Soapbox Engage Blog

Most one-time donors are never asked to become monthly donors. They give once, they get a thank-you email, and the relationship ends there, not because they wouldn't have said yes, but because nobody asked at the moment they were already engaged.

Recurring upsells fix that. A recurring upsell is a prompt shown to a donor immediately after they complete a one-time gift, inviting them to convert it into an ongoing monthly donation. Done well, it's one of the simplest, lowest-cost ways to grow a sustainer program, because it reaches donors at the exact moment they've already decided to give.

Below, we'll walk through how Soapbox Engage Recurring Upsell works, show a full setup demo, and cover fundraising best practices for growing recurring revenue, whether or not you're using our tools.

Why Recurring Gifts Matter More Than One-Time Gifts

A single one-time gift is a transaction. A monthly gift is a relationship, and it behaves completely differently in your budget. Recurring donors give more over the course of a year than one-time donors typically do, they're less sensitive to appeal timing since their gift is already scheduled, and they're far more likely to become long-term, loyal supporters because giving to your organization becomes a habit rather than a one-off decision.

Sustainer programs also make your revenue more predictable. Instead of trying to guess how a single appeal or event will perform, a growing base of monthly donors gives your finance and program teams a reliable floor to plan against. That's part of why we've written about the value of building predictable, diversified revenue streams as a core fundraising strategy heading into 2026.

The challenge is conversion. Most donors don't arrive at your donation page already planning to give monthly. They came to make a gift, often in response to a specific appeal, campaign, or event. Asking them to switch to recurring giving requires a deliberate ask, made at the right moment, without adding friction to the gift they're already making.

How Soapbox Engage Recurring Upsell Works

Soapbox Engage Recurring Upsell is a feature built into the Soapbox Engage Donations app that automatically prompts one-time donors to convert their gift into a monthly donation, right after they submit it.

Here's the sequence from the donor's side:

Watch: Feature Focus Demo

This short walkthrough from our team shows the donor-facing prompt and the full Administrator setup, from creating giving ranges to reviewing results in Transactions.

Soapbox Engage Feature Focus: Recurring Upsell

How to Set Up Recurring Upsells

Configuring Recurring Upsell takes place in two areas of the Soapbox Engage Administrator: defining your giving ranges, and enabling the feature on the Donation page where you want it to appear.

Step 1: Define your giving ranges

In the Soapbox Engage Administrator, open the Donations app, select Configuration, and open the Recurring Upsell tab. This is where you define the monthly amounts donors will be offered, based on the size of their one-time gift.

Click Add to create a new range. Each range requires three values: a minimum one-time donation amount, a maximum one-time donation amount, and the monthly amount you want to suggest to donors whose gift falls within that range.

For example, you might configure:

One-Time Gift Range	Suggested Monthly Amount
$50 – $99	$10 / month
$100 – $249	$20 / month

You can create as many ranges as you'd like to cover different giving levels, but ranges should not overlap. This lets the suggested monthly amount feel proportionate to what the donor already gave, rather than showing every donor the same flat offer regardless of gift size.

Step 2: Enable the prompt on your Donation page

Creating ranges is only half the setup. Next, open the Donation page where you want the prompt to appear, select the Payment tab, and scroll to the One-Time Payments section. Set Enable Recurring Upsell to Yes and save the page.

This setting is controlled separately for each Donation page, so you can choose exactly where the feature shows up, whether that's a general giving page or a specific campaign page.

Step 3: Review results in Transactions

Once the feature is live, you can review how it's performing from the Transactions area of the Administrator. Recurring upsell data shows whether the prompt was displayed and whether the donor converted, giving your team a way to measure results and adjust your giving ranges over time.

Best Practices for Growing Recurring Gifts

Whether or not you're using Soapbox Engage, these principles apply broadly to converting one-time donors into monthly supporters.

If you're building out a broader monthly giving strategy, our guide on getting your donor data ready for AI-powered fundraising covers how clean, well-organized giving history makes it easier to segment and personalize offers like these. And if recurring upsells are part of a larger push to diversify revenue, our post on fundraising strategies working in 2026 covers where recurring giving fits alongside events, auctions, and major gifts.

A recurring upsell won't convert every one-time donor into a sustainer. But it costs nothing to ask, doesn't put the original gift at risk, and reaches donors at the one moment they're guaranteed to be paying attention: right after they've already decided to give. For most nonprofits, that's an easy addition to make.

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