How it works

Your plan

Your plan is your recurring settings: how much, how often, and how you pay. Give a percentage of your take-home pay (you tell us the paycheck amount; we never see your payroll) or a flat amount per payday. Pick the schedule that matches your paychecks:

• Every week (52 gifts a year)
• Every two weeks (26 gifts a year)
• Twice a month (15th and last day) (24 gifts a year)
• Once a month (12 gifts a year)

Tell us your next payday and we line up every charge after it. Edit the plan any time; changes apply from the next payday.

Allocations

Your allocation is how the gift is split between your teachers, in percentages that must total 100%. Two teachers at 50/50, three at 50/30/20, one at 100%: your call, and you can change it whenever you like.

Each allocation can carry a note, delivered to the teacher with every gift. You can also give anonymously; the teacher sees the gift and the note but not your name.

Payday collection

On each scheduled payday Stripe charges the payment method on your plan. You can pay with a card or a US bank account. Bank accounts carry lower processing fees; bank (ACH) payments take a few business days to settle, so teachers receive those gifts a little later than card gifts.

If a charge fails we email you, try again, and pause the plan after repeated failures so nobody is left guessing. Resume whenever you are ready.

Fees

Two things come out of a gift. Payment processing is Stripe's charge for moving the money: about 2.9% + $0.30 for cards, or about 0.8% capped at $5.00 for bank accounts. The PayMyTeacher fee is a flat 1% of the gift. There is nothing else, and teachers pay nothing to receive their share.

By default you cover the processing fee, so the whole gift (minus our 1%) reaches your teachers. Turn that off and processing comes out of the gift instead. Here is a $50 card gift both ways:

If a teacher has not claimed their profile

Plenty of teachers are added by former students before they have heard of us. Gifts for an unclaimed teacher are still collected on schedule and held for them. If you gave us an email address we invite them to claim the profile, and remind them while gifts are waiting. The moment they are verified and connect a bank account, everything held is paid out.

If a teacher never claims their profile, held gifts do not vanish. After 180 days you can reassign them to another teacher from your dashboard, and you can stop new gifts to that teacher at any time by changing your allocation.

Pausing and cancelling

Pause your plan for a month or a year and nothing is charged until you resume. Cancel and it stops for good; gifts already delivered stay with your teachers. There is no lock-in and no fee to leave.

One-time gifts

Not ready for a recurring plan, or want to mark a birthday or a retirement? Every teacher's profile has a Give a one-time gift button. Pick an amount, add a note, and pay through Stripe Checkout. Same fees, same delivery, no plan required.

Receipts

Every successful gift produces an emailed receipt showing the gift, the fees, and how it was split. Your full history, including what is still held for unclaimed teachers, lives on your dashboard. Gifts are personal gifts to individuals, not charitable donations, so they are not tax-deductible.