Getting Paid

Supporters pay by card through our secure checkout. The money comes to us, and after pickup day we send your group a check for your profit — your sales minus the cost of the product.

The card fee is handled. By default we add a small processing percentage to the supporter's total, so the fee never eats into your profit. If you would rather absorb it and charge supporters less, we can do that instead — it just comes out of your side, and your dashboard shows it as Online Fees so you always know.

Nothing to reconcile. Orders mark themselves paid the moment the card clears. Nobody on your side has to match payments to orders.

Every supporter gets a “Pay $45.00 with PayPal” (and/or Venmo) button with the amount and their order code already filled in — on the order page and again in their confirmation email, so it still works days later. The money goes straight into your account.

What you need: a PayPal.Me link, a Venmo handle, or both. Send them to us and we plug them in. There is nothing to install and no developer setup.

What it costs you in effort: our system cannot see your PayPal or Venmo account, so it has no way to know a payment arrived. Somebody on your side watches the account and clicks Mark Paid on each order, matching by the order code in the payment note. That is how you know who still owes you, and it is what stops payment reminders going to people who already paid.

Ten minutes a week for a small group. A real chore for a big one.

Same as option 2 in that the money lands in your account — but supporters check out with card, PayPal, or Venmo right on the order page, and orders mark themselves paid automatically. Our server confirms each payment directly with PayPal before it counts, so nothing has to be reconciled by hand.

What you need: a PayPal Business account (free to upgrade from a personal one) and two credentials from it. See Setting up PayPal below.

This is the right answer for a group expecting real volume that wants to hold its own money.

Side by side

Every card, PayPal, or Venmo business payment has a processing fee. Somebody pays it. Which option you pick decides who.

If we collect: the fee is built into the supporter's total by default, so your profit is exactly your price minus the cost of the product. Clean numbers.

If you collect — either way — the fees come out of your money. PayPal or Venmo takes their cut of each payment before it reaches your balance. We do not add anything to the supporter's total to cover it, because it is not our processor and we never see the transaction.

So if you sell a Boston butt for $45 and it cost you $15, you did not make $30 — you made $30 minus whatever your processor charged. Price accordingly.

We bill for product, not payments. Every item has an agreed cost to your group, set before your fundraiser opens. Sell 100 Boston butts at a $15 cost and you owe us $1,500.

When we collect, we take our cost out and send you the rest. You never write us a check.

When you collect, you keep every dollar and settle up with us afterward. Your dashboard shows a running “Owed to 2 Men and a Pig” total so there is never a surprise at the end.

For the links option (no Business account needed)

Send us your PayPal.Me link — the full link or just the username — and your Venmo handle if you use one. Either alone is fine. That is the whole setup.

For your own PayPal Checkout

You need two credentials from a PayPal Business account. A personal account cannot produce live ones — PayPal blocks it.

1. Go to developer.paypal.com and sign in with the account that will receive the money.
2. Open Apps & Credentials and switch the toggle to Live. The page opens on Sandbox, which is the practice mode — this catches people out.
3. Click Create App, name it something you will recognize like “BBQ Fundraiser,” and choose the Merchant type.
4. Copy the Client ID and Secret from the page that appears, and send them to us.

What those two things are. The Client ID is public — think of it as your account number. It tells PayPal whose account to pay. The Secret is private — it is a password. Our server uses it to ask PayPal “did this payment really happen, and was it for the right amount?” before an order counts as paid. Without it, anyone could fake a paid order.

We store the Secret for that check only. It is never shown again and never sent to a browser. If it ever leaks, you can delete the app in PayPal and the old one stops working immediately.

Plenty of groups already run a Square reader at concessions or a Stripe account for dues. Support for connecting your own Square or Stripe is in development — it will work the same way as option 3 above: money straight to your account, orders marking themselves paid, no reconciling.

It is not ready yet, so it is not something you can pick for a fundraiser starting now. Tell us if you want it — knowing which groups are waiting is what decides the order things get built in, and we will come back to you when it is live.

Until then, the two workable answers are:

Let us collect and take a check — simplest, and the fees are handled.

Use the PayPal.Me / Venmo links and keep taking Square in person for the walk-ups. Nothing stops you doing both; just mark those orders paid in the app so your numbers stay straight.

Pick “we collect” if you want the least work, clean numbers, and no volunteer matching payments to orders. This is the right answer for most groups, and it is what we recommend if you are unsure.

Pick the links if your group is small, you want the money right away, and someone genuinely will keep up with marking orders paid.

Pick your own PayPal Checkout if you want the money right away and you are expecting real volume. The hour of setup buys back a lot of weekends.

You can change your mind before your fundraiser opens. Once orders start coming in, switching gets messy — so decide up front.