Givebear vs Donatefy. Kiosks, fees and funds, side by side.

Donatefy fits mosques that want a mosque-focused kiosk vendor with published fixed costs: its $1,199 kiosk and $49/mo subscription (per donatefy.org, verified June 2026) are clearer than the phone-only pricing some mosque vendors still use.

Givebear fits boards that want every cost on the table before signing: the kiosk is a one-time hardware purchase with no monthly software subscription, the donation fee model is published in full, and the kiosk, online giving page, Ramadan campaigns, and receipts all write to the same donor records.

Compared with Donatefy, Givebear's kiosk for the masjid entrance is a 21.5-inch touchscreen with a built-in Stripe card reader, sold once at $999 to $1,099 (wall mount or battery floor stand) with no per-kiosk software subscription.

Score both platforms on kiosk hardware cost and ownership, monthly software fees over five years, per-gift transaction fee transparency, ramadan campaign tools beyond the device, and donor records and receipts across kiosk and online giving. Use last Ramadan as the test case: set up the same funds and receipt wording in a free Givebear account and check whether it produces the report your board asked for from Donatefy.

Request a full export of donation history and donor contacts from Donatefy, get the per-gift rate you have actually been paying confirmed in writing so the cost comparison is line by line, time the subscription cancellation for after the final gifts settle, and repoint kiosk signage and QR codes at the new giving page.

Givebear imports contacts and past gifts from a CSV, so the Donatefy export is the first step. Create your funds in Givebear before importing the Donatefy file, since fund names in it do not create funds on their own. Saved cards move only if Donatefy and Stripe support a transfer; otherwise recurring donors restart their gift on your new page, so announce the change a few weeks ahead.

Before cutover, list every place a donor can reach Donatefy: website buttons, email footers, printed QR codes, and event pages. Repoint the ones you control; a printed code that sends donors to Donatefy keeps working only as long as Donatefy keeps that page up.

Donatefy states its two fixed costs plainly: $1,199 per kiosk as a one-time hardware purchase and a $49/mo software subscription, per donatefy.org, verified June 2026. That is more transparent than the legacy mosque vendors that still quote prices only by phone, and it deserves credit. The site stops short of the number that compounds, though: per-gift transaction fees are unstated on the public site, so a treasurer can budget the hardware and the subscription but not the cost of the donations themselves.

That missing rate is the largest line over time. A lobby kiosk collecting $4,000 a month routes $48,000 a year through whatever rate actually applies, so every undisclosed percentage point costs $480 a year, and the spread between a 3% and a 5% all-in rate is $960 a year: more than the subscription itself. Givebear publishes the whole model up front: kiosk hardware is $999 to $1,099 one-time with no per-device subscription, and the donation side is a flat platform fee from 1.9% to 5.9% depending on plan (one rate online, at kiosks, and on memberships), plus Stripe card processing at cost, with no setup fee and no monthly minimum.

Run Donatefy's published figures forward. Year one is $1,199 for the kiosk plus $588 in subscription fees: $1,787 per device. By year five the subscription alone totals $2,940, bringing the fixed cost to $4,139 per device before whatever per-gift rate applies (computed from the $1,199 kiosk and $49/mo subscription on donatefy.org, verified June 2026). The subscription quietly becomes the bigger purchase: its running total passes the hardware price in the 25th month.

Givebear prices the same job as a single purchase: the kiosk runs $999 to $1,099 one-time, there is no per-device subscription, and the five-year fixed cost of the kiosk is the purchase price. The device runs Stripe Terminal and donations settle directly into the mosque's own Stripe account, so the ongoing cost is the published donation model: a flat platform fee from 1.9% to 5.9% depending on plan (one rate online, at kiosks, and on memberships), plus Stripe card processing at cost, with no setup fee and no monthly minimum. A board comparing the two should set both five-year totals next to a per-gift rate each vendor has confirmed in writing.

Donatefy states its hardware and subscription prices but not its transaction fees (verified June 2026). That gap matters most in the month a mosque collects the most.

Ramadan is also exactly when the unstated rate matters most. Many mosques collect a large share of their annual giving during the month, concentrated in the last ten nights, which means the kiosk processes its highest volume at the precise moment an unknown per-gift rate is most expensive. Before purchasing, ask Donatefy in writing for the complete per-transaction cost (card processing plus any platform percentage) and compare it line by line against vendors that publish theirs.