Zeffy Calls Itself Free.
Your Raffle Results Tell….
a Different Story
Here’s what actually happens when nonprofits use Zeffy for a raffle: a tip prompt appears between your supporter and the Buy button, presetting 17%, 20% or 22%, with 17% pre-selected and hard to remove, and 30–40% of your raffle sales quietly disappear. They still call that free.
20 Years of Online Raffle Experience
Real Humans Answer the Phone
Proudly Made in America
Is Zeffy Ever the Right Choice? Yes, Sometimes.
But the moment a real raffle is involved, with ticket pools, prize management, hybrid entries, or any of the formats we’ve covered here, the comparison changes entirely. Zeffy was built for donations. Chance2Win was built for raffles. That architectural difference shows up in your results.
The test we recommend: Before your next event, ask your platform vendor one question, “Can you run a basket raffle where each basket has its own ticket pool and its own independent drawing?” If the answer isn’t a clear yes with documentation showing how, you’re using a donation tool for a raffle job. See how basket raffles work on Chance2Win →
on school & family events
on church & community events
Zeffy’s tip prompt range,
pre-selected at checkout
Modeled from normalized checkout completion data across tens of thousands of raffle transactions. Individual results vary by cause type and donor demographics.
Ready to raise more with less hassle?
Our fixed 12% supporter service charge is shown before purchase, and it costs about 1 to 2% of sales compared with a checkout carrying no service charge at all. Zeffy’s variable tip, pre-selected at 17%, sits well above the point where donors start treating the charge as a penalty rather than a fee.
Chance2Win vs Zeffy
Zeffy is genuinely $0 to your nonprofit, and that's a real strength. The difference is what happens when you run an actual raffle. Zeffy is a general donation tool with a raffle option, so the draw and the winner follow-up land back on you. Chance2Win is built for raffles end to end.
| Factor | Zeffy | Chance2Win |
|---|---|---|
| Drawing the winner | Done outside the platform. Zeffy's help center says it isn't a licensed electronic raffle system with a drawing tool, so you draw with a separate random picker. | A fair random draw is built into your Raffle Website Manager. |
| Winner email | None. You export a report, find the winner in it, and contact them yourself. | Send a winner email in one click after the draw, with a message you can personalize. |
| Online plus cash in one pool | Not unified. | Yes. Online, cash, and check entries live in one drawing pool. |
| Regulated prizes (wine, bourbon, cigars, firearms) | Stripe based, so these categories aren't supported. | Supported through Flux and Fortis (via Authorize.net). |
| Built for raffles | General donation and forms tool with a raffle option. | Purpose built: traditional, 50/50, basket, Queen of Hearts, and duck race. |
| Cost to your nonprofit | $0, funded by an optional donor tip prompt at checkout. | $0 on Zero Fee. Premium is a flat price from $329, with no percentage taken from ticket sales. |
| How checkout works for supporters | A pre-suggested tip is added at checkout, which the donor has to notice and decline. | On Zero Fee, one fixed supporter charge is shown before purchase. No tip prompt to undo. |
| Support | Email and chat. | US based phone support. |
When your raffle ends
Zeffy's own help center states the raffle drawing must be done outside the platform and that Zeffy isn't a licensed electronic raffle system with a drawing tool (verified August 2026). Zeffy is genuinely $0 to the nonprofit, so the honest advantage here is raffle capability, not cost. Verify all details before publishing.
Our Pricing, Straightforward by Design
We have two options and neither of them involves surprising your supporters with an unexpected charge at checkout. That’s a deliberate choice, and it’s reflected in conversion rates.
Zero Fee
A fixed 12% donor service charge is shown clearly before purchase, not revealed at checkout. Transparent, compliant in regulated states, and zero donor surprise.
Best for raffles under $10,000- All raffle types supported
- Fixed 12% fee, shown upfront
- No tip prompt. No checkout friction.
- Basket raffles & tricky trays
- Queen of Hearts progressive jackpot
- Hybrid cash + check + online
- Phone support for live events
- Compliant with most state fixed-price requirements
Best for raffles under $10,000Payments Processed through
Premium Plan (Most Popular)
Starting at $329.00
- Best for raffles over $10,000
- Everything in Zero Fee, plus:
- Cleanest checkout, ticket price only, no service charge shown
- $5k raised: $329 (6.6% effective)
- $10k raised: $459 (4.6% effective)
- +$329 per additional $10k raised
- $20k event: $788, 3.9% effective
- $100k event: $3,420, 3.4% effective
- Flux Payments, Stripe, Square, or Authorize.net & more
- You decide what supporters pay, enable a charge and it flows entirely to your org
Easily connects to
Why the Tip Prompt Costs More Than It Looks Like
When someone decides to buy raffle tickets, they’ve already made their decision. They know what they want to spend. They pull out their phone, find the link, pick their ticket bundle, and head to checkout.
The last thing they need is a prompt asking them to also tip a software platform they’ve never heard of. But that’s exactly what Zeffy puts between them and the Buy button, starting at 17%, pre-filled, requiring deliberate action to remove.
On a donation campaign, that friction is inconvenient. On a raffle transaction, where buyers have already decided exactly what they planned to spend, it’s particularly expensive. Raffle buyers aren’t in a “tip mindset.” They’re in a “I want my tickets” mindset. The mismatch kills conversions.
The Legal Issue Worth Knowing About: Most U.S. states that regulate charitable gaming require the price per raffle entry to be fixed and fully disclosed before the buyer commits. Zeffy’s variable tip prompt, defaulting to 17–22%, requiring active removal, may not meet that standard in regulated states. This isn’t legal advice, but it is a real question worth asking your attorney before your event.
Chance2Win’s approach: Our Zero Fee model applies a fixed 12% donor service charge, shown clearly on the ticket selection page, before checkout begins. Supporters know exactly what they’re paying. No surprise. No friction. And in most regulated states, a fixed disclosed fee meets the price-transparency requirement that a variable tip does not.
The Call We Get Every Spring Gala Season
The team behind Chance2Win has been answering the raffle hotline since 2005. This call comes in every season, and it’s exactly what real phone support means for your raffle.
“We had our basket raffle set up on a ‘free’ platform and everything looked fine until we went live Saturday night. Supporters were clicking through, picking baskets, and then just… not finishing. We thought it was a tech problem. One of our volunteers actually completed the checkout herself and called us: ‘There’s a thing asking me to tip them. I didn’t know what it was. I just closed the window.’ We lost count of how many people did the same thing. We raised about half of what we projected.”
PTO Fundraising Chair, Annual Spring Gala · Composite account based on calls received by Chance2Win support team
A recent real example of why this matters: A Civil War reenactment organization sold raffle tickets on a Stripe-based platform for six weeks on a museum-quality antique rifle. No warning, their account was suspended mid-campaign. Chance2Win’s manual order entry imported every previous ticket purchase. The drawing ran with a complete pool. No supporter lost their entry. Full account on our Givebutter comparison page →
What Chance2Win Does That Zeffy Simply Doesn’t
To be fair, Zeffy is a solid tool for straightforward donation campaigns. But the moment a real raffle is involved, here’s where the comparison gets uncomfortable for them, especially when it comes to a hybrid raffle website.
| Feature / Capability | + Chance2Win | Zeffy |
|---|---|---|
| Online raffle ticket sales | Full support | Supported |
| Checkout friction / tip prompt | Fixed fee, shown upfront 12% service fee displayed before checkout | Variable tip prompt 17-22%, pre-selected, active removal required |
| Basket raffles / tricky trays | Full support Separate pools, per-basket drawings, ticket splitting | Not supported Donation-first architecture lacks per-basket pool logic |
| Queen of Hearts (progressive jackpot) | Full workflow Jackpot logic, card management, weekly draws | Not supported |
| Duck races & ball drops | Pre-numbered pool management Assigns, tracks, and reclaims numbers after refunds | Not supported |
| 50/50 raffles | Full support | Partial Basic ticket sale; limited raffle-specific logic |
| Hybrid events (cash + check + online) | Unified drawing pool Cash & check entries merged with online, no spreadsheets | No native support |
| Multiple payment processors | Flux Payments, Stripe, Square, or Authorize.net & more | Stripe only Stripe restricts firearms, alcohol, certain prize types |
| State charitable gaming compliance | Fixed disclosed fee meets most state requirements Always verify with local counsel before launch | Variable tip may create compliance risk Review your state's fixed-price disclosure requirements |
| Phone support during live events | Real humans who understand raffles | No phone support |
| Cash & check ticket sales, drawing pool | Manual entry, any payment type Cash at the door, checks mailed in, all enter the same pool as digital purchases. One drawing, one audit trail. | No path for cash or check entries Card-present Stripe Terminal ≠ cash. Cash buyers cannot enter Zeffy's drawing pool. |
| Platform rescue / ticket import | Manual order entry, any source Tickets sold elsewhere can be imported. Drawing pool stays complete through any migration. | No import mechanism Locked or restricted account means prior ticket sales are inaccessible. |
| Printable physical tickets | Blank and prefilled from admin | Not available |
| Audit-ready reporting & winner log | Full export, donor data, drawing records | Limited |
| Zero cost to organization | Zero Fee plan available | No invoice to org Revenue from supporter tip prompt instead |
This comparison focuses on raffle fundraising capability. Both platforms handle simple donation campaigns reasonably well. The gap becomes significant the moment a real raffle is involved. Feature details subject to change, verify current capabilities before launch.
What Purpose-Built Raffle Infrastructure Actually Means
Every format below requires fundamentally different backend logic. A donation platform adapted for raffles handles one of them adequately. Chance2Win was built for all of them, from the ground up, twenty years ago.
Basket Raffles & Tricky Trays
Every basket is its own prize pool. Supporters spread tickets across multiple baskets. Each basket needs its own independent drawing. That’s three layers of infrastructure a standard raffle tool doesn’t have. Ask any PTO or church committee what format they rely on most, basket raffles come up every time.
✦ Chance2Win only
Queen of Hearts
A growing jackpot, weekly drawings, supporters coming back each week for months. That requires progressive jackpot logic, continuous ticket sales, and proper card management. None of which a donation platform was built to handle. Queen of Hearts is one of the highest-revenue formats nonprofits run, which is exactly why we built it first.
✦ Chance2Win only
Duck Races & Ball Drops
The winning duck or ball must trace cleanly to a specific, valid, sold ticket number. Any gap, duplicate, or unreturned number after a refund creates a result that’s hard to defend to a crowd. Chance2Win manages the full pre-numbered pool, assigns numbers, prevents gaps, returns them after refunds, and maintains clean winner traceability.
✦ Chance2Win only
Traditional & Online Raffles
Standard single-prize raffle with online ticket sales, printable physical tickets, winner publishing, and livestream support. Both platforms handle this format, the difference is what happens at checkout and whether in-person cash and check sales can be unified into the same drawing pool.
Both platforms
50/50 Raffles
Half the pot to the winner, half to your organization. Simple in concept, but doing it right online, especially at live events with simultaneous in-person sales, requires accurate split calculation, real-time totals, and clean hybrid reconciliation. Chance2Win handles all three cleanly; Zeffy handles the basic version.
Both, with differences
Online + In-Person Combined
Selling tickets online and at-the-door simultaneously, with cash and check accepted, all flowing into one drawing pool. No separate spreadsheets. No manual reconciliation the night of the event. This is hybrid fundraising done right. Zeffy handles online and card-present; it doesn’t manage cash and check ticket pool integration.
✦ Chance2Win advantage
See: Hybrid Raffle →
Built for Real Raffles. Not Generic Donation Tools.
We didn’t build a donation platform and add raffle functionality as a feature. We built the raffle software first, from scratch, before most of the tools you’re comparing us against even existed. Twenty years of real nonprofit events, real fundraising teams, and real raffle problems is a different kind of foundation.
Premium Rate Breakdown vs Zeffy’s Effective Cost
| Event Size (Funds Raised) | C2W Premium Fee | Effective Rate | Zeffy Tip Model (Cost of 30% abandonment) |
You Keep More With C2W |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up to $5,000 | $329 | 6.6% |
~$1,500 lost 30% abandonment on $5k |
C2W costs less + no abandonment |
| Up to $10,000 | $459 | 4.6% |
~$3,000 lost 30% abandonment on $10k |
$459 vs $3,000+ lost |
| Up to $20,000 | $788 | 3.9% |
~$6,000 lost 30% abandonment on $20k |
$788 vs $6,000+ lost |
| Up to $50,000 | $1,775 | 3.6% |
~$15,000 lost 30% abandonment on $50k |
$1,775 vs $15,000+ lost |
| Up to $100,000 | $3,420 | 3.4% |
~$30,000 lost 30% abandonment on $100k |
$3,420 vs $30,000+ lost |
C2W Premium: fixed fee paid by your organization. Zeffy: no platform fee invoice, the cost is abandonment, estimated at 30% of potential raffle ticket sales based on observed behavior when tip prompts start at 17%. Abandonment estimates are conservative; actual loss varies. Payment processing (2.9% + $0.30/transaction) applies on both platforms. C2W Zero Fee cost to org: $0, donor service charge is added to supporter total, not deducted from yours.
Stop losing money to fees
The Org-Controlled Service Charge, Your Decision. Your Revenue.
You Decide What Supporters Pay.
Enable a Charge and It Goes Directly to You, Not to Chance2Win.
Compliance note: Raffle laws vary significantly by state, and some states require fixed, upfront price disclosure for regulated raffle entries. Chance2Win’s fixed service fee model is designed with this in mind. Zeffy’s variable tip model may present compliance questions in some jurisdictions. This is informational, not legal advice. Always consult a qualified attorney and your state’s charitable gaming authority before launching any raffle.
The Original Online Raffle Website
That means the entire architecture of what we built is designed around how raffles actually work: numbered ticket pools, per-prize drawing logic, hybrid entry reconciliation, progressive jackpots, and cash-and-check support built in from day one.
Twenty years of real nonprofit events, real fundraising teams, and real raffle problems is a different kind of foundation than a feature added to a donation tool two years ago. And when something unexpected happens during your live event on a Saturday night, you want a real person on the phone, not a support ticket queue.
20 Years
30,000+
6 Formats
Real Phone
Related Guides & Resources
Online Raffle Website
Basket Raffle Software
Queen of Hearts Website
Raffle Laws by State
Hybrid Raffle Guide
Online + cash + check in one unified draw
Transparent Pricing
Raffle Platform Comparisons
How to Run a Raffle Online
Raffle Mastery: The Complete Book to Running Profitable Nonprofit Raffles
- Ticket pricing strategies that increase average order value
- Bundle psychology, why the right packages outperform discounts
- Hybrid event playbooks for in-person + online sales
- Common compliance mistakes and how to avoid them
Ticket pricing strategies that increase average order value
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Zeffy actually free?
Free to the organization, yes, there's no platform fee invoice coming to you. But Zeffy generates revenue through a tip prompt at checkout, starting at 17% and pre-selected, which supporters have to actively remove. For donation campaigns this model works reasonably well. For raffle transactions, where buyers have already decided exactly what they want to spend, that prompt creates real friction. Based on observed raffle campaign data, Zeffy's tip model drives roughly 30% checkout abandonment for school and family-oriented events, and around 40% for general church and community fundraisers. 'Free software' and 'free outcome' are not the same thing.
Does Zeffy's tip model create compliance risk for raffle events?
It can, depending on your state. Most U.S. states that regulate charitable gaming require the price per raffle entry to be fixed and disclosed upfront. Zeffy's variable tip prompt, starting at 17%, ranging to 22%, and requiring active removal, may not meet that standard in regulated states. Chance2Win's Zero Fee model applies a fixed 12% service charge that's shown clearly before purchase. This is informational, not legal advice, please consult an attorney before launching any raffle campaign.
Can Zeffy run basket raffles?
Not in the way serious basket raffles need. Basket raffles require separate ticket pools per basket, individual drawings for each prize, and the ability for supporters to spread ticket value across multiple baskets. That's specialized raffle infrastructure that Zeffy, as a donation-first platform, doesn't provide. Chance2Win has been running basket raffles for twenty years, because it's what we were built for. See how basket raffles work →
Can Zeffy run duck races or ball drops?
No. These events depend on pre-numbered physical items where the number on the winning duck or ball must trace cleanly to a sold ticket. Any gap, duplicate, or unreturned number after a refund creates results you can't confidently defend. Chance2Win manages the full pre-numbered pool, assigns numbers, prevents gaps, returns numbers after refunds and cancellations, and maintains clean winner traceability. Zeffy doesn't have this infrastructure.
What's the difference between Chance2Win's two pricing plans?
Zero Fee is $0 to your organization. A fixed 12% donor service charge is applied, displayed clearly before purchase, not revealed at checkout. It's transparent, compliant in most regulated states, and avoids all tip-prompt friction. Premium starts at $329 and delivers the cleanest possible checkout, supporters see only your ticket price, with an org-controlled service charge, if enabled, flows directly to your organization, not to Chance2Win. Most orgs set 8% to net back their software and processing costs. Zero Fee is the right fit when zero out-of-pocket cost is the priority. See full pricing details →
Why does having multiple payment processors matter?
Zeffy processes through Stripe only. This is not solved by picking a competitor that also offers Square. Square prohibits the same categories Stripe does. If your raffle involves alcohol, tobacco, or firearms, Flux Payments works on either of our plans, and Fortis, connected through Authorize.net, works on Premium. Both allow these categories in writing. Always confirm processor compliance before launch.
What is a hybrid raffle and does Chance2Win support it?
Chance2Win's manual order entry lets you import all previously sold tickets, name, contact, ticket count, prize selections, directly into a Chance2Win drawing pool. Every prior buyer keeps their entry with equal standing to digitally purchased tickets. This has resolved real emergency situations: organizations whose accounts were locked or restricted mid-campaign have moved to Chance2Win and run a complete drawing with every ticket intact. Contact our support team to walk through your specific situation: Contact Support →
Can I actually reach someone by phone if something goes wrong during my event?
Yes. We have real people who understand raffle operations and answer the phone. When your event is live on a Saturday night and something unexpected comes up, a refund question, a ticket pool issue, a drawing that needs to be verified, you want a person on the line, not a support ticket queue. Zeffy doesn't offer phone support.