Add a donation form to your Shopify store, no app to install

Shopify's native checkout is locked on Basic, Shopify, and Advanced plans, and the Additional Scripts field plus checkout.liquid are being retired for non-Plus stores, with checkout customization moving to Plus-only extensibility. That means you cannot reliably bolt a gift onto the cart, checkout, or thank-you page. A Givebear donation is deliberately a separate flow, not a Shopify product or variant, so it sits entirely outside that locked surface.

Modeling a gift as a $1 product is the other trap. It drags the donation through inventory counts, shipping rules, and tax-as-merchandise logic, inflates your order and conversion numbers, and can even trigger sales-tax collection on a charitable gift. Keeping giving in Givebear means automated receipts, fund routing, and a donor record that stays out of your product catalog and order ledger. Givebear charges 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, and you can let donors choose to cover the processing.

For a quick add, drop the Custom Liquid block onto an existing page so the form appears inline next to your story, photos, or appeal copy. This is ideal when the page already carries fundraising context and you just want the gift to complete on the same screen. The same two lines work whether the block sits on your homepage, an About page, or a seasonal landing page.

For a permanent destination, create the page under Online Store, then Pages, then in the theme editor assign it a custom template such as page.donate and add the Custom Liquid section to that template. Link it from your menu under Navigation so donors reach a clean /pages/donate URL. If your theme or store policy blocks custom scripts, skip the block entirely and point a menu button at a hosted Givebear giving page instead: both channels report to one ledger, so nothing is lost.

Shopify round-up apps add a spare-change prompt at checkout, but that now depends on checkout extensibility gated to Shopify Plus, and it only captures change from people who are already buying something. It does nothing for a supporter who arrives only to give, and it gives you no control over fund, recurrence, or receipt language.

A standalone Givebear form lets a donor pick a real amount, choose a restricted fund, set up a recurring monthly gift, and pay with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or a card through Stripe, none of which a round-up prompt offers. For in-person giving, pair the embed with a lobby donation kiosk so foyer and storefront gifts land in the same donor records and reporting as your online form.