Givelify Review

Givelify is a mobile and online giving app for US churches and nonprofits, run by Givelify LLC from Indianapolis. Donors give by card through a free app or a web giving page. The organization pays nothing to sign up, no monthly fee and no contract. As of October 2026 Givelify takes 2.9% + $0.30 from each Visa, Mastercard and Discover gift and 3.5% + $0.30 from each American Express gift. The rest is deposited the next business day for gifts made before 9 p.m. Eastern. Givelify's terms describe it as a payment facilitator: each organization is a sub-merchant on Givelify's account with Worldpay, and only organizations expected to take more than $1 million a year in card gifts sign Worldpay's sub-merchant agreement directly. The price is simple but card-only. Givelify publishes no bank-transfer (ACH) giving option, so every gift pays the card rate, and a fee-cover option exists in the terms but is off by default. Ratings are strong: 4.9 stars from about 101,800 ratings on the App Store and about 44,100 on Google Play, and an A+ from the BBB with no complaints in three years. In 2016 Pennsylvania's banking regulator fined Givelify $176,000 for unlicensed money transmission. A state appeals court reversed that order in 2019.

Estimated annual cost at three realistic processing volumes, using Givelify’s published online rate plus monthly fees. Real costs vary with average transaction size, chargeback rate, and any negotiated terms.

What Givelify is

Givelify is a giving app for US churches, ministries and nonprofits. Donors download a free app or use a web giving page, save a card and give in a few taps to any organization registered on Givelify. The organization gets a free dashboard, called Analytics Studio, and next-business-day deposits, and pays only a per-gift fee. The company behind it is Givelify LLC, an Indiana limited liability company at 47 South Pennsylvania Street, Indianapolis. Its founder and chief executive is Wale (Olawale, also written Walle) Mafolasire.

Givelify started as a product of Control-Z, an Indianapolis IT consultancy that business directories list as Mafolasire's. An archived copy of givelify.com from September 2012 shows a 'Launching soon!' page marked 'A product of Control-Z IT', and the iOS app is still published under the seller name CONTROL-Z LLC. The BBB lists the business as started on 21 August 2012. The App Store lists the app's first release as October 2013, and Givelify says it launched in December 2013. A 2025 news report gives 2014. Because these dates describe different milestones, we do not state a single founding year. A 2019 court opinion described Mafolasire as the owner and a co-founder of Givelify, with Tayo Ademuyiwa then serving as chief executive. We found no disclosed venture-capital or private-equity owner.

On its Our Story page, as of October 2026, Givelify says more than 2 million people have given more than $7.5 billion to more than 80,000 organizations through the platform. In October 2025 the company told Dallas Innovates the total was over $6 billion from nearly two million donors to 75,000 organizations. Its homepage says organizations raised over $1 billion through Givelify in 2023. These are the company's own figures and we have not seen them independently audited.

Why we list Givelify as a payment facilitator

Givelify's Terms of Use (last updated 18 November 2025) say it uses WorldPay from FIS for processing, and that its relationship with each organization is governed by the card networks' rules 'where Givelify is a payment facilitator, and the Donee is a merchant'. An organization does not apply for its own merchant account. Givelify's help centre says the merchant account is included. Organizations expected to process more than $1 million in card gifts in a 12-month period must also sign Worldpay's sub-merchant agreement directly. Givelify sets the price, verifies each organization and controls the deposit. That is the facilitator model. Givelify is not a merchant of record, because the gift is made to the church or charity, which appoints Givelify as its agent to receive payments and issue donation receipts. The terms also state that Givelify is not a bank or a money transmitter.

What it costs

• Visa, Mastercard and Discover gifts: 2.9% + $0.30 each, as of October 2026.
• American Express gifts: 3.5% + $0.30 each.
• No sign-up fee, monthly fee, refund fee, contract or cancellation fee, and no separate merchant account fee, according to the pricing page and help centre.
• The fee is deducted from each gift before deposit, and the dashboard shows the fee and net amount for every donation.
• Card payments only. We found no published ACH or bank-transfer giving option.
• No published chargeback fee. The terms let Givelify debit the organization for chargebacks and refunds but do not name an amount.

As an illustration, take a church receiving $20,000 a month in 200 card gifts averaging $100, none on American Express. Fees would be $580 plus $60, or $640 a month, about 3.2% of giving. Because there is no bank-transfer option, a $1,000 gift costs the same 2.9% plus 30 cents ($29.30) as any other card gift. The fixed 30 cents weighs most on small gifts. A $10 gift costs $0.59, or 5.9%, and a $5 gift costs $0.445, nearly 9%. The terms allow an opt-in 'Voluntary Platform Cost Donation', so donors can choose to add to their gift to offset the fee. It cannot be pre-selected, cannot be used on recurring gifts and must be offered to every donor. Givelify's own blog argues that such prompts can cost gifts and points organizations to their Giving Success Coach to test it, so do not count on it to cut your costs.

How giving works

Donors download the app for iOS or Android, or give from a browser. They find the organization by name, city or faith leader, or on a map of nearby organizations, choose an amount (the minimum is $0.50) and a fund or envelope, and confirm. Cards are saved in an in-app wallet for later gifts, and gifts can be set to recur. Givelify sends each donor a year-end Annual Giving Summary and acts as the organization's agent in issuing donation acknowledgments. In return, the terms require the organization to tell Givelify within 30 days whether it gave any goods or services in exchange for a gift. For organizations, Analytics Studio covers donation records and reports, deposit reconciliation, donor messaging, multi-campus accounts and Givelithon, a live on-screen fundraising total for events. Givelify lists exports to QuickBooks and to six church management systems: Shelby Next, Shelby Arena, PowerChurch, Servant Keeper, ACS Realm and ACS People. If your church runs a different system, plan on importing giving data yourself. We found no church management software, kiosk or text-to-give product on Givelify's site, and its help centre presents the app as an alternative to text giving.

Deposits and onboarding

Givelify's help centre says gifts made before 9 p.m. Eastern on a weekday are deposited the next business day. Gifts made after 9 p.m. arrive within two business days, and weekend and holiday gifts arrive the next business day. To set up deposits, an organization enters its Employer Identification Number and the routing and account number of a checking account in its own name. Givelify reviews the bank details by the next business day and emails a status within one to three days. If the bank account cannot be verified automatically, Givelify asks for a voided check or a bank letter showing the organization's legal name and address. Personal accounts and deposit slips are rejected. Until verification is complete, gifts are paid out manually by ACH within three to five business days. Once verified, automatic deposits show on the bank statement as '5/3 – BANKCARD SYS DEPOSIT'.

Contract and terms

There is no contract. The help centre says there is no sign-up fee, monthly fee or cancellation fee. The Terms of Use give Givelify broad discretion. It can end an organization's use of the platform 'for any reason', change its fees or add new ones on 'commercially reasonable notice', refund a donor at its own discretion within 30 days of a gift, and debit the organization's card or accounts for refunds and chargebacks. Givelify can also hold or redirect payments if a court order or lien is served against the organization. The organization must be a US-based charitable organization described in Section 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code, and may not process gifts for anyone else. The terms are governed by Indiana law, with disputes in Indiana's state or federal courts rather than arbitration, and the terms exclude Givelify's liability for damages, with a fallback cap of the amounts paid to Givelify in the previous three months. Givelify can change the terms by posting them, effective immediately.

The Pennsylvania money-transmitter case

In September 2016 the compliance office of the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities ordered Givelify to cease and desist and pay a $176,000 fine. The Department said Givelify had operated as an unlicensed money transmitter, and calculated the fine at $2,000 for each of 88 Sundays of operation. A hearing officer upheld the order in 2017, and the Department's commission adopted that decision on 14 February 2018. On 30 May 2019 the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania reversed it (No. 329 C.D. 2018). The majority found that Givelify passed donor and recipient data to its processor, Vantiv, but did not itself transmit money. Donated funds were never deposited into an account Givelify owned or controlled, and the funds moved through a Vantiv account at Fifth Third Bank. One judge dissented. The order also named Givelify's then chief executive and Mafolasire, and the court applied the version of the Money Transmitter Act in force before 2017. It said it expressed no view on whether Givelify's activities would breach the current version of the Act. We found no record of a further appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, though we could not search that court's docket directly. For an organization, the case mainly explains the structure: gifts settle from the processor's bank to the organization, not through Givelify's own accounts.

Reputation

As of October 2026, the Givelify app has 4.9 stars from 101,832 ratings on the App Store (version 6.44.0.1, released 10 October 2026) and 4.9 stars from about 44,100 reviews on Google Play, where it shows more than 500,000 downloads. Those ratings come mostly from donors rather than the administrators who manage accounts. The BBB rates Givelify LLC A+. It is not BBB-accredited, has had no complaints in the past three years and has one customer review. Givelify's Trustpilot profile is unclaimed and has no reviews. Apart from the Pennsylvania case above, which Givelify won on appeal, our searches found no lawsuit or regulatory action naming Givelify.

Who should use Givelify

Givelify suits a US church or nonprofit whose members give mostly by card on their phones and who want next-business-day deposits, a free dashboard and no contract. It is especially well suited where donors already use the app for other organizations. It is a weaker fit for an organization that receives large regular gifts, because with no bank-transfer option every dollar pays the card rate. It also suits less well an organization that wants church management, kiosks or text giving from the same vendor, or that runs a church management system Givelify does not export to. Before signing up, ask Givelify in writing whether a chargeback fee applies and whether the Voluntary Platform Cost Donation can be switched on for your account.