Churches are on tight budgets. They shouldn't have to pay high monthly fees just to help their members give!
But the reality is, tools for accepting online donations from a church community aren't always inexpensive. They can even cost hundreds of dollars a month–ultimately, draining donations that were meant to help fund new ministries, staff salaries, and building renovations.
The solution? A free online giving solution.
Does such a thing exist? You bet it does!
In 2024, church leaders, church staff, and leaders of other religious organizations are adopting tools that help them accept online donations with a credit card, debit card, ACH transaction, and more...for FREE.
A free church donation software is a tool that helps churches accept online donations without a monthly subscription fee. Churches will still pay a minimal transaction fee for each donation, but a great platform will also offer the option to cover the transaction fees.
Not only that, but a free church donation software can also help with donor management and financial reporting...again, all for free!
Churches need donation tracking software to help them measure their organization's financial health, set new goals, and get insight into how much (and how often) church members are giving.
Church donation management software may come as one part of church management software, or it may be a part of your free church donation software. Either way, it's an important part of improving church financial health.
It's time to replace your church giving software when you find yourself paying high monthly fees, setup fees, or add-on costs. Or it may be that your church giving software doesn't offer a robust set of features, such as a mobile app, a multilingual church donation form, or a tool for sending charitable receipts.
Finally, if your software isn't easy to use, toss it. Church giving software should make giving to church simple!
The biggest advantage of church giving software? It will help you increase giving!
Churches that receive donations online are far more likely to bring in more income from donors. Ultimately, this means they have a higher budget for paying church staff, growing their church, running daily operations, and more.
Church giving software will also save you time and effort on financial reporting and administration (the same goes for a more comprehensive online church management software, which can help save you time on volunteer management, event management, communications, and more).
When choosing the best free church software, we looked at ease of use, feature set, and fees. Here's what we came up with...
Tithe.ly is a free church giving software that can help you grow your church with online giving tools that:
The only charge is a minimal transaction fee of 2.9% + 0.30 per transaction with credit/debit card, or 1% + 0.30 for an ACH/bank transfer.
Tithe.ly Giving's tools are free to use, regardless of church size. It's happily used by thousands of churches around the world to increase generosity and giving!
One user says,
"We have been using Tithe.ly for an easier way to make donations. Overall, our congregation has been satisfied with the ease of use and the ability to make recurring donations. We do not plan on switching to any other competitors due to the low fees and the user friendly format."
Chmeetings is an online giving platform and church management system that provides tools for church communication, church operations, event registration, and more.
Though Chmeetings may be an affordable option for many church management tools, its online giving option costs a minimum of $10 a month.
So, while it does offer a free option for sending church text messages...that free option doesn't include online giving! Its pricing also scales up with additional church members, making this a less-than-ideal option for midsize churches and large churches.
PayPal is an online payment platform that's popular for many kinds of transactions, including making purchases and payment to contractors. PayPal can also be used for churches–but we don't recommend it.
While it is free to use, PayPal comes with fairly high transaction fees. It charges a domestic transaction fee for PayPal can go up to 3.5%, with a fixed fee up to $0.49. They don't offer church giving features, either.
ChurchTrac is a cloud-based software and church management tool that offers features for:
Like Chmeetings, ChurchTrac can be cost effective...for very small churches. While it does offer a free plan for managing church contacts and sending a limited number of text messages and emails, it costs a 500-person church $36 a month for the plan that includes online giving.
So, while you can use ChurchTrac for financial needs such as creating contribution statements and actionable reports on financial health, you will have to pay a fee that can scale up to $60 per month as your church grows.
Churchteams is an online church management software that offers key features for online giving, group management, membership management, volunteer scheduling, and more.
Churchteams' main focus are communication tools that involve text-to-give functionality and even text-to-register. Like many other tools, they offer scaled pricing. For example, if your church has 2,000 people, Churchteams costs $107 a month. They do offer a free 30-day trial, but they don't offer a free version of their church management software.
Anedot is an online giving platform that's specifically tailored to nonprofits, including churches. The offer digital tools specifically for receiving donations, including text-to-give and recurring giving.
Anedot is free to use, but it does charge the high transaction fee of3.3% + $0.30 for 501c(3) organizations (such as churches).
Continue to Give is a set of digital giving tools that serves churches, non-profits, and missionaries. They offer services that include text-to-give, kiosk giving, app giving, QR giving, financial records management, and more. Plus, Continue to Give provides some basic management tools for churches, such as child check-in and small group management.
Continue to Give does offer a free platform for digital giving, but it comes with a relatively high transaction rate of 3.2% + $0.45 per transaction.
Pushpay is an online giving platform that can be used to collect donations online, by text, with a mobile app, or at a kiosk.
While Pushpay does offer some advanced features for giving, it's not cheap–let alone free! Pushpay's platform starts at $149 a month, not including transaction fees.
easyTithe is an online giving platform that offers basic tools for online giving and donor management. They do not offer key features for church management or marketing.
easyTithe has scaled pricing. They charge $49 per month for small- to mid-sized churches, with a 2.6% + $0.42 transaction fee for donations made with a debit or credit card donation. They do offer a free trial for new customers...but that only covers one month or less.
ShelbyNext is a giving platform that offers options for online giving, mobile giving with an app, and text-to-give. They do not appear to offer a free version; they charge $19 a month for "small churches" with 3.00% + $0.42 per debit/credit gifts.
When choosing a free church giving platform that's right for you, consider the potentially scaled pricing. While a platform may offer a free version, the fee for many giving platforms can grow quickly as your church size grows.
Churches may use all different kinds of giving software, but the best software for churches include digital tools–and prices–that are tailored for ministries and church teams. Giving software (such as that offered by Tithe.ly) may be free on its own, but a comprehensive church management solution will typically cost a monthly fee.
The best accounting software for churches will offer an online giving tools alongside in-depth reporting, end-of-year tax statements, and tools for donor management.
Churches typically rely on the assistance of customer support teams to help them move over data and set up legal and bank information required for online giving.
