With our growing suite of payment features, we want to make it easier for you to earn money on WordPress.com. With the Donations block, you can now accept credit and debit card payments for all types of donations, earning revenue and growing your base of supporters. Collect donations, tips, and contributions on your website to fuel your creative and professional projects or to support and grow your business or organization.
Donations block example for an arts organization
What can you accept donations for?
You can collect financial contributions on your website for just about anything — the sky really is the limit. Here are examples of things people support through donations:
- Creative pursuits for musicians, artists, designers, writers, and more
- Concrete creations like podcasts, video games, music clips, and photography
- Bloggers and content creators of all shapes and sizes
- Everyday passions like news summaries and mindfulness exercises
- Professional endeavors including civic engagement and professional development
- Nonprofits and community, religious, and political organizations
Donations block examples for a musician and radio station
Continue to build your community by engaging with your supporters in a unique and authentic way. People can opt to support you through one-time, monthly, or yearly contributions, and the Donations block lets you engage with each level for a more custom experience. For example, you might send your monthly supporters additional content and information on top of what you send your one-time supporters.
As you ask for support, we’ll handle the rest — the credit and debit card payment processing, sending receipts, reporting, and more.
Ask for your first donation
Above all, the first step in earning money on your website is to ask for it. You can add a Donations block to your website in a matter of minutes; watch this short video to learn how. Alternatively, a step-by-step guide follows below.
- To use the Donations block, you’ll need a WordPress.com website with any paid plan — Personal, Premium, Business, or eCommerce.
- On any page or post, add the Donations block.
- To set up your first donation request, create a Stripe account if you don’t have one already. Stripe is the company we’ve partnered with to process credit and debit card payments in a safe, secure, and speedy way.
- After you’ve connected to Stripe, configure the block’s settings, like how often you’re asking for donations. It can be any combination of single (one-time), monthly recurring, or yearly recurring donations.
- Set three donation amounts that you’d like visitors to choose from for any of the payment intervals. These are fully customizable. Be sure to set your currency as well.
- You can also allow visitors to donate what they want — essentially a blank box for them to fill out how much money they would like to give.
- Review all of the text in your Donations block — you can edit every single letter, so be sure to provide enough information for your visitors about their donation, why you’re asking for it, etc.
- Publish your block!
- You can manage your supporters, see earnings, and keep an eye on other metrics in the Earn dashboard.
- Last but not least, tell others about what you’re doing! Share on social media, email, and however you best communicate with people who might donate to your cause.
A suite of payment features to fit your needs
Looking to accept payments for something else? There are several other payment features on WordPress.com to suit your needs and help you make money with your website. In addition to the new Donations block, here are other features:
- Payments block: Accept one-time or recurring payments on your website for physical items, digital downloads, services, memberships, subscriptions, and more.
- Premium Content block: Create one-time, monthly, or yearly subscription options to share select content with those who pay for it — text, images, videos, or any kind of content. Exclusive content can be sent to email inboxes or viewed on your website.
- Paid newsletters: Using the Premium Content block, you can share your site’s latest premium content via email newsletters in a fully automated way.
- eCommerce Store: Turn your website into an eCommerce store and sell products and services seamlessly.
If you’re interested in setting up a membership- or subscription-based website, learn more about getting started with memberships and subscriptions.
Add the Donations block and start earning money with your website today!