets out of the way and lets the giving speak for itself. That's the standard we aim for.