Questions about Checkout

Tip: Register for a Checkout for Luminate Online workshop for a live walk through of these changes.

The new checkout experience is a combination of new merchant account settings and new form data elements that together provide a dynamic, secure, and PCI v4-compliant payment transaction for your donation forms. These updates require a Blackbaud Payment Services account to process and disburse credit and debit card payments.

In addition to credit and debit card, direct debit, and offline payments, the new experience also includes Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and Venmo digital wallets. We continue to support sustaining (recurring) payments, designated giving, giving levels, tributes, and premium fraud management.

You can use your current Blackbaud Payment Services and Blackbaud Merchant Services accounts. If you need to create accounts, see Getting Started with Blackbaud Merchant Services. Whether you are using new or existing accounts, you need to configure Payment Capabilities in Luminate Online.

Checkout is offered in two versions, modal and embedded. Checkout modal is an iFrame window that surfaces when the supporter is ready to make a payment. Checkout embedded is integrated into your form design.

Warning: Luminate Online will no longer support direct credit and debit card payment processing through Payflow Pro, iATS, and CyberSource payment gateways after January 31, 2025. See End of Support date for directly-connected payment gateways through Luminate Online.

Both the Checkout modal and Checkout embedded elements are available now for you to add to your donation forms.

Designing and implementing new options and improvements will continue even after March 2025.

Note: All active forms must use the new checkout experience for transactions when the new PCI v4 standards take effect in March 2025.

• Centrally Managed Payment Methods: Every payment type you accept is available under one merchant account. A single account for direct debit, credit and debit cards, and digital wallets makes management easy and efficient.

• Centrally Managed Payment Processing: End-to-end donation flow from checkout to disbursement is available when using Blackbaud Merchant Services merchant accounts with the new checkout experience.

• More Payment Options: Checkout supports a wide range of payment methods, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, direct debit, and credit and debit cards.

  Note: Checkout currently supports single transactions with PayPal. Support for recurring PayPal transactions is coming soon. Currently, Venmo only supports USD and single transaction processing.

• Improved Form Design: Forms are responsive and mobile-first. Get a modern and intuitive interface with either the embedded or modal checkout data element.

• No Downtime: Collect more with zero downtime.

• Optimized Payment Capture: More payment methods equal more choice, which translates to higher conversion rates raising your revenue. Blackbaud continually runs A/B tests to improve these conversion rates and optimize the donor experience.

• Reduced Processing Fees: Donor Cover and Complete Cover are coming soon to the new checkout experience!

• Secure By Design: Checkout adheres to the highest standards of payment security, being fully PCI-compliant. This ensures that all payment transactions processed meet rigorous security protocols, including encryption, tokenization, and secure data handling practices, and premium fraud management.