Accepting donations: practical guide for gaming businesses

Today, not only charities and NGOs accept donations online. In the times of influencers, blogging, and esports, online donations have become a way of making a living for multiple emerging occupations, including professional gamers.

Gaming is a fast-growing and promising market now. The global video game market generated approximately $197 billion in 2025 — a 7.5% increase year-on-year, with mobile gaming alone accounting for $108 billion. Newzoo projects⁠ the market will reach $206.5 billion by 2028, with continued momentum from console and PC narrowing the gap with mobile. The latest online fundraising trends in the industry are subscription services and in-game sales, with the latter driven by a frenzy around free-to-play games like Fortnite or League of Legends.

Moreover, professionally playing video games can also be a lucrative field of activity. The global esports market reached approximately $4.78 billion in revenue in 2025, with projected annual growth of around 5% through 2029. The United States leads as the largest single market at $1.24 billion, followed by China, Germany, South Korea, and the UK. These sums are the total of sponsorships, advertising, media rights, publisher fees, merchandise, tickets, streaming, and, of course, online donations, all of which can make a real difference for gaming communities.

This article will help you figure out what’s the best way to accept donations online for your gaming business and what the options are. We’ve also prepared some online fundraising tips that might nudge you to uncover new revenue streams aside from collecting donations. Let’s get started!

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3 fundraising tools for gaming businesses to accept donations with

Here is how you can find the best way to accept donations and get the ball rolling:

1. Stream on Twitch

On this platform, the way to accept donations online for streamers is its built-in currency called Bits. Viewers purchase Bits with real money and send them to a streamer using the cheer command in the chat room. Twitch also lets you collect recurring support through channel subscriptions, with three tiers running $5.99, $9.99, and $24.99 per month. To make subscribing worthwhile, you'll want a clear set of perks — exclusive emotes, subscriber-only chat, badges, and access to upcoming streams or donation events.

Keep in mind that the two revenue streams pay out differently. For Bits, streamers earn a fixed $0.01 per Bit cheered, regardless of what the viewer paid to buy them. For subscriptions, the standard revenue split is 50/50, though streamers who hit certain performance thresholds in Twitch's Partner Plus program can earn 70% of net subscription revenue for up to 12 months, capped at $100K in annual earnings.

Another option for making money on Twitch is connecting a third-party fundraising tool’s payment button to your profile.

Building a community on Twitch is key — invite your viewers to join and become part of the excitement. Both streamers and viewers are often excited for upcoming events, making the atmosphere around streaming and donations highly engaging.

2. Start a YouTube channel

While advertising and sponsorships still drive most income for top YouTube gamers, the platform now offers a full set of native monetisation tools that are far more effective than pasting a third-party payment link in your description. Once you join the YouTube Partner Program — accessible from 500 subscribers under the expanded entry tier — you can switch on:

• Super Chat and Super Stickers — viewers pay to pin highlighted messages or animated stickers in your live stream chat. Useful during gaming streams where chat moves fast and supporters want to stand out.
• Super Thanks — a one-off tip viewers can send on any uploaded video or Short, paired with a highlighted comment. The closest equivalent to a traditional donation.
• Channel memberships — recurring monthly payments in exchange for perks like custom badges, emojis, exclusive videos, or members-only live streams. Tiered pricing, set by you.
• YouTube Shopping — connect a merch store directly to your channel, or tag affiliated products inside videos.

These are baked into the viewing experience, which means no off-platform friction for the viewer — they pay in two clicks without leaving the video. If you haven't hit the YPP threshold yet, third-party tipping links (PayPal, Ko-fi, Streamlabs) are still a valid fallback, but they should be a starting point, not the long-term setup.

3. Consider Patreon

This service is all about building a community of your fans and supporters who seek more content from you and are willing to pay you for it. On Patreon, you can create a bunch of one-time and subscription offerings for your supporters, or even encourage them to fundraise for special projects or causes. Moreover, you can even make streams available only to your community. This way, you’ll earn money, highlight the total amount raised through supporter contributions, and provide your biggest fans with the exclusive content and rewards they receive.

How to accept donations online independently

The abovementioned options are likely to fulfil the needs of solo gamers and streamers who're just starting to explore donations as a source of income or don't consider gaming a single source of income. But what if you've managed to build a pretty large esports organisation, having a range of activities and gathering many talented gamers? What if your gaming business has many ambassadors and fans and needs a stable, scalable and reliable way to accept payments?

In this case, you might want to accept donations online independently from other platforms.

Adding checkout to your website

If you have your own website with enviable traffic, it’s the best scenario. You can partner with a payment provider or two and add a “Donate” button to your site. Here are a few tips:

• Make sure the provider allows you to accept international payments. The more payment methods it offers, the better, but it's usually up to you which ones to display on your payment page. The most sophisticated selection would generally include credit cards and a couple of geo-targeted payment options — for instance, Klarna or Venmo. To make a wise choice, examine where most of your target audience is located. Don't forget about mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. Digital wallets now represent 53% of global e-commerce transaction value as of 2024, and the shift is even more pronounced in gaming-heavy emerging regions — in Southeast Asia and Latin America, mobile wallets account for over 40% of in-game transaction value in 2025. Supporting them is no longer optional for any gaming business operating internationally.
• There are multiple ways to integrate checkout into your website.
• Remember that the checkout experience should be flawless so that users want to return and make a new donation. But most importantly, they should be able to finalise the payment without any technical glitches. It is crucial for donations, as the odds that a user will return and retry the payment after a failed first attempt are very low. To ensure smooth operations and get more donations, working with a couple of payment providers is better. But this advice only applies if your gaming business can boast a significant cash flow. In other cases, the costs probably won't pay off.
• It is better to add support for both one-time and recurring donation options. Some people may prefer to support you just once, while others might want to do it regularly. Your online fundraising income would depend on how you handle the expectations of both categories.
• Choose the provider offering designed and customised checkout. It creates a consistent experience, develops brand awareness and increases trust, as the payment page in your design looks familiar and unquestionable. It definitely boosts your online fundraising.

Accepting donations without a website

If you don't have a website, or you do but the traffic is low, you can still accept donations without depending on gaming or streaming platforms and their strict conditions. Reach out to a gaming payment gateway⁠ offering the ability to create payment links. You can place your link wherever you want, for example, on social media, gaming forums and chats, your videos' descriptions, etc. After clicking on it, the user will be redirected to a payment page hosted by the provider. Voila!

How to raise money on gaming besides donations

Now that you’re a gaming donations and online fundraising guru, here are seven other monetisation ideas for your consideration:

1. Create esports events online or locally. You can sell tickets and charge players for participation.
2. If you have a team of gamers, participate in tournaments. Consequently, you can not only win the prize but also benefit from a share of media rights.
3. Having a famous brand, you can create and sell merchandise to your fans. Similarly, you can produce and sell exclusive content.
4. Set a goal and organise a crowdfunding campaign.
5. If you have many viewers on streaming platforms, use advertising.
6. Partner companies and brands. To illustrate, many large enterprises are seeking influencers in various industries, including gaming, and are ready to pay generously for promoting their products.
7. Provide coaching services. You can make money by teaching others to play if you or your teammates master one or multiple games.

How Corefy can help gaming businesses handle payments

Whichever way of making money on gaming you choose, we have the right solution for any case. We provide a technical infrastructure that equips you with limitless payment capabilities, including, but not limited to:

• Dozens of established connections with payment providers.

• The ability to connect payment methods in a few clicks.

• Numerous tools and services that make working with multiple PSPs a piece of cake.

• Sophisticated checkout built with the consumer in mind.

• Handy and versatile payment links.

• Proven expertise and assistance in organising your payment processes.

• Highly configurable and customisable platform.