You can use Patchwork to collectively organise and fund any gift, event or experience by inviting your friends and family to contribute. As long as it’s legal and doesn't breach our Terms and Conditions, you can patchwork away to your heart’s desire.
Patchwork don't hold your funds. Instead contributions from friends go directly to your bank account via our payment partner Stripe.
There are no limits to the amount you can collect with Patchwork or Stripe. For users with legacy PayPal accounts: PayPal may restrict you to £1,700 if you don’t lift the limits that are automatically placed on your account. Please check these are lifted before publishing your patchwork.
We charge an upfront fee to use our service. You can either pay a one off fee of £50 to host one patchwork page, or sign up for a £6 monthly subscription for unlimited use. Don't forget, we give 50% of the fee direct to environmental charities so you get to organise and fund amazing gifts and experiences and help to save the planet at the same time. It's a total win.
Apart from the price (£6 per month or £50 paid once) the monthly subscription allows you to have unlimited patchwork pages, whereas the upfront fee is for just one patchwork.
We give 50% of the fee you pay direct to one of three charities. When you sign up to our service you choose either Friends of the Earth, Survival International or Client Earth. Whether you choose the upfront fee or a monthly subscription, 50% of the fee is donated immediately to your chosen charity.
UPDATE: 01 October 2021: PATCHWORK NO LONGER SUPPORTS PAYPAL
Our exclusive payment partner is Stripe. Any reference to PayPal as a payment partner refers to legacy accounts. It is no longer possible to attach a PayPal account to your patchwork page. Please contact us if you have any questions.
Stripe allows friends to pay with a card straight into your Stripe account (which can then go directly into your bank account depending on how you’ve set up your Stripe account). Stripe charge 1.4% commission (or 2.9% if paying with a non European card) and 20p per transaction.
PayPal allows your friends to contribute directly into your PayPal account from their PayPal account. Or by checking out as a 'guest' with a debit or credit card. PayPal charge 2.9% commission and 30p per transaction.
Our payment partner Stripe allows you to collect cash gifts simply and securely from anywhere in the world. Your friends don't need to have a Stripe account to checkout. They can simply pay by credit or debit card in the usual way.
Yes, there are two ways you can do this. If it’s a surprise gift you’re organising, you can register with your own details and use your own Stripe account. Then explain to your friends that you are collecting funds on someone else’s behalf. Once your patchwork has beed funded, you can send a 'gift' version of the patchwork to your lucky friend and they'll be able to read the messages and see what you're treating them to.
However, if you want funds to go directly to your friend’s account, they will need to register their details first. You can then help them create their patchwork and share it with others on their behalf. In this instance, your friend will receive all cash gifts direct.
Absolutely, but Patchwork is not about equity fundraising from strangers. We recommend well established and respected crowdfunding platforms, like Seedrs, for people looking to raise serious funds, allocate shares and have all the legals tied up correctly.
We're here to do what we do best - to help friends, families, communities and networks to come together to celebrate and support each other by primarily gifting their cash, time and skills.
Our new business showers can help you raise some money (in the form of a cash gift) but also ask friends and family to donate spare office furniture, a surplus printer or to bake some cookies for your tea break.
Hooray. Yes, you can. Just set your currency when you create your patchwork. Stripe will make any necessary currency conversions for you. (Please check Stripe for their exchange rates and fees).
You can select any one of the following currencies to collect funds in to your patchwork: GBP, USD, EUR, CZK, DKK, HUF, PLN, SEK, AUD, CAD, HKD, JPY, MXN, NZD, NOK, PHP, SGD, CHF, TWD.
If you've paid an upfront fee of £50 you can have one patchwork.
If you're on a subscription model, you can have 2 live patchworks collecting funds at any one time.*
For draft patchworks
You can create as many draft patchworks as you like and save them in ‘My Account’ until you’re ready to publish them.
*We have this restriction in place to avoid any money laundering or other dodgy dealings. However, if you need more, just get in touch. When you've cleared some KYC requirements we can lift restrictions.
We have 100s of gorgeous readymade templates pre-filled with beautiful images ready for you to personalise. However, if you're feeling creative and you want to make your own patchwork from scratch, you can use your own images, those in our gallery or any copyright free images you can find online.
Yes absolutely. You can edit your patchwork, including all images, text and quantities anytime.
Patchworks collecting funds
Patchworks collecting funds have a limit of 6 months from when the first contribution is made. If you anticipate you will need longer than 6 months please contact us and we can arrange an extension.
Make and Do patchworks
Any patchworks that do not collect funds can be open for 12 months. After that, they will automatically close.
Your patchwork has a unique URL that you can send to friends and family. Just copy and paste the link to share it on social media, in an email or on printed invites.
Friends will be able to find your patchwork on our site but it won’t appear in a Google search and we won’t publicise or promote your patchwork without your permission.
There are no restrictions to the amount of people who can contribute. However, if you wish, you can limit contributions within your patchwork. For instance, if you only want one person to DJ at your wedding, you can set the limit to 1. Or if you want 5 people to make desserts, you can set the limit to 5. Equally, if you only want 4 massages on your holiday, you can set the limit to 4. But we won’t judge if you ask for a massage every day of your holiday.
Yes they can. The currency is set by you and you can receive funds from all over the world. If you are using PayPal you will need to check your own personal currency settings to ensure you can receive contributions in any currencies you are expecting.
We do monitor overseas transactions as part of our anti money laundering processes but genuine transactions will be allowed.
There are no restrictions on how much money you can collect using Patchwork but the maximum amount one person can spend on one transaction is £1300.
In the UK there are some allowances for gifting money. There’s a standard annual exemption of £3000 for the total value of all the gifts you can give in a year. However there’s an additional allowance for wedding gifts up to £1000 per person, or £2500 for a grandchild and £5000 for a great-grandchild.
However, we are definitely not tax experts and can not advise on your personal circumstances - we recommend that you consult your personal tax or accounting professional to check any restrictions in your country.
You can access, edit and manage all of your patchworks in ‘My Patchworks’. From here, it’s easy to invite people to view your patchwork, check out who has contributed what, read messages from friends and send thanks.
They can visit patchworkit.com and search for it with ‘Find a friend’s patchwork’.
Closing a patchwork won't cancel your monthly subscription or close your account. The reason for this is that the subscription service allows you to create multiple patchworks, and many people keep their subscription active to use Patchwork for birthdays, baby showers, or other occasions. So by closing one patchwork, we don't automatically close your account or cancel your subscription.
If you want to cancel your subscription you can do this straight away by logging in to your Patchwork account and going to the billing information section.
You can call us on +44 7547 439 805, chat to us via our website, or email hello@patchworkit.com
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