What actually lands in your account after platform fees
| Platform / Payment Path | Fee Model | Who Pays | Fees | You Receive | Effective % |
|---|
Fee schedules reflect platforms' published rates as of mid-2026 and change often — confirm on the platform's own pricing page before you register. Percentage fees apply per gift; fixed per-gift fees are multiplied by your gift count, which is why many small gifts cost more than few large ones.
Honeymoon registries advertise the fund total, not the payout. Every platform takes its cut somewhere: a percentage of each gift, a fixed fee per transaction, or a markup on a resort-linked package. This calculator prices all of those paths on your actual fund so the honeymoon budget line reflects money you can spend.
Fee = (fund × percentage rate) + (gift count × fixed fee per gift). Net = fund − fee. Effective rate = fee ÷ fund, which is the honest number to compare across platforms because it folds the fixed per-gift fees into one percentage. The percentage path is simple math; the per-gift fixed fee is the part that surprises people, since 50 gifts at $0.59 each adds nearly $30 that a flat-rate comparison misses.
Enter the fund total you expect and a realistic gift count, roughly one gift per invited household that contributes. Pick a payment path to see its net payout, and read the comparison table for the full market. If you're still choosing a platform, the cheapest real-world move is usually the one with a free payout rail, bank transfer, or peer-payment option, with card processing as the fallback guests can opt into.
Take a $5,000 fund collected through 50 gifts. Zola at 2.5% takes $125 and pays out $4,875. Traveler's Joy at 2.95% takes $147.50. Honeyfund's card path at 3.5% plus $0.59 per gift takes $175 + $29.50 = $204.50, an effective 4.09%, while its offline and direct-transfer routes take nothing. And a resort-linked registry near 9.65% takes $482.50, paying $4,517.50. Same guests, same generosity, a $482.50 spread between the cheapest and priciest path. That's a spa day and a catamaran excursion, spent on fees.
Honeyfund is free to register and free when gifts come in offline or by direct transfer. Online card gifts carry a processing fee of roughly 3.5% plus $0.59 per gift, charged on the guest side. On 50 gifts to a $5,000 fund that path costs $204.50, while steering guests to the free offline options costs nothing.
Zola charges a 2.5% fee on cash fund gifts, which the couple can absorb or pass to guests. Zola also offers a fee-free route when guests pay through Venmo. On a $5,000 fund, the 2.5% path costs $125 and nets $4,875.
The cheapest paths are effectively 0%: Honeyfund with offline or direct-transfer gifts, and platforms whose cash funds run free on peer-payment rails like Venmo, CashApp, or PayPal. Among mainstream card-payment registries, Zola at 2.5% and Traveler's Joy at 2.95% are the low end; resort-linked services at roughly 9.65% are the high end.
It depends on the platform. Honeyfund puts the card-processing fee on guests by default, while Zola and Traveler's Joy let the couple choose to absorb it or pass it along. Either way, the money comes out of your wedding economy, so budget the net payout rather than the fund total.
Resort-linked and older registry platforms bundle card processing with a service markup, pushing all-in fees to 7% or more; Honeymoon Wishes is commonly cited near 9.65%. They trade the higher cut for concierge-style setup and hotel integration. If you don't need that hand-holding, a low-fee or free-payout platform does the same job for hundreds less on a typical fund.