Newspack’s Donate Block can be used to manually place a donation block on any post or page on your site. The block uses Newspack’s streamlined modal checkout, to help readers complete their transactions quickly and easily.

Screenshot of a donation block on the front end

Using the Newspack Donate Block

Before using the Newspack Donate Block, you will need to complete the Reader Revenue Wizard setup.

Once that’s complete, you can add a Newspack Donate Block by following these steps.

  1. Edit the post or page where you would like to add the block.
  2. Open the block inserter and search for Donate, or scroll down to the Newspack section of the drop-down menu and select Donate.
  1. This will add the Donate Block to your editor with its default configuration.
  2. Select Update or Publish to save your changes.

Style and layout options

The Styles panel lets you choose between three different visual treatments. These options differ only in visual appearance, not in functionality:

The Layout panel lets you choose between two different block layouts. The Frequency layout (default) presents donation options by frequency of donation: One-Time, Monthly, or Annual. The Tiers layout presents preset recurring donation options in a visual treatment that emphasizes the amount of the donation. This layout has different text customization options than the Frequency layout.

Configuring the block manually

Out of the box, the block will use the default settings from Dashboard > Newspack > Reader Revenue, but you can configure an individual block manually once it’s been added to the page by following these steps:

  1. Select the block in the editor:
  1. In the right-hand Settings panel, select Block tab at the top. If the panel is not visible in the editor, it can be opened by selecting the sidebar icon at upper right, to reveal the following options.
  1. You have the option to toggle on Configure manually and change the suggest amounts for each of the tiers. These will automatically be multiplied by 12 for the Annual and One-Time tabs. You can also switch whether the block will display tiered pricing. If you turn on the option to Configure manually on a block, it will no longer be affected by the global defaults you set under your Reader Revenue settings.
  1. Under Default Tab, you can change the default tab on the block from “Monthly” to one of the other tab options, “One-time” or “Annually.”
  1. Under Campaigns, if you have a Campaign ID provided to you by a third party (such as News Revenue Hub), it can be entered here.
  1. Once you’ve finished editing the block, select Update or Publish to save your changes.

Covering transaction fees

Readers can opt into covering transaction fees for donations at the point of checkout. In the Newspack > Reader Revenue > Payment Methods > Additional Settings, you’ll see options for “Transaction fees”:

These options let you configure how much extra to add to the transaction’s total. The default values are set to Stripe’s standard 2.9% + 30¢ fee.

When prompted to enter payment details during a donation transaction, the reader is presented with the option to cover the transaction fees. If they opt in, the total amount of the transaction will be increased by the configured amount. To make that box appear, you must enter a Custom Message, such as the one shown here:

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