Zeffy Review 2026: When Free Works, and When It Quietly Costs You
Zeffy is genuinely excellent at getting a small nonprofit online fast, for $0, with zero friction. The PTA volunteer who sets up a $700 raffle the same afternoon she thought of it — that person had a good experience. This review explains exactly where that story ends and a different one begins.
- Raffle Capability (30%) 5.0
- Ticket Economics (25%) 2.0
- Checkout Friction (20%) 1.5
- Real-World Operations (15%) 3.5
- Compliance & Control (10%) 2.5
Score reflects raffle-primary fundraising only. Zeffy's score for general nonprofit fundraising (donations, events, memberships) would be substantially higher. See our methodology.
The Use Cases Where Zeffy Earns Its Five Stars
Zeffy has over 80,000 active nonprofit organizations on its platform. Those organizations are not all wrong. Here is the honest accounting of where Zeffy genuinely delivers:
| Situation | Does Zeffy work? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| $500–$1,000 raffle, school or church community, engaged supporters | Yes — genuinely | Fast setup, $0 cost, mission-aligned donors who tip generously. Abandonment math at this scale is forgiving. |
| First-time raffle, volunteer-run, no technical expertise | Yes — genuinely | Setup in an afternoon. No learning curve. No upfront cost. Exactly right for this situation. |
| Donation forms, event ticketing, membership management | Yes — very strong | This is what Zeffy was built for. Excellent execution. Not the subject of this review. |
| Peer-to-peer campaigns, recurring giving | Yes — strong | Donation-focused use cases where the tip model matches donor psychology. |
| Small raffle, mission-aligned donor base, goal under $1,000 | Yes, with caveats | Works. But read the hidden cost section below before you declare victory. |
The pattern: small scale, mission-aligned donors, donation-adjacent mindset. Those three conditions together describe the audience where Zeffy's tip model works as intended. Remove any one of them and the math starts to shift.
The Math That Turns Uncomfortable Above $3,000
The $650 example is forgiving. The abandonment math at small scale is painful but survivable. Here is what happens when the same percentage rates apply to larger goals:
| Gross potential | Zeffy net (30–40% abandon) | C2W Zero Fee net (~1–2%) | Zeffy hidden cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | $600–700 | ~$980–990 | $280–390 |
| $3,000 | $1,800–2,100 | ~$2,940–2,970 | $840–1,170 |
| $5,000 | $3,000–3,500 | ~$4,900–4,950 | $1,400–1,950 |
| $10,000 | $6,000–7,000 | ~$9,800–9,900 | $2,800–3,900 |
| $25,000 | $15,000–17,500 | ~$24,750 | $7,250–9,750 |
Source: Chance2Win campaign analytics, 30,000+ campaigns. Abandonment rates incremental above 7.5% ecommerce baseline.
See our guide to the best platforms for large fundraisers and the full platform pricing comparison for the complete picture.
The Warning Nobody Gives You: Prize Restrictions
This is the failure mode that arrives with no warning and ends with no help. Zeffy processes all payments through Stripe. Stripe's terms restrict certain prize categories — even in states where those prizes are entirely lawful for nonprofits to raffle:
- Wine, beer, and spirits of any kind
- Tobacco and cannabis products
- Firearms, ammunition, and related accessories
- Certain other regulated goods — the list is Stripe's, not Zeffy's, and Stripe can expand it
Here is what happens when your prize falls into a restricted category after you've been selling tickets:
| You launch | Zeffy approves your campaign. Stripe has not yet flagged it. |
| Sales begin | Tickets are selling. You're excited. Everything looks fine. |
| Stripe flags it | At some point — could be day 1, could be day 14 — Stripe's automated systems flag the campaign for a restricted prize category. |
| Campaign frozen | Your campaign is frozen or closed. No advance notice. No appeal window before it happens. |
| You call for help | Zeffy has no US phone support. You submit a support ticket. |
| Ticket buyers | People who bought tickets have their purchases in limbo. |
| Resolution | Days to weeks. Best case: reinstated with significant delay. Common case: refund all tickets and restart on a different platform. |
This is not exclusively a Zeffy problem — it is a Stripe problem that affects every Stripe-locked platform. What makes it a Zeffy-specific risk is the absence of anyone to call when it happens. Chance2Win supports Stripe, Square, and Authorize.net. If Stripe restricts your prize, you run it on Square. On Zeffy, there is no alternative path.
How Zeffy Talks About Its Own Model
Zeffy's support documentation is thorough on many things. They explain how the tip is calculated. They explain why it can't be customized — their own words: "as the voluntary contribution is our sole source of revenue…it is not possible to customize the default drop-down suggestions." They invest visibly in justifying their model.
What the documentation does not contain is an answer to the one question that determines whether their model works for your raffle: does the tip prompt cause checkout abandonment to increase?
Their blog claims approximately 66.7% of donors leave a tip — meaning one in three does not. What that statistic doesn't reveal is how many donors start the checkout and abandon before completing it. Those people are not donors. They are lost buyers. They do not appear in Zeffy's tip acceptance statistics.
Zeffy does not publish: checkout completion rate for raffle ticket buyers vs. donation supporters.
The difference between those two numbers is where your fundraising revenue disappears. A platform that truly believed its model had no effect on checkout completion would publish both numbers. The absence of the second number is the only answer available.
Raffle Format Support: Honest Assessment
The format gaps are not Zeffy's fault — they built a donation platform and added raffle capability. These formats require raffle-specific infrastructure that was not the foundation of their product. See our full platform capability checker.
When to Use Zeffy. When Not To.
| Your situation | Use Zeffy? | The honest reason |
|---|---|---|
| First raffle, under $1K goal, school or church community | Yes | Zeffy's sweet spot. Fast setup, $0 cost, forgiving abandonment math. |
| Simple online raffle, mission-aligned donors, under $1,500 | Probably yes | Works well. Abandonment math is close enough that Zeffy's simplicity wins. |
| Raffle goal $1,500–$3,000, mixed audience | Maybe | Run the math. Model the abandonment. The gap starts to cost real money here. |
| Raffle goal above $3,000 | No | Abandonment losses reliably exceed any fee savings. Switch platforms. |
| Prize includes wine, spirits, bourbon, or firearms | Hard no | Stripe will close your campaign. No support to help you. Do not start. |
| Basket raffle, Queen of Hearts, duck race, hybrid event | Hard no | Zeffy cannot run these formats. Do not attempt. |
| Live event with cash ticket buyers | No | Cash buyers can't join the drawing pool. |
| You need phone support available during the event | No | No US phone support. Chat/email only. |
| Donations, peer-to-peer, event ticketing, memberships | Yes — genuinely | Outside raffle context, Zeffy is an excellent free platform. Highly functional. |
When Nobody Runs the Numbers
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Zeffy is a legitimate, SOC 2 certified platform used by over 80,000 nonprofit organizations. The tip model is disclosed. The platform is secure. This review does not dispute Zeffy's legitimacy — it disputes whether Zeffy is the right tool for raffle fundraising above a certain scale.
No. Zeffy's own support documentation states explicitly: "as the voluntary contribution is our sole source of revenue…it is not possible to customize the default drop-down suggestions." There is no paid tier that removes it. There is no setting that disables it. This is not a limitation that will change.
Zeffy suggests 17% for transactions under approximately $100, and 15% for larger transactions. These are the default pre-selected amounts. Donors can navigate a dropdown to reduce or remove the tip — but must actively choose to do so.
Zeffy does not publish raffle-specific checkout completion rates. Their published statistic is tip acceptance rate among donors who complete checkout — approximately 66.7%. It does not measure how many start checkout and do not complete it. Based on Chance2Win's campaign analytics across 30,000+ raffle campaigns, tip-based platforms cause 30–40% incremental abandonment in raffle contexts. Zeffy has not publicly challenged or responded to this data.
No. Zeffy supports standard online raffles. It does not support multi-pool ticket allocation — the defining mechanic of a basket raffle. Running a basket raffle on Zeffy would require a separate campaign per basket, eliminating the allocation mechanic entirely. See our basket raffle platform guide.
Stripe will flag your campaign for a restricted prize category and freeze or close it. The timing is unpredictable — day one or day fourteen. There is no pre-screening, no US phone support to call, and no alternative processor. If you've already sold tickets, you will need to issue refunds and restart on a platform that supports multiple payment processors.
Running a raffle above $1,500? The math matters.
Chance2Win is built raffle-first — basket raffles, Queen of Hearts, hybrid pools, and ~1–2% abandonment vs. Zeffy's 30–40%. See exactly how the numbers compare.
Questions during your event? Call (813) 699-9325 — real people, real raffle expertise.