How to accept donations on GoDaddy Website Builder

GoDaddy's site builder has no donation form as such, but it has three ways to take gifts: a PayPal button, a pay button through GoDaddy Payments, and a GoFundMe section.

Short answerAdd a PayPal Button section (up to 15 per site) or a pay button connected to a GoDaddy Payments pay link, which can let donors choose their own amount. Both take one-time gifts. GoDaddy's help articles don't describe a way for donors to sign themselves up for a monthly gift. Donor Merchant is a WordPress plugin and can't be added to GoDaddy Website Builder, but it does work on GoDaddy's WordPress hosting.

Can I install Donor Merchant on GoDaddy?

It depends which GoDaddy product you have. GoDaddy Website Builder (called Websites + Marketing in GoDaddy's help center) is a hosted builder, and WordPress plugins don't run there. GoDaddy also sells WordPress hosting; if your site is WordPress on any host, including GoDaddy's, you install Donor Merchant like any other plugin and can stop reading here (see accepting donations on WordPress).

The rest of this guide is for sites built with GoDaddy Website Builder.

Option 1: a PayPal button

GoDaddy lets you add up to 15 PayPal buttons and use each one "to sell a single product, or to enable customers to donate to a cause you choose."

  1. Go to your GoDaddy product page, expand Websites + Marketing and select Manage next to your site, then Edit Website.
  2. Go to where you want the button, add a section, and search for PayPal Button, which is under the Commerce category. Select Add next to the layout you want.
  3. Select the new section to edit its text, photo and settings. If you don't have a PayPal account, select PayPal Settings and then Create PayPal Account.
  4. Preview, then publish.

As published by PayPal in October 2026, its US fee for receiving donations is 2.89% + $0.49 (verify on PayPal's fee page). A confirmed 501(c)(3) charity can get 1.99% + $0.49, subject to eligibility, application and pre-approval by PayPal. On a $100 gift that is $3.38 at the standard donation rate or $2.48 at the charity rate. GoDaddy's article doesn't mention recurring gifts for this button.

Option 2: a pay button with GoDaddy Payments

A pay button is an action button that collects a one-time payment. GoDaddy names donations as one of its uses. Select an action button in a section (or add a Get Paid section), choose Take payments, and connect it to an Online Pay Link. You need a GoDaddy Payments account.

When you create the pay link in your GoDaddy Payments dashboard, you can:

  • turn on Allow customer to set a price so donors type their own amount, or select Add Option to offer up to four more set amounts;
  • accept cards (including Apple Pay and Google Pay) and ACH bank transfer;
  • make a notes field required, which is a simple way to ask what the gift is for.

The donor's email is required, and both you and the donor get an email confirmation. GoDaddy Payments fees as published in October 2026:

PaymentStandard feeWith Websites + Marketing Premium or Commerce
Card through a pay button2.9% + 30¢2.8% + 30¢
ACH through a pay link1%0.8%, $10 maximum

On a $100 card gift that is $3.20, or $3.10 with the lower rate. Check GoDaddy's fee page before you decide.

For monthly supporters, GoDaddy Payments has recurring invoices: you create a series for each donor, choose daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, and the donor can save a card to be charged automatically. That works for a handful of pledges you set up yourself. It is not a way for a new donor to start a monthly gift from your website.

Option 3: a GoFundMe section

The Fundraising section links to a GoFundMe page: you create the fundraiser on GoFundMe, copy its link and paste it into the Fundraising Page Link field. The gifts and donor records then live at GoFundMe, under its terms, not on your site.

When are GoDaddy's options enough?

If you take occasional one-time gifts and keep your own list of donors, a pay button with a donor-chosen amount is a good, low-effort fit. Pay links are a free feature of GoDaddy Payments, donors enter their card right on the button's payment form, and you get an email for each gift. A small group that raises money mostly in person, with a few online gifts a month, may not need anything more.

When does a WordPress donation page make sense?

  • Monthly giving that donors start themselves. Donor Merchant takes recurring gifts from weekly to yearly through Stripe or PayPal (recurring donations).
  • Donor records. A history per donor, printable receipts, annual statements and CSV export. Donors open their receipts from a donor portal by emailed link, and Stripe donors can update their card or cancel there.
  • Campaigns with goal thermometers, plus fee recovery, tributes, designations and custom fields.
  • Offline gifts recorded beside online ones, and Gift Aid for UK charities.

How do I link GoDaddy Website Builder to a WordPress donation page?

  1. Set up the WordPress site. Use any host with WordPress 6.2 or later, PHP 7.4 or later and HTTPS. Install Donor Merchant from Plugins > Add New, connect Stripe or PayPal (getting started), and add the Donation Form block or [donor_merchant] to a page.
  2. Create the subdomain. Add one record named give (full walkthrough). If your domain uses GoDaddy nameservers, sign in to your Domain Portfolio, select the domain, select DNS, then Add New Record. Choose A, enter give as the Name and your host's IP address as the Value, and select Save. If your host gives you a host name instead of an IP address, add a CNAME record. GoDaddy says most DNS changes take effect within an hour and can take up to 48.
  3. Add Donate to the menu. In the builder, select Add in the right panel, then New External Link. Enter "Donate" as the Link Title (25 characters at most), paste the full address in Website URL, switch on Show in Navigation, and select Create Link. You can also point an action button at the page: select Link, then Website URL. GoDaddy opens those links in a new tab.
  4. Match the colors. Copy your site's accent color hex code into Donor Merchant > Settings > Forms > Form style as a custom color, and choose the closest button shape. Use your logo on the WordPress site as well.
  5. Set up webhooks and test. Recurring renewals depend on webhooks. Make a test gift in Stripe's test mode before launch.

Can I embed the WordPress form instead?

GoDaddy's HTML section takes custom code in a Custom Code field, with a Forced Height setting, and GoDaddy warns that embedded code can affect the whole site. We recommend a link over an embedded donation form. In a frame, Apple Pay needs the frame to be allowed to request payment and the domain to be registered, PayPal opens popups, and Safari blocks third-party cookies inside frames by default. We don't promise an embed will work for every donor.

Checked against GoDaddy's help center and PayPal's fee page in October 2026. GoDaddy updates its builder often; if a label differs in yours, look for the equivalent option.

Sources

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