Payment methods

UnitTally supports exactly two kinds of payment: an online card charge through the organization’s own Stripe account, and a manual entry the treasurer records directly. They carry genuinely different costs — see Fees and caps for the numbers.

When an organization connects its own Stripe account (Stripe Connect Standard), card charges settle as direct charges on that account. The money lands with the organization, not with UnitTally — UnitTally never touches it. UnitTally’s only involvement is its platform fee, taken as a Stripe application fee at the moment of the charge. Refunds and payouts happen on the organization’s own Stripe account, the same one that received the charge.

Because checkout runs through Stripe’s hosted Checkout page, supporters can also pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay where their device supports it. That’s a capability Stripe enables on the organization’s account — not a payment method UnitTally built separately.

Checkout also offers supporters an optional, off-by-default “Cover the fees” checkbox that covers both the platform fee and an estimate of Stripe’s processing fee. See Fees and caps: “Cover the fees” at checkout for how the estimate is calculated and why it can vary by a few cents.

Online card payments require the organization to have its own Stripe account connected. Organizations operating under a chartering body’s tax ID (a council, a district, a parent charter) typically don’t have one, and run manual-only instead.

Manual covers anything the treasurer records directly: cash, a check, a Venmo or Zelle transfer confirmed by screenshot, or any other payment collected outside of card processing. There’s no Stripe involved and nothing to reconcile against a processor — the treasurer enters the amount and it lands in the same ledger as every card sale. Manual payments cost $0 in UnitTally fees, on every tier, always.

	UnitTally fee	Stripe fee
Manual (cash, check, Venmo)	$0	not applicable
Online card	tier fee, capped (see Fees and caps)	Stripe’s own processing fee, uncapped

A campaign can accept manual, online card, or both — at least one is required. Enabling online card on a campaign requires the organization’s Stripe account to already be connected; there’s no per-campaign Stripe setup separate from the organization’s own account.

• Fees and caps — the exact fee math for the online card path.
• The fundraising model — where payment happens in the season arc.
• What is UnitTally? — which organizations fit which path.