(Micro)donations With Flattr Now Available

Continuing with the theme introduced in Improving Donation Visibility, I have signed up to Flattr, and will be offering it as a donation option alongside PayPal.

The Problem with PayPal #

In one sentence: the payment page looks rough, and the process is counter intuitive.

The page does give all the necessary bits for making a payment, but it’s almost like having to assemble a jigsaw, and everything important is really tiny.

1. If I have an account, which link do I press?
2. Do I log in before or after specifying an amount?
3. What about if I don’t have an account, where do I click for that?

These questions should even come up, but that’s what we ran into when my mum heard I had a donation option and she wanted to check it out. She probably would have given up if I weren’t there, and if your nearest and dearest aren’t going to bother, few others will.

Still, for making small payments internationally or outside the United States, PayPal doesn’t have much serious competition.

Why Flattr? #

It’s a relatively popular platform for microdonations. If you’re someone who wants to give money to lots of different individuals or organisations on a regular basis without going over budget, Flattr looks like a very attractive option. You basically put some money in a bucket, give that bucket to Flattr, and they’ll divide it up between all the people who you mark as wanting to donate to that month (which they call “Flattring” them).

Unfortunately, things are a little less rosy for people who want to get money out of the deal. Flattr claim a flat 10% of everything you get (which is already more than PayPal), and the rest gets put in your Flattr bucket. If you want it in your bank account, there are additional transfer fees.

Still, Flattr does give that extra option for people who prefer it to PayPal, so I’ve added it as an option to the site, and it’ll get added to LOOT too.

There is also some sort of system they have with GitHub, where if you are a Flattr user and you star a repository of mine on GitHub, that will mark me as a Flattr recipient for that month. It probably won’t for LOOT’s repositories though, because they’re “owned” by an organisation account.

Other Donation Options #

I also considered Gratipay (formerly Gittip), but it’s currently USA-only unless I want to practice my showjumping. Which is unfortunate, because it looks a lot more attractive as a service than Flattr.

In addition to PayPal and Flattr, I will also soon be providing the option to donate Bitcoin, but that’ll be the subject of another post.