Here Are Some of the Best Church Website Platforms:
Tithe.ly is a cloud-based software that provides all the powerful features that a church needs to lead and manage its members and staff.
This includes a ChMS alongside of a contact database, online giving, donation management, a custom website and app builder, email and text messaging, worship planning, and more.
Tithe.ly's centralized platform, which includes a wide variety of tools, is ideal for churches that are looking for a comprehensive set of features for church management, marketing, and more.
Tithe.ly costs $99 a month for everything–a great price for its advanced features.
Breeze is an easy-to-use ChMS solution that includes the key features a church needs for effective management. Breeze offers a customizable contact database, a check-in system for kids, online giving, reporting tools, email and text messaging, and more.
Breeze is consistently rated one of the easiest-to-use tools by church admin and leaders. It's also very affordable, at only $67 a month.
Planning Center includes many of the tools a church needs to manage its members and staff, including online giving, volunteer scheduling, worship planning, and attendance tracking.
The biggest drawback of Planning Center is its price. As you acquire a wider variety of features with Planning Center, the price scales up significantly. In theory, you can use Planning Center for free...if your church has 5-10 members.
But as you grow, the price can quickly scale up to $500 per month or more.
ParishSOFT is a church management tool specifically designed for Catholic churches. Its basic features include contact management, accounting tools, and tools for Catholic education tools, and online giving.
ParishSOFT may be an excellent option for Catholic churches, but many of its features aren't applicable to churches that aren't Catholic.
ChMeetings includes the basic features of church management, including online giving, contact management, and event management. ChMeetings also offers free data migration.
DonorKite is primarily a donation management software for churches and non-profit organizations. That being said, its scope of features for faith-based organizations is limited.
While DonorKite offers a number of donation management features, it doesn't, for example, offer a comprehensive communication platform or reporting capabilities outside of finances.
Church Windows is a church management tool that emphasizes its accounting tools. That being said, Church Windows is great for handling financial management tasks, but may not be ideal for churches looking for a wider scope of features.
Excellerate is a church management solution that includes tools for membership management, volunteer scheduling, attendance tracking, and reporting.
Excellerate may offer the basic features needed for church management, but it's ultimately limited in scope.
ChurchTrac is a ChMS that offers many of the tools needed for church management, including contact management, a giving platform, worship planning, check-in, accounting tools, and more.
ChurchTrac is affordable ($72 a month for unlimited members), but it doesn't offer some of the advanced features needed for connection and engagement (such as a customizable website or app).
Church Office Online provides church management tools such as check-in, online giving, attendance tracking, email and text, and background checks.
ChurchTrac's pricing scales up significantly as your church grows. For example, using ChurchTrac for a 525-person church will cost over $100 per month. For any church with over 1k people, you'll need to contact for quote.
Which Church Management Software is Right for Your Church?
The Church Management software that's right for your church is the tool that meets your needs and your budget. You'll also want to consider using a tool that can expand with your church (and your growing needs) without expanding in price.
What Software Do Churches Use?
Churches use a range of tools for church management. Sometimes, it's a good idea to look at how many churches use a specific tool. For example, 37,000 churches all over the world use Tithe.ly–a good indication that it's a great choice for many churches.
Here are just a few features that Tithe.ly's website builder offers:
How Much Does Church Software Cost?
As mentioned, some church software may be free. Standalone online giving tools may be free. For example, Tithe.ly Giving is free to use, not including transaction fees.
But once you expand your needs to church management, look for quality over "free." Typically, free products that promise to handle all of your church's management needs aren't super high quality.
Do Churches Use CRMs?
CRM is an acronym for customer relationship management. In the context of church, this typically refers to contact management. Yes, most churches use CRMs to help them manage their members.
