What is Breeze?

Breeze is a cloud-based church management software that makes ministry and admin easier with tools for managing people, donations, church workflows, and more.

Breeze vs. Shelby Arena

If you can’t decide between Breeze and Shelby Arena, the following article will help break down the differences between the two tools for churches.

Why Do You Need a Church Management Tool?

Thirty years ago, churches didn’t have many tools to help them do things like track giving or communicate regularly with church members. The typical church wasn’t receiving tithes online, or sending automated emails to new visitors, or receiving reports on giving and engagement.

Things have changed.

Today, there are plenty of church management tools that can help you become more efficient, more organized, and ultimately more effective as a church.

The challenge now is: How do you choose a church management tool that’s right for you?

Below, we’ll compare two popular church management software platforms–Shelby Arena and Breeze–to help you choose a tool that will help you grow your church, get organized, and engage your members.

What is Breeze?

Breeze is a church management tool that makes engaging with your members, managing your church, and online giving well, a breeze.

Here’s what Breeze offers to churches:

• A Church CRM (directory) allows you to store and organize member data in a way that works for you–with customizable fields for details like background check information, family members, and even spiritual gifts.

• Reporting helps you to track and view church attendance and engagement, and stay on top of members or families that may be dropping off.

• Volunteer management tools include child check-in and name tag printing for easy, efficient, and safe volunteer management.

• Integrated online giving provides options for your church members to make one-time or recurring gifts online or even by text message. Best of all, it’s already integrated with your church contact directory.
• Automated workflows allow you to set up automatic workflows involving administrative work so that you can save time and energy on admin–and focus on what’s really important.

Finally, Breeze offers all of the above at one low, affordable price ($67) so that just about any church can afford to use its range of tools.

We know that both Shelby Arena and Breeze offer tools to help churches become more organized and offer a better experience for church members.

But that doesn’t mean they’re equally “apples for apples.”

In fact, the two tools have key factors that are very different. Next, let’s take a look at how Shelby Arena and Breeze compare in terms of ease of use, built-in tools, data migration, and price.

What is Shelby Arena?

Shelby Arena is a church management system that offers a range of tools to help churches succeed, including member management, online giving, and a mobile app.

Here’s a list of what Shelby Arena provides for customers:

• Member Management is basically a church directory that allows you to organize members, store contact information, and communicate with members more easily.

• The Mobile App helps your church members to give online, watch sermons, register for events, and more. They also offer an app for church leaders.

• Online Giving provides options for your church members to give on your website, on your mobile app, or with text giving (Note that their online giving is a separate service–Shelby Next Giving).

• Event Management includes volunteer management and child check-in.

Finally, Shelby Arena provides an online calendar you can use to schedule events, volunteers, and more.

How Easy is Breeze to Use?

Breeze is thoughtfully built for those who don’t have the technical staff and/or time to manage an overly complex system. Not only that, but it’s supported by people who work within the church and understand the daily pain points.

In other words, it’s super easy to use and intuitive.

Here’s what customers had to say about Breeze’s ease of use.

• “Breeze is a powerful program built to be easily navigated by anyone.”
• “As the volunteer ‘Church IT Guy,’ I was able to set things up and do some brief training for the church office staff and they were able to take it from there. But what's even more important, because Breeze is so easy to use, PEOPLE ACTUALLY USE IT!”
• “It is easy to use and teach, and there is a lot of support built into the program.”

Breeze aims to make your life as a church leader or church admin as easy as possible. That’s why it’s built to be used–by you, your church members, and future users.

Try Breeze Free for 30 Days‍

How Easy is Shelby Arena to Use?

Shelby Arena does offer support and documentation to help you learn how to use it, but it’s not quite as intuitive as Breeze. That may be because Shelby Arena is not necessarily an all-in-one platform, but a collection of tools.

Here’s what customers had to say about Shelby Arena:

• "It is large and complicated. Hard to find options for things."
• "We transitioned away from using Arena because it was too difficult for our staff team to use."
• “You basically need a full-time developer on staff to make Arena usable for your church.”
• “It is quite difficult on the administrative side to set up the classes and to customize it to our specific needs.”

Unfortunately, Shelby Arena isn’t simple to learn or use. While it may offer some high functionality, it’s not tailored to the average user.

Does Breeze Have Built-in Tools?

One important aspect of choosing a church management tool is considering whether it has all the tools you need included in one product.

Breeze includes online giving and text-to-give features in their platform, meaning that you’ll never have to worry about using a separate tool or moving data from one tool to another (or paying an additional fee for the tool).

Does Shelby Arena Have Built-in Tools?

Though Shelby Arena advertises an all-in-one platform, their giving tool is a separate entity. Used alone, Shelby Giving costs anywhere from $19 to $59 a month, and costs $15 for text giving. That means potentially less seamless integration and more costs.

Does Breeze Offer Data Migration?

As mentioned above, one of the most challenging parts of using a new tool is moving over data from your old system to your new one. That challenge alone might intimidate you from adopting a new tool to help you with church management.

Thankfully, Breeze offers free, assisted data migration when you choose their platform. That means you can rest easy knowing that we’ll handle that workload for you.

Does Shelby Arena Offer Data Migration?

Shelby Arena does not advertise free data migration.

How Much Does Breeze Cost?

Breeze offers all of its tools for one low price of $72 per month. Breeze also offers a free 30-day demo so you can decide if the tool is right for you.

How Much Does Shelby Arena Cost?

Shelby Arena costs $99 per month.

Conclusion

While both church management tools offer good functionality for helping churches to become more efficient and effective, Breeze is the easier-to-use, more robust, and cost-effective option. To learn more about why Breeze is rated the most user-friendly option by Capterra, click here.