How it works: Enter your school's number of families, then for each fundraiser the share of families you expect to take part, the average they'll give or spend, and the costs. For a product sale, add the school's margin. The calculator shows what families spend, what the school keeps, how many cents of each dollar stay at school, and net per student and per volunteer hour.
Loading the calculator. If it doesn't appear, the formulas are explained below.
What to enter
| Input | Where to get it |
|---|---|
| Families taking part | Your past results. If you have none, plan conservatively; in our 2026 report, published participation ranged from 39% to 90%. |
| Average raised or sold per family | Total raised last time ÷ number of participating families. For a pledge event, this includes relatives' and friends' gifts. |
| School's margin on sales | The percentage of sales the vendor's written agreement says the school keeps. Product sales only. Subtract shipping, prizes and unsold items to get the effective margin. |
| Fixed costs | Prizes you buy, shirts, printing, rentals, food. |
| Costs as % of gross | Payment processing fees and any vendor or company share of what's raised. Ask vendors for the total as a percentage of gross. |
| Volunteer hours | All volunteers' time from planning to thank-yous, added up. Estimate generously. |
How to read the results
- School keeps is net: what's left after every cost. It is the number to compare.
- Kept of each $1 shows how much of what families spend or give reaches the school. Donation-based fundraisers usually keep most of each dollar; a product sale can't keep more than its margin.
- Net per student lets you compare with other schools of different sizes.
- Net per volunteer hour is the honest cost of a fundraiser to your parent group. A format that nets a little less but needs a third of the hours may be the better choice.
What schools have reported
Real cost data is scarce because few schools publish it. These figures come from public PTA budgets and minutes collected in our 2026 school fundraising report, where each one is sourced:
- Where PTAs published budgets, outside fun-run companies and their shirts and fees took 35% to 53% of gross. In-house walks spent about 3% to 10%.
- A Kansas PTO sold about $16,000 of product and kept about $7,000.
- Direct-give campaigns had no event costs, with results from about $4 to $111 per enrolled student.
- One PTO's donation drive plus employer matching out-earned its own fun run.
Treat these as context. Your own families, volunteers and quotes will produce different numbers. The guide to hiring a fundraising company versus doing it yourself explains how each kind of company is paid.
Next steps
Not sure which formats to compare? The school fundraiser finder shortlists formats for your school size, volunteers and timeline. If a pledge event comes out ahead, the walk-a-thon guide covers how to run one in-house. Once you've picked a format, set the goal with the fundraising goal calculator and build a line-by-line budget with break-even in the fundraiser budget template. To compare more formats by effort and timing, see school fundraising ideas compared in the school fundraising guide.
Frequently asked questions
Is this calculator free to use and share?
Yes. There's no account and your numbers never leave the page. PTA and PTO boards often run it together during a meeting with real vendor quotes on screen; link to it from your group's website if that helps.
How much does the school keep from a fundraiser?
It depends on the format and its costs. A donation drive keeps nearly everything after card fees. A pledge event run by volunteers keeps most of each dollar after prizes and supplies, while published PTA budgets show company-run events spending 35% to 53% of gross. A product sale keeps only its margin. Enter your own quotes above to see the cents kept of each dollar for your plan.
Why does a product sale show so little kept?
Because the school keeps only its margin on what families buy. If the margin is 40%, then 60 cents of each dollar pays for the product. A sale must bring in much larger sales to net the same as a donation-based fundraiser, which is why the calculator shows both what families spend and what the school keeps.
What should we count as volunteer hours?
Every hour from first planning meeting to the last thank-you note: committee meetings, sorting orders, setup, event-day shifts, counting money and delivering prizes. Most groups underestimate it. Net per volunteer hour is often the number that changes a committee's choice.