Ignition Contributions
Ignition Contributions lets a backer add a little extra to their pledge on their own initiative. At checkout they can choose to cover the platform commission the creator would otherwise absorb, cover the payment processing cost, or add a tip — each one opt-in, and each one shown before they authorise the payment.
Nothing is ever added without the backer’s say-so. The campaign still receives the pledge; anything the backer chooses on top of it goes where the wording says it goes, and never quietly to the campaign.
What you need
Section titled “What you need”| Requirement | Why |
|---|---|
| Ignition Crowdfunding 0.23.0 or later | The checkout and breakdown machinery the add-on plugs into. Below that version the add-on does not start at all, and says which plugin to update. |
| An online payment method | All three options ride on an online payment. An offline pledge — cash, cheque, bank transfer — never carries one. |
| A pledge in the site’s own currency | A pledge taken in any other currency carries no voluntary addition in this release. |
Each of the three options then has its own requirement on top of that. They are not interchangeable, and on most sites some of them will be unavailable — the settings screen tells you which, and why.
| Option | Also needs |
|---|---|
| Cover the processing fee | A processing rate you enter yourself — a percentage, a per-transaction fee, or both. Nothing else: you supply the figures, so this option works on a single-owner site as well as a platform. |
| Add a tip | Pledges routed to each creator rather than collected by you, and a gateway that splits the payment as it is taken. In practice that means Platform Mode with Who Receives Pledges set to Each creator, plus a split-capable gateway such as Ignition PayPal Gateway. |
| Cover the platform commission | Everything the tip needs, plus Ignition Platform Fees 0.3.0 or later actually charging a commission on the pledge. |
The reason the tip and the commission cover need pledges routed to creators is the same in both cases: they are the platform’s money, and the platform only gets its own share when a payment is split as it is taken. Where you collect every pledge yourself there is no split — a tip would land in the same place as the pledge, and there is no commission coming out of it for a backer to cover.
The three voluntary options
Section titled “The three voluntary options”At checkout a backer can pick from up to three separate, opt-in choices on top of the pledge:
- Cover the platform fee — the backer pays the platform’s commission on top of their pledge, so it is not taken out of what the creator receives.
- Cover the processing fee — the backer pays what the payment gateway charges to process the transaction. The amount is worked out on the whole charge, including the cover itself, so the fee on the larger total is still covered.
- Add a tip — a percentage of the pledge, chosen from presets you configure, that goes to your site rather than to the campaign.
Each option pays only the one fee it names. Covering the platform commission does not also cover payment processing, and neither one on its own means the whole pledge reaches the campaign.
A backer can take all three, one, or none. Choose nothing and they pay exactly their pledge.
Configuring the options
Section titled “Configuring the options”Go to Ignition → Settings → Add-ons → Contributions. Administrators and operators can both change every setting on this screen. The screen opens with a line reminding you that each option is off until you turn it on, then gives each option its own section.
Cover the Platform Fee
Section titled “Cover the Platform Fee”| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Cover Commission | Show this option on the checkout page. |
| Default state | Pre-select it for backers. They can still clear it. |
| Backer wording | The label the backer sees, up to 80 characters. Leave it blank for the shipped wording, “Cover the platform fee”. |
Add a Tip
Section titled “Add a Tip”| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tip | Show this option on the checkout page. |
| Tip presets | The percentages a backer picks from. Whole numbers, up to four of them. |
| Default tip | Which preset, if any, is pre-selected. No tip is the shipped default, and a preset you remove can never stay selected here. |
| Backer wording | Up to 80 characters. Blank gives the shipped wording, “Add a tip for [your site’s name]”. |
Cover the Processing Fee
Section titled “Cover the Processing Fee”| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Cover Processing | Show this option on the checkout page. |
| Default state | Pre-select it for backers. |
| Backer wording | Up to 80 characters. Blank gives the shipped wording, “Cover the processing fee”. |
| Processing rate | A percentage plus a fixed amount per transaction. |
The add-on never asks your gateway what it charges — you copy the percentage and the per-transaction fee from your gateway’s own pricing page. Set them below what your gateway actually takes and campaigns will come up short. A rate of 20% or more is refused when you save, and your previously saved rate and fee are kept.
The wording you write, and the wording you cannot remove
Section titled “The wording you write, and the wording you cannot remove”Whatever you type in a Backer wording field is what the backer sees, word for word. The add-on adds nothing to it.
What it does add, once, for the whole panel, is the line “Everything here is optional.” — directly under the panel heading, on every checkout that offers anything. No setting removes it, so a backer is never shown a pre-selected charge without being told it is a choice.
When an option cannot reach backers
Section titled “When an option cannot reach backers”Each section warns you on its own when its option cannot work on this site, so you find out on the settings screen rather than from a backer. The warning opens with “Backers will not see this option.”, says which condition is in the way, and links to the screen that would fix it where one exists. Those links are shown to administrators only, because only administrators can change the screens they point to; an operator sees the same warning without them.
| What it says | What to do |
|---|---|
| This site has no online payment method enabled, and backers are never offered this on an offline payment. | For administrators, the warning links straight to the Payments tab. See Payments. |
| Pledges on this site go to you, not to each creator, so a tip would land in the same place as the pledge. | Shown on Add a Tip. Change Who Receives Pledges — for administrators, the warning links there when Platform Mode is installed. |
| Pledges on this site go to you, not to each creator, so no commission is taken as a payment is split, leaving nothing for a backer to cover. | Shown on Cover the Platform Fee, for the same reason. |
| Nothing on this site charges a platform commission. Install and set up the Platform Fees add-on to offer this. | See Ignition Platform Fees. |
| The Platform Fees add-on is older than 0.3.0, which charges no commission this add-on can see. Update it to offer this. | Update Platform Fees from the WordPress Plugins screen. |
A warned section is paused, not thrown away. Its controls go grey, and the warning ends with “Your settings are kept and start working again if this changes.” — saving the screen for some unrelated reason cannot switch a paused option off behind your back, and it comes back configured exactly as you left it.
The warning is site-wide. It answers “can this option work here at all”, never “will it work on this particular campaign” — a campaign whose creator has not connected a payment account is a separate matter the settings screen cannot see.
Changing who receives pledges
Section titled “Changing who receives pledges”Because the tip and the commission cover depend on pledges being routed to creators, the Who Receives Pledges setting in Platform Mode warns you before you switch it. It lists, by name, which Contributions options the other choice would turn off and why — in the same words this screen uses. Options you have switched off, and options already unavailable for some other reason, are left out, so the list is only what you would actually lose.
What a backer sees
Section titled “What a backer sees”At checkout
Section titled “At checkout”On the review step, under the amount and above the breakdown, a panel appears headed Add to your payment, with “Everything here is optional.” beneath it. It lists only the options that are switched on and available on the payment method the backer has chosen — the platform-fee cover first, then the processing cover, then the tip.
Each cover is a checkbox carrying your wording, with one line under it saying what that one control adds:
- “Adds [your site’s name]’s 5% platform fee to your payment, so the campaign does not pay it.”
- “Adds 3.49% + $0.49 for payment processing, worked out on the whole charge including this cover.”
The tip is a row of buttons — a No tip button and one per preset, each showing the percentage and what it comes to in money — under the line “Goes to [your site’s name], not the campaign.”
Everything on the page moves together as the backer changes their mind: the itemised breakdown below the panel, the total above it, and, on a checkout that offers a choice of payment method, a Total to be charged line under that chooser. Switching payment method swaps the panel for the options that method can offer and recalculates. Once the backer presses the button to pay, the figures freeze.
If the total is ever recalculated to something other than the figure the page was showing, the payment is refused rather than taken. The backer is told “We recalculated your total and it no longer matches the figure this page was showing. Nothing has been charged.” and sent back to the review step with their choices intact — no pledge, no charge, and no account created.
How the amounts are worked out
Section titled “How the amounts are worked out”- A tip is its percentage of the pledge.
- The platform fee cover is the whole commission for that pledge.
- The processing cover is calculated over the pledge plus anything else the backer added, and rounded up, so the gateway’s fee on that larger total is still fully covered.
If a campaign’s commission is so large it would swallow the pledge, the tip and the commission cover are both dropped rather than offered — the gateway would refuse the split.
On the receipt, in email, and on their pledge page
Section titled “On the receipt, in email, and on their pledge page”Once the payment goes through, the backer is told what they were actually charged, not just what they pledged, everywhere the figure appears:
- The on-site receipt reads “You pledged $100.00 to “Campaign”. You were charged $108.49 in total — the breakdown is below.“, with the itemised table under it.
- The payment received email reads “We received your payment of $108.49. $100.00 of that is your pledge to Campaign; the breakdown below shows the rest.”, and repeats the table.
- Their pledge detail page shows the same table in place of a single amount, so they can reconcile it against their card statement at any time.
Every one of those surfaces uses the same rows, the same labels and the same order — Platform fee covered, Processing fee covered, Tip for [your site’s name] — ending in a Total charged row.
What you see in wp-admin
Section titled “What you see in wp-admin”Open a pledge from Ignition → Pledges and the money statement shows two tables for each successful payment:
- Charged to backer — the same itemisation the backer saw, so the admin screen is not the one place with its own idea of what the charge was made of.
- Where it went — the same money split by destination. A backer’s tip appears here as a Tip (platform) line.
See Managing pledges for the rest of that page.
Refunds
Section titled “Refunds”A payment that carried a voluntary addition cannot be partially refunded from wp-admin. Ignition declines it — “This payment includes voluntary additions, so a partial refund cannot be attributed. Refund the payment in full.” — rather than guess which of the money was pledge and which was extra. Refund it in full instead. Pledges charged at exactly the pledge amount are unaffected and can still be partially refunded as normal.
A full refund returns everything the backer paid, additions included. The tip stops counting as your revenue at that point — you kept nothing, so nothing is deducted — and the Tip (platform) line on the pledge reads $0.00.
If a partial refund does reach a pledge that carried a tip — one issued in the gateway’s own dashboard and reconciled back, rather than through Ignition — this release still deducts the whole tip from that pledge’s net. That can leave the net below zero, and it is shown that way rather than rounded up to $0.00. See When a refund leaves you below zero for what a negative net means.
Related
Section titled “Related”- Ignition Platform Mode — the multi-creator setup, and the Who Receives Pledges routing the tip and commission cover depend on.
- Ignition Platform Fees — the platform commission a backer can voluntarily cover.
- PayPal Gateway — a gateway that splits payments as they are taken.
- Checkout — the review step the panel and the breakdown appear on.
- Pledge detail — the backer’s own record of the breakdown.
- Email notifications — the emails a backer receives.
- Managing pledges — the wp-admin pledge page and its money statement.
- Refunds — how refunds work across every surface.
- Payments — enabling an online payment method.