givetap.co.uk

What It Is

GiveTap is an all-in-one fundraising platform for charities. Its core positioning is not as a general-purpose payment gateway, but as a unified back office that brings together online donation pages, offline cashless collections, event ticketing, community fundraising, silent auctions, and Gift Aid management. The site states that it has processed more than £10 million in donations and serves 1,000+ charities, with its main use cases clearly focused on the UK charity sector.

Core Capabilities

Payment coverage is fairly comprehensive: it supports credit/debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, QR/NFC, contactless and Chip & PIN via card readers, as well as Tap to Pay on iOS/Android. For offline fundraising, QR stickers, posters, collection boxes, and card readers at events can all be turned into trackable donation points. The platform also provides event registration, ticket sales, QR-code ticket scanning, individual/team fundraising, silent auctions, real-time reporting, brand customization, and a mobile app. A UK-specific capability is Gift Aid: the donation flow can collect declarations, and batches can be submitted directly to HMRC within GiveTap.

Pricing and Costs

Pricing is relatively transparent. Flexi has no monthly fee but charges a 2.5% platform fee; Plus costs £29.99/month or £299.99/year, plus a 2.5% platform fee, and unlocks donor-covered fees, automatic Gift Aid, email templates, and API access; Silent Auction costs £999.99/year plus 2.5%. Payment processing fees are charged separately: Stripe online payments are 1.5%+20p, Square online payments are 1.4%+25p, and in-person rates are also listed separately. The upside is that there are no setup or cancellation fees, but once the platform fee is added on top of payment processing fees, large-volume or high-frequency fundraisers should calculate the effective total rate carefully.

Compliance, Risk Control, and Integrations

Compliance information is mainly reflected in the HMRC Gift Aid workflow; payment licensing or regulatory registration details are not disclosed. On the security side, GiveTap lists 2FA, role-based permissions, suspicious login detection, and DDoS protection, which are suitable for organizations with multiple back-office users. However, it does not explain deeper payment risk controls such as transaction anti-fraud or chargeback handling. Integrations include Stripe, Square, card readers, Google Analytics, FB Pixel, and Strava, with API access available on Plus and above.

Pros, Cons, and Best Fit

Its strengths are deep coverage of charity-specific scenarios, a low barrier to getting started, integrated online/offline fundraising, and strong adaptation to UK Gift Aid. Its limitations are its clear regional focus, insufficient disclosure around settlement cycles and licensing information, and poor fit for general cross-border e-commerce or commercial acquiring. It is better suited to UK charities, community organizations, event fundraising teams, and nonprofits that need silent auctions or ticketing.

Access from China

The site does not provide information on access from mainland China, payment collection in China, or RMB support, so china_access can only be assessed as unknown. If a China-based team is serving overseas public-benefit projects, it may be worth comparing JustGiving and Enthuse, or using Stripe/Square directly to build a more general-purpose payment collection flow.