About us
Australians helping Australians
Shout A Mate is a community crowdfunding platform built for Australia, with 0% platform fees on donations.
Who's behind Shout A Mate
Hi, I'm Andrew. I build software for a living. I'm not a fundraising company, I don't have investors, and nobody's expecting this to make me rich.
Someone I know needed help last year, and watching what got skimmed off what people gave was what pushed me into building this.
I built Shout A Mate because I looked at what the big platforms take out of every donation and couldn't make the numbers make sense. Some costs are real — Stripe charges to process a card, and that money has to come from somewhere. Everything on top of that is margin.
So I built the version without the margin. Australian platform, Australian dollars, paid into Australian bank accounts. 0% taken.
So how do we survive? Right now, we don't need to — this is built and run by one person, not a company with staff and investors to pay. If that changes, you'll hear it from us before it affects a single campaign.
Andrew Valentin, Founder
Why we charge no platform fee
We take 0% of your donation. The only cost is the fee for processing the card, and that is charged by Stripe rather than by us. Donors are asked if they’d like to add a voluntary tip to cover it.
On a $100 donation
- Donor adds a $2.03 tip
- $100.00to the campaign
The donor pays $102.03. The tip covers processing, so the donation arrives whole.
- No tip added
- $98.00to the campaign
Stripe’s $2.00 processing fee comes out of the payout.
If a campaign’s tips don’t cover its processing fees, the difference comes out of that campaign’s payout — never charged back to donors. Organisers see the exact figure before they withdraw. This happens most often on international cards, which cost more to process than a tip sized for an Australian one covers.
Stripe’s Australian rates, exclusive of GST: 1.7% + $0.30 on an Australian card,3.5% + $0.30 on an international one — which would leave $96.20 of an untipped $100. The card type isn’t known until payment, so the fee recorded against any real donation comes from Stripe itself, not from this example.
Most crowdfunding platforms take a percentage of every donation. We don’t. Donor protection is set out separately under the Shout A Mate Guarantee.
How campaigns are reviewed
Every campaign is read by a person before it goes live — right now, that person is me. I check that the organiser has verified their identity, that the story is coherent and specific, and that the stated purpose falls within our terms. Campaigns that pass are labelled as reviewed. What that label means is exactly this and nothing more: a person read it. If that ever stops being one person, this page will say so.
Payouts go only to a verified Australian bank account held by the organiser, set up through Stripe’s identity and bank verification process.
How donor protection works
If a campaign turns out to be fraudulent, donors can claim a refund under the Guarantee. Flagging a concern pauses the campaign immediately while we investigate. The full scope — including what is and isn’t covered — is set out on the Guarantee page.
Who operates this platform
Shout A Mate is operated by Valliers Group, an Australian company (ABN 71 697 537 741). Donations are processed by Stripe, which also handles organiser identity and bank-account verification.
Reach a human at support@shoutamate.org.
Get in touch
Questions, media enquiries, or something that doesn’t look right? Our contact page has the fastest way to reach us.