Buy Me a Coffee button & widgets – Fundraise with Stripe and PayPal
User Guide | Demo | Visit Plugin Site
Buy Me Coffee is a free, lightweight WordPress donation plugin that lets you accept tips, one-time donations, and recurring monthly or yearly subscriptions directly into your own Stripe and PayPal accounts — with zero commission and no third-party platform in between.
Unlike Buy Me a Coffee, Ko-fi, or Patreon, which route payments through their own platforms and take a cut, this plugin sends every payment directly to your merchant account. Your supporters pay you — not a middleman.
Who Is This For?
Buy Me Coffee is built for anyone who creates value online and wants a direct, self-hosted way to accept donations and tips:
- Bloggers & Writers — Add a “buy me a coffee” tip jar to any post or page
- Artists & Musicians — Accept donations and one-time tips for your creative work
- Podcasters & YouTubers — Let your audience support you directly without a middleman
- Open-Source Developers — Fundraise for your project without a SaaS dependency
- Nonprofits & Charities — Collect donations with Stripe or PayPal, zero commission
- Educators & Coaches — Accept monthly recurring support from your community
- Freelancers & Consultants — Let clients or fans tip your work
- Church & Community Organizations — Accept recurring giving on your own WordPress site
Why Choose Buy Me Coffee?
- Zero commission, zero fees — We never take a percentage of your donations. Free means free, forever.
- Direct payments — Stripe and PayPal deposit funds directly into YOUR bank account. No platform holding your money.
- No third-party account required — Supporters don’t need to sign up anywhere. They just donate.
- Self-hosted & private — All donor data stays on your WordPress site. No external tracking, no data harvesting.
- Recurring subscriptions built-in — Monthly and yearly Stripe subscriptions included free. No paid addon required.
- Modern admin dashboard — A beautiful Vue 3-powered admin panel with dark mode, revenue charts, and activity logs.
- One-click refunds — Refund any Stripe or PayPal transaction from inside WordPress — no need to log into your gateway dashboard.
- Full activity logging — Every payment, renewal, cancellation, refund, and webhook event is recorded with a searchable timeline.
Key Features
Accept Donations via Stripe & PayPal On-site Stripe checkout and PayPal integration let your visitors donate without ever leaving your website. Supports 135+ currencies via Stripe and 20+ via PayPal. Credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay — whatever your visitors prefer.
Recurring Monthly & Yearly Donations (Stripe) Let your supporters become long-term monthly or yearly backers with Stripe recurring subscriptions. Full lifecycle management is included: automatic renewals via webhook, admin cancellation from WordPress, subscription status tracking, and a dedicated subscriber account page. No paid addon required.
Supporter Wall & Donor Leaderboard
Display a beautiful ranked leaderboard of your top donors on any page with the [buymecoffee_supporters] shortcode. Gold, silver, and bronze badges highlight your top 3 supporters. Choose which fields to display (name, avatar, amount, message) from the admin settings.
Gutenberg Block & Shortcodes Add a donation button, inline donation form, or full donation page anywhere on your site using the native Gutenberg block or classic-editor shortcodes:
[buymecoffee_button]— Donation button that opens a modal or links to your donation page[buymecoffee_form]— Inline donation form embedded on any post or page[buymecoffee_basic]— Full-page donation template with banner, profile, supporter wall, and form[buymecoffee_supporters]— Public supporter wall / ranked donor leaderboard[buymecoffee_account]— Subscriber self-service dashboard for logged-in recurring supporters
One-Click Refunds Issue full refunds for Stripe and PayPal transactions directly from your WordPress admin. A confirmation modal displays transaction details and live gateway response — no need to visit your Stripe or PayPal dashboard.
Subscriber Account Page
Recurring supporters are optionally assigned a WordPress user account linked to their subscription. Place the [buymecoffee_account] shortcode on any page to give them a self-service dashboard showing active subscriptions, billing history, and payment status.
Complete Activity Logging Every event is logged — payments, refunds, subscription renewals, cancellations, webhook events, and outgoing emails. Each supporter and subscription has its own chronological activity timeline. A global Activity Log page provides a filterable, paginated view across your entire donation history.
Email Notifications
Automatically send a branded thank-you email to donors after every successful payment, and receive an admin notification for each new donation. Both templates are fully customizable with dynamic placeholders: {{donor_name}}, {{amount}}, {{payment_method}}, and more.
Supporters Admin Hub A dedicated admin hub with everything in one place:
- Metric cards — Total supporters, lifetime revenue, active subscribers, average donation amount
- Top supporters ranking — Your highest-value donors at a glance
- Configurable display settings — Control exactly what appears on the public supporter wall
- Shortcode documentation — Copy-paste shortcodes with descriptions, inline in the admin
- Privacy controls — Mask email addresses, allow anonymous donations, hide donor amounts
Customizable Donation Page Appearance Personalize your donation page with a profile image, banner photo, brand accent color, and a custom quote. A live preview updates in real time as you make changes. Styling uses CSS custom properties — no bloated override rules.
Modern Vue 3 Admin Panel The entire admin interface is a single-page application built with Vue 3, featuring sidebar navigation, breadcrumbs, a revenue chart dashboard, dark mode with system theme detection, and a responsive layout that works on desktop and mobile.
WordPress Multisite Compatible Activate network-wide on WordPress Multisite — each site gets its own isolated tables, supporter records, and plugin settings.
Guided Quick Setup Wizard A 5-step onboarding wizard (Welcome → Profile → Form → Payment → Launch) gets you from zero to accepting donations in under two minutes. Includes Stripe API key verification and PayPal credentials setup.
Test Mode & Safe Data Reset Switch between Stripe test mode and live mode without changing your configuration. A “Delete all test data” button removes test transactions, supporters, and subscriptions in one click so your dashboard stays clean.
Compare: Buy Me Coffee vs. Alternatives
Buy Me Coffee is built for direct, self-hosted donations instead of routing supporters through an external platform.
- Commission: Buy Me Coffee takes 0%. Official Buy Me a Coffee takes a platform fee. GiveWP Free takes 0%. Ko-fi may charge platform fees for some features.
- Payment routing: Buy Me Coffee sends payments directly to your Stripe or PayPal account. Official Buy Me a Coffee routes payments through its platform. GiveWP routes payments directly. Ko-fi routes payments through Ko-fi.
- Recurring subscriptions: Buy Me Coffee includes Stripe subscriptions free. Official Buy Me a Coffee requires a paid plan. GiveWP requires a paid addon. Ko-fi subscriptions stay on Ko-fi.
- Admin refunds: Buy Me Coffee supports Stripe and PayPal refunds from WordPress. The compared free alternatives do not include the same built-in WordPress refund workflow.
- Activity logging: Buy Me Coffee includes a full payment, refund, subscription, webhook, and email event log.
- Supporter wall: Buy Me Coffee includes a built-in
[buymecoffee_supporters]shortcode. - Admin UI: Buy Me Coffee uses a modern Vue-powered WordPress admin screen with dark mode.
- Data storage: Buy Me Coffee stores supporter and payment records on your WordPress site.
- Price: Buy Me Coffee is free forever with no plugin commission.
Get Started in 2 Minutes
- Install and activate the plugin from the WordPress plugin directory
- Run the Quick Setup wizard (Dashboard → Buy Me Coffee → Quick Setup)
- Connect your Stripe or PayPal account in Settings
- Add
[buymecoffee_button]to any post, page, or widget area - Start receiving donations directly to your account — zero commission