1.1% conversion lift

Referring to fees as ‘costs’ has no meaningful impact on conversion rates

Fundraising tool: Classy Studio
Test period: 08-29-2024 to 09-23-2024

Hypothesis:

Framing the request as ‘covering transaction costs’ rather than ‘covering transaction fees’ will lead to higher donor conversion rates and an increase in the total amount of fees covered during checkout.

Test design:

Control

Toggle with ‘transaction fees’ language

Test

1.1% conversion lift

Toggle with ‘transaction costs’ language

Test results:

Name	Control	Challenger	Lift
Visitors	7266	7358	N/A
Overall donations	1244	1274	N/A
Fee coverage rate	70.8%	71.2%	0.6%

Test results did not reach statistical significance

Key learnings:

Our hypothesis was disproven: Donors showed no significant preference between covering ‘fees’ or ‘costs’ when supporting the causes they care about. In every comparison, conversion rates, average gift sizes, and the likelihood of donors opting to cover fees remained consistent regardless of the terminology used. This suggests that reframing fees as ‘costs’ does not significantly impact donor behavior in these areas.

So what: The current ‘fees’ language will remain in use, as conversion and fee coverage showed no difference between terms.