Terms
What you agree to when you round up with RealChange, in the order it happens.
LAST UPDATED 7 OCTOBER 2026
01RealChange is software, not a charity
We calculate your round-ups and tell the charity what to charge. We hold no banking, processing or tax-exempt status of our own. Your donation is a gift to the charity you picked, not to us.
02The charity charges your card
The charity you pick is the merchant of record. It holds the Stripe account, its name appears on your statement, and the money goes from your card into its account. We never hold your money, so there is no balance of yours sitting with us between the charge and the donation.
Every organization you can choose on our tzedakahs page is a registered 501(c)(3), and that page shows its name and EIN. The one you pick is the merchant on your charge, and its EIN is on your receipt. Switch to a different organization and the one you switch to becomes the merchant on your next charge.
03What you authorize when you save a card
Saving a card authorizes the charity to charge it without you present, on this schedule:
How much: the total of your round-ups since the last charge, plus any processing you have chosen to cover. Each round-up is the difference between a purchase and the next whole dollar, so a $1.89 coffee accrues 11 cents. The amount is different every time and you can see it building on your dashboard before it is charged.
Fees: RealChange takes nothing. The only deduction is the card processing fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents, which goes to the card processor and not to us, and you can choose to cover it so the tzedakah receives the whole round-up. The box is unticked when you save your first card, so the fee comes out of your gift unless you tick it, and you can change that there or on your dashboard at any time. Replace a card and we keep whatever you last chose, so fixing a declined card never changes what you are charged. A change applies from your next charge: we retry a charge that has already been attempted at the amount we recorded the first time. You can see the exact figure against your own round-ups on your dashboard before we charge anything.
How often: each time your round-ups reach $10. That can be more than once in a month, or not at all in a month where you spend less. Round-ups under $10 stay in your own bank account and carry forward. Never more than one charge at a time.
How to cap it: set a monthly limit from your dashboard and your round-ups stop for the month once they reach it. The limit caps what you round up in a month, not what any one charge can be: round-ups under $10 carry forward, so a single charge can cover more than one month and can be larger than your limit. Lowering a limit applies to round-ups from that point on. Ones already counted this month are still collected.
How to stop: pause from your dashboard, at any time, with no notice period and no fee. It takes effect immediately and stops the next charge. Your round-ups keep adding up while you are paused, and resuming collects what accumulated.
Under $10 nothing is charged and your change carries forward, however many months that takes. It stays in your own bank account until it is charged, so there is never a balance of yours sitting with anyone.
04What we round up, and what we skip
We round up settled card purchases on the account you link. We skip pending transactions, whole-dollar amounts, refunds, transfers, ATM withdrawals, fees, and anything dated before you signed up.
If a purchase you already rounded up gets refunded, we take that round-up back out of your current total. That total never goes below zero, so a refund larger than what you have accrued does not create a debt.
05If a charge fails
We try three times across five days. If all three fail we stop and email you the reason your bank gave, with a link to update the card. Your round-ups stay yours and nothing is charged again until you save a working card, which restarts the collection on the next run.
06Refunds and tax receipts
Your donation is a gift to the charity, so a refund is the charity's to give, not ours. Email leivi@collectivekindness.net and we will put you in touch with them. If a charge was wrong on our side, say so and we will fix it.
The charity issues the tax receipt, with its own EIN on it. We record what you gave and when. The EIN on your receipt is the one the charity had on file the day you gave.
07Your bank connection
The connection runs through Plaid and is read-only. We ask for transactions and nothing else. Nobody here sees your bank login, and we cannot move money in your bank account. Ask us to disconnect it and we end that access.
08What we ask of you
Use a card and bank account that are yours. Do not use RealChange to move money that is not yours to move. We can close an account that is being used that way, and we will say why when we do.
09What we do not promise
Plaid, Stripe and your bank can all be down, and a round-up can be late or missed as a result. We are not liable for a donation that a third party failed to process. If we calculate an amount wrong, we tell the charity, ask it to refund you, and stay on it until the money is back. We cannot issue that refund ourselves, because we never held the money.
10Changing these terms
If we change anything that affects what you are charged or how to stop it, we email you before it takes effect. The date at the top of this page is when these terms last changed.
Questions
Email leivi@collectivekindness.net and a person will answer. RealChange is a small operation, so that address is read by the people who built it.