Most people think of GoFundMe as a source of funding for emergency needs, but you can also use it to raise funds for your business.
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Last updated onUpdated
REVIEWED BY
Expert Contributor
| Total Rating | 4.7 |
|---|---|
| Terms & Fees5.0 | |
| Project Qualifications5.0 | |
| Application Process4.6 | |
| Sales & Advertising Transparency4.6 | |
| Customer Service4.3 | |
| User Reviews2.3 | |
Table of Contents
GoFundMe is the world’s largest charitable crowdfunding site. Best known as a crowdfunding platform for medical emergencies and other personal causes, GoFundMe can also be used to raise funds for business purposes. This GoFundMe review will explain how this is done.
GoFundMe doesn’t charge a platform fee, setting it apart from sites like Kickstarter and Patreon. However, as with any fundraising site, transaction fees will still go to the payment processor.
GoFundMe provides a platform for users to solicit money from friends, family, social media followers, and anybody who might be moved to action by their campaign.
When you sign up with GoFundMe to set up a crowdfunding campaign, you can choose from a wide range of fundraising campaign types, one of which is business.
As long as you don’t violate GoFundMe’s campaign rules, you’re free to use GoFundMe to raise money. While the majority of GoFundMe campaigns have to do with need-based causes, businesses and entrepreneurs can use GoFundMe for crowdfunding as well.
Considering the nature of GoFundMe, it helps to have a compelling story to tell (overcoming hardship, extenuating circumstances, and the like) when conducting business crowdfunding.
| Project Qualifications5.0 |
|---|
| Availability 5.0 |
| Transparency 5.0 |
GoFundMe is deliberately permissive regarding the sorts of campaigns it supports. That said, it forbids campaigns that have anything to do with illegal activity, porn, hate speech, weapons, gambling, and the like. A full list of prohibited activity can be found in GoFundMe’s Terms Of Service.
Because it is available in all 50 states (as well as 19 other countries — see below) and has few restrictions, we gave GoFundMe a perfect 5-star rating for project qualifications.
| Terms & Fees5.0 |
|---|
| Affordability 5.0 |
| Campaign Terms 5.0 |
Here are the terms and fees for GoFundMe’s crowdfunding campaigns:
| Funding Duration | Unlimited |
| Platform Fee | 0% |
| Funding Terms | Keep What You Raise |
| Payment Processing Fee | 2.9% + $0.30 per donation |
GoFundMe’s payment processing fee — 2.9% + $0.30 per donation — is a common online processing rate charged by numerous online payment processors.
As for crowdfunding terms, GoFundMe campaigns don’t prompt you to set a funding period. While you are prompted to set a funding goal, you’ll get to keep whatever you raise, no matter how much or how little that ends up being. You can keep your campaign active indefinitely and continue raising money even after you surpass your funding goal. There’s no limit to the amount of money you can raise, either.
GoFundMe pledges that, unlike other crowdfunding sites, it will not charge your donors anything besides the payment processing fee.
In place of a platform fee, GoFundMe offers a “tipping” option to all donation pages. These tips to GoFundMe are entirely voluntary — donors can choose “Other” in the tipping drop-down menu and enter $0 as the tip, and the donation will still go through.
Donors who opt to give recurring donations will pay a fee of 5% per donation.
So far, the GoFundMe campaigns we’ve been discussing have been individual campaigns, which include everything from personal causes to business fundraisers. However, GoFundMe also hosts nonprofit crowdfunding campaigns, which are fundamentally different.
GoFundMe lets you set up a fundraising campaign for your certified nonprofit. Unlike donations to individual campaigns, contributions to nonprofit campaigns are processed through the PayPal Giving Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. Donors will get a tax-deductible receipt when they donate, and the Campaign Organizer doesn’t even have to touch the money.
This raises an important point that donors can miss: A donation to an ordinary GoFundMe campaign is not tax-deductible, as GoFundMe itself is not a nonprofit entity.
| Application Process4.6 |
|---|
| Prescreening & Application 5.0 |
| Campaign Funding 3.8 |
Overall, GoFundMe has a quick and easy application process, and getting your funds is easy, too, earning it a rating of 4.6/5. Setting up a fundraising campaign with GoFundMe is simple and self-explanatory. You just enter the details of your campaign, your fundraising goal, and some basic personal information. Once you’ve done this, you can get your campaign live within minutes.
You no longer have to sign up using a Facebook account to have your campaign publicly featured on GoFundMe’s website.
Once you’ve launched your campaign and begun raising funds, you can initiate transfers to your bank account. You do not have to hit your goal to transfer funds. Note that GoFundMe only does direct deposit and does not issue paper checks. Once initiated, payments will typically hit your account within 2 to 5 business days.
One last thing to note is that payment services like CashApp, PayPal, and Venmo are generally not supported.
| Sales & Advertising Transparency4.6 |
|---|
| Sales Practices 4.4 |
| Web Presence 5.0 |
Though some users have complained about the fees taken by GoFundMe or about having their campaigns removed from the site for violating the terms and conditions, GoFundMe’s site does disclose its rules for campaigns.
These rules could be displayed in a more accessible way, though — particularly the conditions a campaign must meet to qualify for receiving funds. This only impacted our rating slightly, leading to our rating of 4.6/5.
| Customer Service4.3 |
|---|
| Personal Support 4.0 |
| Self-Service 5.0 |
Unfortunately, GoFundMe does not offer phone support. However, you can get in touch through email or by filling out a contact form. Since our last update, GoFundMe also has a chatbot, Ray, that can answer general questions. If your question can’t be answered, you can connect to a live representative.
| GoFundMe Customer Service | Availability |
|---|---|
| Phone Support | |
| Email Support | |
| Support Tickets | |
| Live Chat | |
| Dedicated Support Representative | |
| Knowledge Base or Help Center | |
| Videos & Tutorials | |
| Company Blog | |
| Social Media |
Beyond that, the site answers some basic questions about the service on its help pages. There is also a company blog, which offers helpful fundraising tips, a YouTube channel, podcasts, and profiles on Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, and Medium.
In terms of the quality of customer service, user reviews are mixed. While some users reported positive experiences, others were displeased with the lack of phone support or were disappointed in the solutions they were provided.
| User Reviews2.3 |
|---|
| User Feedback 2.0 |
| Review Site Aggregate 2.6 |
As the largest crowdfunding platform, it comes as no surprise that GoFundMe has thousands of online reviews. Unfortunately, while some reviewers were happy with their fundraising experiences, many others were dissatisfied. GoFundMe has ratings of 2.3 out of 5 (based on 22,000+ reviews) on Trustpilot, 4.3 out of 5 (based on 60 reviews) on GetApp, and 1.05 out of 5 (based on 525+ ratings) on the BBB website.
There are several negative reviews about GoFundMe on the web from both fundraisers and donors. The most common complaints include:
Feedback on GoFundMe from users includes positive experiences as well. Many campaigners have found GoFundMe to have been of great help to them personally.
The company also generally tries to address complaints against it in a timely fashion (on the BBB’s site, anyway). In fact, despite the volume of complaints lodged against it, GoFundMe currently sports an A+ rating with the BBB.
Here’s what users most like about GoFundMe:
Kickstarter and Patreon are the two most prominent alternatives to GoFundMe for business funding. How do these two platforms differ?
While other crowdfunding platforms may offer a higher level of support than GoFundMe and a pool of backers more inclined to fund business projects, GoFundMe can be ideal for business crowdfunding if you can connect your business to a social cause or if you’ve overcome significant hardship (and are willing to talk about it).
GoFundMe’s lack of a platform fee is commendable, setting it apart from other crowdfunding sites. However, the issues some campaigners have with withdrawing their funds should also be taken into account. While most campaigners get their funds in a timely fashion, you may end up having to go back and forth with the company should a hiccup arise.
Despite these issues, GoFundMe simplifies fundraising and has become the largest crowdfunding platform for a reason. We recommend considering GoFundMe for your fundraising needs, giving it an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars.
Crowdfunding is a good way to raise business capital when you don’t want to repay a loan. However, crowdfunding takes time and energy to conduct successfully. If you’re considering other ways to fund your business, today’s best business lenders offer loan products that are more accessible than those provided by the big banks.
We spend hours researching and evaluating each crowdfunding platform that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing emphasis on key characteristics to generate our product ratings.
When rating crowdfunding platforms, we use a rubric that looks at terms and fees, project qualifications, application process, sales and advertising transparency, customer service, and user reviews. We weigh each section differently to calculate the total star rating.
Each section is further broken down into granular, weighted subsections, in which we look at specific attributes, such as campaign durations, supported project types, time to funding, application processing times, and platform fees. Learn more about how we rate crowdfunding platforms.
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Merchant Maverick’s ratings are editorial in nature, and are not aggregated from user reviews. Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships.
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