What to Ask Any NFC Tap-to-Give Vendor Before You Buy

1. Do They Publish Real Pricing, or Do You Have to Book a Call?

A vendor with nothing to hide puts the price on the page. Some NFC sellers make you schedule a meeting before they will tell you a per-plate cost, even for a simple order of 100 plates. That is a sales process built around a live pitch, not a shopping experience.

Picture a treasurer at a Tuesday finance-committee meeting, trying to compare two vendors for next quarter's budget line. One has a pricing table she can screenshot into the minutes. The other requires her to schedule a call, sit through a pitch, and hope the number that comes out of it matches what a similar church down the road actually paid. The published price wins the committee every time, because it is the only one she can act on without another meeting.

Tap.Giving publishes exact per-plate pricing on a public page: $5.00 each for 100 to 199 plates, $4.00 each for 200 to 399, and $3.50 each at 400 or more, with free shipping. There is no call required to find out what your order would cost.

2. Is "No Monthly Fee" Actually Zero?

Ask specifically whether anything recurring shows up after the hardware is paid for. Some NFC hardware sellers advertise a one-time purchase and then bill an annual fee for a dashboard, an analytics tier, or a "premium" redirect feature. That is not dishonest, but it is not zero either, and a church that only reads the headline price finds the second bill in year two.

Tap.Giving's plates are a genuine one-time hardware cost: no monthly fee, no setup fee, and no transaction fee from us on any gift. The optional Smart Redirect Dashboard, which lets you update where a plate points without reprinting it, is free on orders of 400 or more plates and $50 a year below that, and the price is stated at the point you choose it, not buried after checkout.

3. Are Their Results Sourced, or Just Repeated?

A specific, attributed result is worth reading. An unattributed multiplier is marketing copy. If a vendor's site says giving "increased 300%" or plates deliver "10x" more donations, ask which church that number came from, over what time period, and compared to what baseline. A number that appears on every page of a vendor's site, with no church named and no link to the source, has usually been repeated so many times nobody can trace it back to a real measurement anymore.

We hold ourselves to the same test. When we cannot source a number, we do not publish it, including on our own site: an unverifiable multiplier was removed from our own marketing copy this month for exactly this reason. If a claim about Tap.Giving ever reads like the kind of number this section warns against, tell us and we will fix it.

4. Are You Buying Hardware, or a Platform?

Ask whether the plate works with the giving platform you already have, or only with the vendor's own. Some tap-to-give products are really a giving platform with a plate attached, which means switching platforms later means throwing away the hardware too.

Tap.Giving is hardware, not a payment processor. A plate opens whatever giving page you point it to, whether that is Tithely, Pushpay, Givelify, or anything else your church already uses. If you ever change platforms, the plates keep working: you just update where they point.

5. What Happens When a Plate Fails?

Ask what the guarantee actually covers, and get it in writing before you order. An NFC chip is a simple, durable part, but mounting hardware on pews or the backs of chairs for years means something eventually gets scuffed, pried at, or replaced during a remodel. A vendor's warranty terms tell you what happens next.

Tap.Giving orders carry a 30-day money-back guarantee, and support is a phone call or email to the person who built the product, not a ticket queue.

6. The Checklist at a Glance

Print this, or paste it into an email to any vendor you are evaluating. A good answer is specific; a vague one is itself an answer.

Frequently Asked Questions