How to Create a Donation Form in WordPress [4 Easy Steps!]

Want to collect donations on your WordPress site without sending supporters off to a third-party platform? With Formidable Forms, you can build a WordPress donation form that accepts PayPal, Stripe, and credit cards right on your own site, and have it live in an afternoon.

Approximate read time: 8 minutes

This guide walks you through the whole build, from connecting your payment processor to designing the form, setting up the payment action, and publishing it.

What a WordPress donation form needs

At its core, a donation form does three things: it collects an amount, it gathers the donor's details, and it processes the payment. Everything else builds on those three jobs.

But the extras are what turn a one-time gift into a lasting supporter. A receipt makes donors more likely to give again, recurring options raise more than one-time asks, and offering both PayPal and a credit card removes friction for the donors who don't want to log in to PayPal.

Formidable Forms handles all of it from one plugin, with a drag and drop builder and no code, which is part of why it holds a 4.8 out of 5 rating across more than 1,300 reviews.

Before you start, you'll need a WordPress site, a PayPal or Stripe account (or both), and Formidable Forms installed. Both PayPal and Stripe work in the free Lite version, so you can try Formidable Forms free before you commit.

On Lite, Stripe and PayPal add a 3% Formidable Forms fee on top of their own rates, and that 3% fee is removed once you move up to a Business or Elite license, which is the main reason fundraisers upgrade.

With that in place, let's build the form in four steps.

Step 1: Connect your payment processor

Formidable Forms works with PayPal and Stripe (plus Authorize.Net and WooCommerce Products), and you can offer more than one on the same form. Most fundraising forms do well with both, since donors like having a choice. Connect whichever you plan to use, and the rest of the guide works the same either way.

Connect PayPal

In your WordPress admin, go to Formidable → Add-Ons, find the PayPal add-on, and toggle it to On.

Then open Formidable → Global Settings → Payments and select PayPal. Enter your PayPal email, set the PayPal Environment to Live, and click Update.

Connect Stripe

For Stripe, go to Formidable → Global Settings → Stripe and click Connect to Stripe. Log in to your Stripe account when the gateway opens, or create one, and approve the connection. There are no API keys to copy and paste.

Stripe is worth turning on even if PayPal is your main option. With Enable Stripe Link switched on, a single field lets donors pay with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, a bank transfer, or a regular card, which covers nearly every way your donors already pay.

Step 2: Build your donation form

Go to Formidable → Forms → Add New. You can start from a ready-made donation template, which loads the usual fields already arranged, or pick Blank Form to build from scratch and see how each piece fits.

Name your form and click Create to open the drag and drop builder.

Now drag on the fields a donation form needs:

• Radio Buttons labeled Donation amount, with preset options like $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000, and Other
• Single Line Text labeled Other amount, for custom gifts
• Single Line Text fields for the donor's first and last name
• An Email field for the receipt
• An Address field (most credit card payments need a billing address)
• Radio Buttons to choose a one-time or recurring gift

If you're offering both PayPal and credit cards, add one more dropdown at the top labeled How would you like to donate? with PayPal and Credit Card as the choices. Then drag a Credit Card field in below the donation amount. A second field appears automatically beneath it, which you can leave alone, since it only holds the gateway settings.

Once your fields are in place, click Update to save.

Show fields only when they're needed

A little conditional logic keeps the form clean, so donors only see what applies to them. Click the Other amount field, open its Field Options, click Add Conditional Logic, and set it to "Show this field if any of the following match: Donation amount equals Other."

If you added the payment-method dropdown, do the same on the Credit Card and Address fields so they appear only when "How would you like to donate? equals Credit Card." Click Update when you're done.

Step 3: Set up the payment action

Connecting a gateway and adding the fields isn't quite enough on its own. You also need an action that tells Formidable Forms to process the payment when someone submits the form. Open Settings → Actions and Notifications, and add one action for each gateway you're using.

PayPal action

Click PayPal to add the action, then fill in its settings:

• Label: a reference name only you see
• Item Name: what appears on the donor's PayPal receipt, like your campaign name
• PayPal Email: the address tied to your PayPal account
• Amount: your Donation amount field, so the donor's choice is what gets charged
• Payment Type: Donation, or Subscription for recurring gifts
• Currency: the currency you'll accept
• Return URL and Cancel URL: where donors land after paying or if they cancel

If your form offers both gateways, click Add Conditional Logic so this action fires only when "How would you like to donate? is equal to PayPal."

Stripe action

For Stripe, click Collect a Payment, which is Formidable Forms' Stripe action, then fill in its settings:

• Action Name: a reference name
• Amount: your Donation amount field
• Payment Type: one-time, or subscription for recurring gifts
• Currency: the currency you'll accept
• Email, Address, First Name, and Last Name: map each to the matching field on your form

This is also where you switch on Enable Stripe Link for those extra payment methods. If you're offering both gateways, click Add Conditional Logic so it fires only when "How would you like to donate? is equal to Credit Card."

For recurring donations, set the action's Payment Type to Subscription, and Stripe and PayPal handle the recurring billing automatically once it's set. When your actions are ready, click Update to save everything.

Step 4: Publish your form

Head to the post or page where you want the form. Add a new block, search for the Formidable Forms block, and pick your donation form from the dropdown.

Before you go live, open the page in an incognito tab and run a test donation through each payment method. PayPal's sandbox and Stripe's test mode both let you do this without moving real money. Once you've confirmed the receipts arrive and the payments show up in your gateway dashboard, switch to live mode.

Ready to launch your donation form? Get Formidable Forms and start collecting donations today.

Going further: what to do with your donation form

Once the form is live, the real work is keeping donors engaged. A few features that make Formidable Forms worth more than a basic donation plugin:

PDF receipts on autosend

Most donors want a receipt, especially in January when tax season starts and they're hunting for proof of every gift. Formidable Forms' Form to PDF feature generates a receipt automatically when the form is submitted and emails it to the donor. You set the template once and forget it.

A live fundraising thermometer

That "we've raised $14,200 of our $20,000 goal" graphic on every campaign page exists because progress fuels giving. Formidable Views can pull your form's donation totals and display them as a running counter, a thermometer graphic, or a leaderboard of recent donors. The data updates as new donations come in, no manual edits.

If you want a head start, the prebuilt Charity Tracker template has three different display options ready to install and customize, so there's no building from scratch.

A donor directory or recurring-supporter wall

If you want to thank monthly donors publicly (with their permission), Views can turn submitted entries into a searchable directory or a scrolling supporter list. You decide what's visible and what stays in the admin.

Other payment integrations

PayPal and Stripe cover most fundraising needs, but Formidable Forms' payments support also includes Authorize.Net, Square, and WooCommerce Products if your nonprofit already runs on one of those. Same form, different processor, no rebuild required.

Build it once, let it work

A donation form is one of the few things on your site that has a job to do every single time it loads. Build it once, build it right, and let it work.

Formidable Forms gives you the payment integrations, the conditional logic, the receipts, and the views to do all of it from one plugin. If you'd rather compare dedicated tools first, see our roundup of the best WordPress donation plugins. When you're ready, try Formidable Forms free and have your donation form ready before your next campaign launch.

Can I accept donations without a separate donation plugin?

Yes. A form builder with payment integration handles donations natively. You get more control over fields, conditional logic, and what happens after submission than a dedicated donation plugin usually offers, and you don't pay for two tools that overlap.

Can Stripe be used for donations?

Stripe is one of the most widely used payment processors in the world and works well for one-time and recurring donations. With Stripe Link enabled, donors can pay by credit card, debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, or bank transfer from a single field.

Do I need a Stripe API key to set this up?

No. Formidable Forms connects to Stripe with a secure login, so you log in to your Stripe account from inside WordPress and approve the connection. No copy-pasting API keys, no developer required.

Can I let donors choose between one-time and recurring giving on the same form?

Yes. Add a radio button or checkbox asking donors if they'd like to make it recurring, then create two payment actions (one one-time, one subscription) with conditional logic so the right one fires based on their answer.

What does Formidable Forms charge per transaction?

On Formidable Forms Lite, PayPal and Stripe payments include an additional 3% Formidable Forms fee. Upgrading to the Business or Elite license removes that fee. Your payment processor's own fees still apply, the same as with any donation tool.

Is the donor's payment info stored on my site?

No. When using Stripe and PayPal, payment data is tokenized and handled by the processor, not stored in your WordPress database. That keeps you out of PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance scope and keeps donor data secure.