Synagogues collect money online for all sorts of reasons.
Membership commitments. Donations. Religious school tuition. Event registrations. Kiddush sponsorships. High Holiday tickets. Preschool tuition. Fundraisers. Gift shop purchases.
Behind each of those transactions is a payment gateway or payment processor — the technology that allows someone to securely pay your synagogue online.
There are plenty of options available.
So how do you choose the right one?
The answer isn’t necessarily to find the company with the lowest advertised credit card rate.
For a synagogue, the better question is:
Which payment solution works best with the way your congregation actually collects and manages money?
Here are some things to consider.
Start With the Systems You Already Use
Before comparing payment processors, look at your existing technology.
Does your synagogue use ShulCloud or another synagogue management system?
What accounting software do you use?
Do you already have a merchant account?
Does your synagogue accept in-person credit card payments?
Do you have recurring payments already established somewhere?
The best payment gateway may be the one that integrates most naturally with the systems you already rely on.
Saving a fraction of a percentage point on transaction fees isn’t necessarily much of a savings if it creates hours of additional administrative work every month.
Integration matters.
Think Beyond Credit Cards
Credit cards are important, but they aren’t the only way people can pay online.
For synagogues, ACH or electronic bank payments can be particularly valuable, especially for larger transactions.
Think about the difference between someone making a $36 donation and a family paying several thousand dollars in tuition or membership commitments.
Percentage-based credit card processing fees become much more noticeable as the transaction gets larger.
Allowing someone to pay directly from a bank account may provide another convenient option while potentially reducing processing costs.
That doesn’t mean you should discourage credit cards. People appreciate choice, and credit cards may be the easiest option for many donors and members.
But when evaluating a payment solution, ask whether it supports the payment methods your congregation actually needs.
Consider Recurring Payments
Recurring payments are especially useful for synagogues.
A member may want to spread an annual commitment across twelve monthly payments.
A donor may want to make a recurring monthly contribution.
A preschool family may pay tuition in installments.
Your payment system should make those arrangements easy for both the person paying and the synagogue staff responsible for managing them.
Look at how recurring payments are established, how easily they can be changed and what happens when a card expires or a payment fails.
A recurring payment feature isn’t particularly helpful if managing it creates more work than it saves.
Think About the Donor and Member Experience
The payment experience is part of your website experience.
Someone who decides to make a donation shouldn’t suddenly feel as though they’ve been transported to an unfamiliar or untrustworthy website.
Whenever possible, the transition from your synagogue website to the payment process should feel clear and intentional.
Forms should work well on a phone.
Payment options should be easy to understand.
The person paying should receive an appropriate confirmation.
And don’t ask for information you don’t actually need.
The easier the process is, the less likely someone is to abandon it halfway through.
Don’t Evaluate Fees in Isolation
Of course processing fees matter.
A synagogue may process a significant amount of money online over the course of a year, and small differences can add up.
But make sure you’re comparing the entire cost.
Depending on the provider and setup, that may include:
- Percentage-based transaction fees
- Per-transaction fees
- Monthly gateway or account fees
- ACH fees
- Chargeback fees
- Fees for recurring billing or other features
- Costs associated with integrating the gateway into your website or other systems
Nonprofit pricing may also be available from some providers.
And rates change.
Rather than publishing a chart that will inevitably become outdated, I’d recommend getting current pricing directly from the providers you’re considering and calculating the cost based on your synagogue’s actual transaction mix.
A congregation processing many small donations may reach a different conclusion from one processing large tuition and membership payments.
Think About What Happens in the Synagogue Office
The person making the payment isn’t the only user of the system.
Your staff has to deal with the transaction afterward.
How easy is it to identify what a payment was for?
Can transactions be exported?
Can staff issue refunds?
Can they look up a payment when a congregant calls with a question?
Can deposits be reconciled with your accounting or synagogue-management system?
Can different types of revenue be categorized appropriately?
These back-office questions may not be glamorous, but they can have an enormous impact on whether a payment system works well for your synagogue.
A beautiful donation form isn’t much help if every transaction creates an accounting puzzle afterward.
Consider Online and In-Person Payments Together
Your synagogue may collect money in more places than the website.
Perhaps staff members accept credit cards in the office.
Maybe you take payments at a fundraiser.
Your gift shop may have a point-of-sale system.
Someone may pay for an event at the door.
If the same payment provider can handle both online and in-person transactions, there may be advantages to keeping everything within one ecosystem.
On the other hand, there’s nothing inherently wrong with using different systems when they serve different purposes.
The goal isn’t technological purity.
It’s making the process work efficiently for your congregation.
Security Isn’t a DIY Project
Your synagogue website should never be storing raw credit card information itself.
That’s one of the reasons established payment gateways and processors are so important.
They provide secure infrastructure for handling sensitive payment information and help organizations meet the requirements associated with accepting electronic payments.
Your website should integrate with those systems rather than trying to become a payment processor itself.
This is also an area where reputable, actively maintained integrations matter.
A payment plugin isn’t something I’d choose simply because it’s free or happens to have the feature you need.
What About PayPal, Stripe, Square and Authorize.net?
These are among the names you’re likely to encounter when researching online payments, and each approaches payments somewhat differently.
PayPal is familiar to many users and offers tools specifically for charitable organizations.
Stripe is widely used for website and application integrations and can support a variety of online payment experiences.
Square may be particularly interesting to organizations that want online payments and in-person point-of-sale capabilities within the same broader ecosystem.
Authorize.net is a long-established payment gateway that supports credit cards, electronic checks and recurring payments.
But I wouldn’t choose among them based on a generic list of pros and cons.
The right choice depends on the systems your synagogue already uses, the kinds of payments you collect, your transaction volume, the importance of ACH, your accounting workflow and the particular website functionality you need.
And if you’re using a synagogue-management platform such as ShulCloud, the options supported by that system may be more relevant than the options your WordPress website could theoretically support.
Don’t Create Another System Unless You Need One
This is particularly important for synagogues.
Suppose your congregation already processes membership payments, donations and event registrations through ShulCloud.
There may be little benefit in introducing an entirely separate payment system on the WordPress website simply because WordPress can do it.
Instead, the public-facing website can direct visitors seamlessly into the appropriate ShulCloud form or transaction.
To the visitor, it’s one experience.
Behind the scenes, each system is doing the job it’s best suited to do.
On the other hand, there may be situations — such as an online gift shop — where processing payments directly through the WordPress website makes more sense.
The technology should follow the need.
Choose for Your Synagogue, Not for Someone Else’s
There’s no single payment gateway that’s right for every synagogue.
A small congregation accepting occasional online donations has very different needs from a large synagogue processing membership commitments, preschool tuition, religious school fees, event registrations and hundreds of recurring payments.
Start with your workflow.
What kinds of payments do you accept?
How large are they?
Do you need ACH?
Do you need recurring billing?
What systems need to communicate with one another?
Who reconciles the transactions?
What experience do you want members and donors to have?
Then compare the available payment solutions against those needs.
The payment gateway is an important piece of technology.
But ideally, it’s a piece your members hardly have to think about.
They should simply be able to choose what they’re paying for, enter the necessary information and complete the transaction.
And your synagogue should be able to manage what happens next just as easily.