How fees and pricing work
A flat fee per campaign, no percentage of what you raise, and how Square's small card fee fits in.
PagePledge charges a flat fee per campaign — never a percentage of what you raise. Square charges its usual card-processing fee on each donation. That's it. No subscription, no setup costs, no per-student charge. Here's how the numbers work.
What PagePledge charges
Pilot schools pay nothing. We'll let you know well ahead of time before that changes — and the flat fee for your next campaign will always be a clear dollar amount we agreed on together, never a surprise.
Why flat, not a percentage?
A percentage punishes schools that fundraise well. A school that raises $20,000 shouldn't have to pay four times more than a school that raises $5,000 — they're using the same tool. The more you raise, the more your school keeps.
What Square charges
Square takes a small fee on every donation — about 2.8% + $0.30 CAD for online card donations. That goes to Square, not us, and it comes out before the money lands in your bank. The current rate is at squareup.com/ca/en/pricing if you want to double-check.
Donors usually cover the fee
At checkout, donors see a checkbox to cover that processing fee themselves — it's checked by default. When checked, the donor pays an extra dollar or two and your school gets the full pledged amount. When unchecked, your school still gets the donation, just with the fee taken off.
Most donors leave it checked — about 80% in the schools we've watched. An extra dollar to know 100% of their gift reaches the students is an easy yes.
Tips
At checkout, donors can also leave a small tip for PagePledge — $1, $3, $5, or custom. While the pilot is free, those tips just go to your school's Square account; we don't touch them. Once we start charging schools, tips will go to us instead. Either way, tipping is completely optional.
Canadian dollars only
We're Canadian and our schools are Canadian, so for now donations are in CAD only. We'll add other currencies if and when we head past the border.