Add Fee Recovery Field

Paymattic provides a Fee Recovery field that lets you pass payment gateway transaction fees back to the payer. Instead of absorbing processing costs yourself, you can give donors or customers the option to cover the fee keeping 100% of the intended amount.

Prerequisites

• Paymattic is installed and activated on your WordPress site.
• You have created at least one payment form.
• A payment gateway, such as Stripe or PayPal, is connected to your site to process payments.

Pro Feature

The Fee Recovery field requires the Paymattic Pro Plugin.

Add the Field

Step 1: Open the Editor

1. Go to All Forms from the Paymattic Navbar
2. Click + Add New Form to create a new form, or click the Pencil/Edit icon on an existing form

Step 2: Insert the Field

In the form editor, add the Fee Recovery field in one of two ways:

• Type "/" in the editor and search for Fee Recovery
• Click the Plus Icon at the bottom of the editor

Then select Fee Recovery under the Donation & Product Fields section.

The field is added to your form with the default label: "I'd like to cover the {fee_amount} transaction fee."

To open the field settings, click the Settings (gear) icon on the right side of the field.

Field Settings

The field settings panel has two tabs: General and Advanced.

General Settings

Rate Mode

Choose how the transaction fee rate is applied:

• Global Rate — a single fee rate applies regardless of which gateway the payer selects
• Per Gateway — define separate rates for each payment gateway

Global Rate

When Global Rate is selected, configure:

• Fee Percentage (%) — the percentage portion of the gateway fee (e.g., 2.9 for 2.9%)
• Additional Fee Amount — a fixed flat fee in cents (e.g., 30 = $0.30)

Per Gateway

When Per Gateway is selected, a Gateway Rates table appears. For each gateway, set:

• Gateway — select the payment gateway from the dropdown (e.g., Stripe)
• Fee Percentage (%) — percentage fee for that gateway
• Additional Fee (cents) — flat fee in cents for that gateway

Click + Add More to add rates for additional gateways. Click the trash icon to remove a row.

Fee Mode

• Allow Donor Opt-in: When checked, a checkbox is shown to the payer so they can choose whether to cover the fee. When unchecked, the fee is added automatically without a choice.

Opt-in Label

Customize the text displayed next to the opt-in checkbox. Use {fee_amount} as a placeholder, it is replaced with the calculated fee amount at runtime.

Default: I'd like to cover the {fee_amount} transaction fee.

Click Update to save your settings.

Advanced Settings

The Advanced tab provides additional configuration options:

• Admin Label — an internal label visible only in the admin backend (e.g., on the Entries page). Not shown to payers.
• Field Wrapper CSS Class — adds a custom CSS class to the field container for custom styling.
• Input Elements CSS Class — adds a custom CSS class to the checkbox input element.
• Field ID — the unique ID assigned to this field, useful for custom JavaScript or integrations.

TIP

To learn more about custom styling, see our guide on Custom CSS.

Once done, click Update to save all configurations.

Preview

On the frontend, the Fee Recovery field displays as a checkbox with the calculated fee amount shown in place of {fee_amount}. Payers can choose to cover the fee before submitting.

In the example above, on a $10 payment with a 2.9% + $0.30 rate, the displayed fee is $0.61.

Need Help?

Our support team is ready to assist with any questions about the Fee Recovery field!