Frequently Asked Questions

Sustainably is a new way of giving that enables you to change the world every time you shop!

We believe in the power of do good, feel good and our aim is to make it easy for everyone to have a positive impact every day.

Sustainably is a free app and takes no fees from your donation. Sustainably uses Stripe as a payments processing provider, to securely make your donations to your chosen cause.

Like all card providers, Stripe takes a small card processing fee when you make a payment. For your donation, this will be a fee of 1.2% + 10p. The rest will go straight to your chosen cause.

Sustainably is available to download on the App Store and Google Play. Sustainably is currently only available in the UK, but watch this space for more exciting developments!

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How do Round Ups work?

With Round Ups, you connect your bank to Sustainably using a new government supported initiative called Open Banking. This lets you securely share the data held by your bank with companies like us, so we can calculate your Round Ups from your everyday purchases.

Sustainably rounds up your everyday purchases to the nearest £1 and donates your spare change to your chosen cause.

You can choose to give with Round Ups or Monthly Happiness. With Monthly Happiness, you can choose the amount you want to give each month, set your own limits and stay in control of your giving – with the ability to pause it, or change it all at any time.

At the moment, you can only give in one way at a time. We’ll be introducing more ways to give soon, then you’ll be able to give in multiple ways at the same time, so keep an eye out for updates.

In your account you can update your profile details, change your contact preferences, reset your password, get help and log out.

In the coming months we’ll be making it even easier to make changes to your account, including being able to update your profile information within the app, so keep an eye out for updates.

In the meantime, if you need to make any changes to any of these areas, please get in touch

How can I cancel my account?

If you want to cancel your account, you can do so by contacting us. We’ll be really sorry to see you go. Before you do, here are some things to keep in mind:

You can pause your donations instead

You don’t need to leave to stop your donations. You can just pause or resume them at any time in the ‘Giving preferences’ section of ‘My donations’.

Deleting your account will delete all your data

Once you delete your account it’s gone for good, and cancelling your account will delete your data completely. However, you can of course sign up again any time you want.

Stay in control of your giving via the donations section of your Sustainably account.

Here, you’ll be able to see your donation history, and manage your giving and payment settings in your donation preferences.

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With Round Ups, you simply connect your bank to Sustainably using a new government supported initiative called Open Banking.  

Open banking came into force in January 2018 with the intention of helping you make the most of your money by enabling innovation. You can find out more on their website https://www.openbanking.org.uk/customers/what-is-open-banking/

This lets you securely share the data held by your bank with companies like us, so we can calculate your Round Ups from your everyday purchases.

Once you’re connected, Sustainably then round ups your everyday purchases to the nearest £1 and donates your spare change to your chosen cause, automatically.

Round Ups only happen on your everyday purchases like coffee, groceries or new shoes. Not bills, money transfers or any direct debits.

Can I set limits on my Round Ups?

You can set a monthly cap on your Round Ups and pause your account in the app instantly.

How does the payment for Round Ups work?

Round Ups work separately from the transactions you make at any retailers.  So if you buy a coffee for £1.95, you will pay £1.95, and pledge to give £0.05 to your chosen cause.  Sustainably aggregates all your pledges, and deducts your donation when your Round Ups reach £5.00, and transfers it to your chosen charity.  You can see the balance of your Round Ups in your My Account.

I already have round ups set up for saving or investment.  Can I still use Sustainably?

Yes, because Sustainalby works separately by pledging your donations on your everyday purchases, you can still use it in conjunction with a round up product for your savings or investments.  Your Round Ups donations from Sustainably will be deducted from your account and sent to your chosen cause when they get to £5.00 in aggregate.

Do retailers need to participate for me to use Round Ups?

No, retailers don’t need to participate for you to start using Round Ups.  Round ups work wherever you shop using a card connected to Sustainably (or connected device connected to that card).  However, in the future, you will get the benefit of retailers being able to give to the causes you care about. We will not share your personal data in order to do this.  It will simply happen when you make the transaction on your card and you will be able to see their donation in your impact feed.

What type of credit and debit cards does Sustainably work with?

Round Ups is available for debit card holders with the following banks.

We’re adding more banks soon, so keep an eye out for updates.

For Monthly Happiness, you can connect any credit or debit card from any bank. Stripe fees (UK and Euro).

You can choose to give with Round Ups or Monthly Happiness.

With Monthly Happiness, you simply choose a cause, and the amount you want to give each month.  Each time you give, you get an impact update telling you what’s happening with your money.  You can pause or change your donations at any time.

If you choose to make your donation on the 31st of each month, then on months with less than 31 days we’ll take the donation the next day.

At the moment, you can only give in one way at a time. We’ll be introducing more ways to give soon, and you’ll then be able to give in multiple ways at the same time, so keep an eye out for updates.

How do I get a refund?

To request a refund go to the donations section of your Sustainably account. In your donation history, expand the donation showing the full donation breakdown. You’ll see the option to request a refund or report a problem. You can request a refund within 6 days of when the donation was made.

What are the fees?

Sustainably is a free app and takes no fees from your donation. Sustainably uses Stripe as a payments processing provider to securely make your donations to your chosen cause.

Like all card providers, Stripe takes a small card processing fee when you make a payment.

For your donation, this will be a fee of 1.2% + 10p for UK cards. The rest will go straight to your chosen cause.

Find out more about Stripe on their website https://stripe.com/en-GB/

We use TrueLayer, a secure FCA authorised service that acts as a messenger between Sustainably and your bank. Through TrueLayer’s interface, you can securely provide your explicit consent to enable Sustainably ‘read-only’ access to information about your bank account and your transaction spending.

TrueLayer will provide information to you through Sustainably and enable us to calculate your Round Ups. TrueLayer gets ‘read only’ access to your account and uses bank grade encryption to enable access to your account. They will never share your data with anyone apart from the company you have authorised and you can change your bank at any time in your donations preferences.

You have to be 18 to use Sustainably at present.

Did you know there are over 170,000 registered charities across the UK? Here at Sustainably, we’re working hard to get as many as possible onto the app, to give you the greatest selection possible.  

We think it’s important you understand the impact you’re having on the causes you support. That’s why we work closely with your chosen causes to give you impact stories. You can keep up to date in the impact section of your Sustainably account.

Want to see your favourite cause on Sustainably? You can suggest a cause on our website and we’ll get in touch with them!

We’re adding great causes on a daily basis, so keep an eye out for updates.

If you are signed up to Round Ups, each donation is made when your Round Ups reach £5.00.  Your chosen cause will receive this minus Stripe fees (for payment processing) of 1.2% and 10p, making the total donation received by your good cause £4.84.

If you are eligible for GiftAid, (which adds 25% to your donation), this makes your Round Ups donation of £5.00 a total donation £6.25.  Your chosen cause will receive this minus Stripe fees (for payment processing) of 1.2% and 10p, making the total donation received by your good cause £6.09.

If you are signed up to Monthly Happiness, the same fee applies and here are some examples of how much your charity will receive based on the size of your Monthly Happiness donation

Your Monthly Happiness donation £5.00

• Your Monthly Happiness donation: £5.00
• without GiftAid: £4.84
• with GiftAid: £6.09
• Stripe fee (1.2% + 10p) for UK cards: £0.16

Sustainably charges charities a fee of £0.20p per supporter per month to manage the platform, provide support and give them to access useful insights to help them create more impact.  We do not take fees on donations.

Move up the impact ladder the more good you do!

At Sustainably we believe in instant karma, that’s why every time you round up, donate or share, you’ll earn Impact Points.

What can you use them for you ask? Well that’s secret for now, but watch this space.

With Gift Aid you can boost your donations by 25%, if you’re a UK taxpayer.

By adding Gift Aid, your chosen cause will be able to claim back the basic rate tax, already paid by you. This means for every £1 you donate, the cause you support will get an extra 25p.

To add Gift Aid to your donations on Sustainably, simply go to your donation preferences and choose Gift Aid in the menu. Here you can change your Gift Aid details, or turn off Gift Aid if you are no longer eligible.

Gift Aid cannot be added retrospectively to previous donations.

If you have requested a refund on a donation then your Gift Aid will be removed and won’t be processed.

Find out more about Gift Aid on the UK Government website.

Sustainably uses anonymised transaction data to give our partners insights into giving trends; Causes and businesses who want to improve their corporate social responsibility for their customers and employees. This means that your personal data is never revealed to any of the partners that we work with.

Our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions cover this in detail and much more.

If you’d like to exercise your Right To Be Forgotten, please submit a Subject Access Request or, if you have any other queries regarding your data, just get in touch.

At Sustainably we pride ourselves on building quality tech for good. However, as we all know, sometimes with technology things happen. If you’re having a technical problem, we’ll aim to get back to you within one working day. Although, depending on the cause of the issue, it may take longer to resolve the problem.

If you’re having issues accessing Sustainably in your web browser, or if the web app is slow in responding, then check your internet connection. Try switching between WiFi and using your mobile data to see if this helps.

If you’re still having issues, please get in touch.

It’s really helpful if you can provide us with as much information as possible about the problems you’re having, and we’ll get on the case!