Bundle Breeze ChMS with Breeze Worship Tools, Tithely Church Apps, and Tithely Sites for the low monthly cost of only $119/month. To take advantage of this deal, fill out the form below and we’ll connect you with our Breeze Team to get you set up!
In this list we'll look at the top 10 best church management tools, and how they can help with tasks like financial management, event registration, volunteer scheduling, and more.
Church management software, or ChMS, is essential for every church that wants to grow their church community, increase giving, and run a more efficient organization.
Ahem...that includes every church, right?
Church leaders that don't use a church management application miss out on opportunities for growth, saved time on administrative tasks, and more efficient membership management.
Just as bad: Churches that use the wrong church software to run their organization. While all of the most popular church management software promises to handle tasks like contribution management, attendance tracking, event management, and volunteer management, not all church software tools are created equal.
ChMS is typically a cloud-based software that helps churches and other faith-based non-profit organizations with things like attendance tracking, volunteer scheduling, financial reporting, and even sending mass emails to church members. In other words, it enables churches and religious organizations to automate common administrative tasks.
The best church management system is an all-in-one solution that allows admin to automate and manage various aspects of church management from a single dashboard. Everything is integrated together so that churches can seamlessly move from one task to another without moving data like contact information.
Drawing from our experience, most ChMS applications are designed to help churches manage their administrative tasks and processes in a more efficient manner. Keeping paper records is not only time-consuming; it's inefficient and produces errors. A web-based tool to help churches track attendance, donations, and other types of engagement can save hours of labor a week–and hundreds of hours of labor per year.
Cloud-based solutions for administration allow churches and other religious organizations to spend less time on administration, more time on connecting with community and advancing the gospel. Based on our firsthand experience, a tool that aids churches and similar groups in managing their people and their information creates more space for ministry!
Church management systems typically charge a monthly fee, which can scale up with church size (the best tools charge a flat fee, no matter how your church membership grows). Some ChMS applications will include an entire suite of online tools that helps churches organize their people, which may come priced separately.
A tool that can help churches to run more efficiently typically requires login information for a single admin user, and includes security measures to make sure your church members' information is safe and secure.
Typical ChMS features include tools for events management (including event registration), mass communication (including the ability to send mass emails to your entire church), volunteer scheduling, donation collection, group management, and child check-in.
Through our practical knowledge of software usability and ease of use, we’ve discovered that your best bet is an all-in-on church management software that integrates all these tasks together. A ChMS review can let you know if the tool is easy to use.
Finally, consider cost-effectiveness. Your cloud-based church management system shouldn't cost more than $100 a month.
When considering the best church software, we looked at usability, affordability, and key features. To run a healthy church with a software tool, you don't need a ton of bells and whistles. Simply choose a church software that has all of the key features required for a church organization to be efficient with their resources. Based on our observations, we’ve found that good church software has the functionality you need; great church software has the functionality you need and ease of use.
<a href="#list-1" class="toc-link">1. Breeze</a>
<a href="#list-2" class="toc-link">2. Tithely</a>
<a href="#list-3" class="toc-link">3. Pushpay</a>
<a href="#list-4" class="toc-link">4. Flockbase</a>
<a href="#list-5" class="toc-link">5. Churchteams</a>
<a href="#list-6" class="toc-link">6. Faith Teams</a>
<a href="#list-7" class="toc-link">7. Fellowship One</a>
<a href="#list-8" class="toc-link">8. Shelby Systems</a>
<a href="#list-9" class="toc-link">9. Servant Keeper</a>
<a href="#list-10" class="toc-link">10. Elvanto</a>
Breeze ChMS is a church management solution that includes check-in and child security management, the ability to schedule volunteers, event planning tools, a contact database with custom fields (including the ability to add details like background checks), a mass communication platform (email and text), group management for members and faith teams (including church directories), the ability to track attendance, reporting, online giving, and more.
Best of all, Breeze pricing & plans are affordable. You can get this web-based church management software with a wide range of features for $67 a month, and the excellent customer service team that's available by email or through scheduled phone calls.
After using Breeze, we have found that it’s super easy to use–not to mention affordable! They offer built-in online giving and text giving to their church management solution–in other words, you don't pay extra for online giving. With Breeze, you can send emails and text messages directly to people in your church's contact database. Finally, Breeze has an awesome customer support team and they will move over all your data for you for free.
Breeze tracks contributions really well, but it does not have a built-in accounting system.
You can get this web-based church management software with a wide range of features for $67 a month.
Tithe.ly People is a powerful tool that can help church teams and church administrators engage and connect with their people from a single platform. Tithe.ly People includes the ability to:
We have found from using this product that it provides excellent functionality for ministry leaders to connect and engage with their people. It allows you to add a personal touch to your contact database and runs on cloud-based software (so that you don't have to worry about storing data on your own system).
Tithe.ly People doesn't have everything you need to run your daily operations and church events. You'll need to check out Tithe.ly People's additional products for a full range of church management functionality.
Tithe.ly People is free to use when combined with Tithe.ly Giving.
<a class="listicle-link" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://pushpay.com/">3. Pushpay</a>
Pushpay is not traditionally a church management solution, but a platform for accepting online donations. They do have a church management system, however, that includes features for:
Pushpay also offers online giving on a separate platform.
Pushpay offers the key features that churches need to engage their people, organize staff, and get insight into church health.
Pushpay is expensive, making it an impractical choice for ministry. From our firsthand examination of Pushpay use in churches, it’s definitely not ideal for small and mid-sized churches.
Pushpay's monthly pricing is by request only. Considering their pricing for their giving platform is very expensive (starts at $199 a month), we're not hopeful that this is an affordable church management software.
<a class="listicle-link" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.flockbase.com/">4. Flockbase</a>
FlockBase is a church management software solution that includes tools for:
As far as church finances go, FlockBase is a super useful tool. It can help you manage payroll for employees, set your budget, and generate in-depth reporting.
After a comprehensive evaluation of FlockBase, we found that it doesn't have a wide range of tools for other aspects of church management, like a website builder or app builder.
FlockBase's full church management platform is available as a cloud-based system for $59 a month (depending on your church size), or as a downloadable desktop version for $269 per month (including any church accounting feature that they offer).
<a class="listicle-link" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://go.churchteams.com/">5. Churchteams</a>
Churchteams is a church management software solution that includes:
Churchteams includes a wide range of tools that ministry leaders need to run church activities and daily operations, and manage staff.
Based on our past experiences with Shelby Systems, their scaled pricing can quickly add up (see below).
Churchteams' pricing is scaled; mid-sized churches will pay less than large churches. For example, it costs $77 a month for a 500-person church, and $107 for a 2,000-person church.
<a class="listicle-link" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://faithteams.com/">6. Faith Teams</a>
Faith Teams is a church administration tool that helps church ministry teams with tasks like online giving, donation management, attendance management, communication tools, and more.
Faith Teams includes:
Faith Teams is a cloud-based church management solution that can help church administration teams with the basic tasks required for daily operations. It includes all features on a single platform so that you don't have to pick and choose between what you need.
Faith Teams doesn't include tools for building a custom church app or website.
Faith Teams costs $40 per month.
<a class="listicle-link" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.fellowshipone.com/">7. Fellowship One</a>
Fellowship One is a church management software solution that offers features for:
Fellowship One has a comprehensive set of features that help church teams handle everyday tasks such as engaging with church community, event management and planning, and using communication tools to connect with staff.
Fellowship One is expensive! This makes it an unrealistic option for church plants, small churches, or mid-sized churches.
Fellowship One costs $169 a month.
<a class="listicle-link" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.shelbysystems.com/">8. Shelby Systems</a>
Shelby Systems' church management solution includes:
Shelby Systems offers some unique features in their church management system, such as a prayer request feature and accessible member profiles.
Shelby Systems' scaled pricing can quickly add up (see below).
To use Shelby Systems, a 200-person church will cost $60 a month, and a 500-person church will cost ~$100 a month.
<a class="listicle-link" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://servantkeeper.com/online-office/">9. Servant Keeper</a>
Servant Keeper is a church management solution that provides tools for:
Servant Keeper provides plenty of tools for effective church administration and daily church operations.
Servant Keeper includes high upfront costs (see below).
You have two options for Servant Keeper pricing. You can pay $49.99 per month, plus a $550 one-time cost and optional $500 onboarding cost to track up to 100 people in your database. Or you can pay $99.99 per month, plus a $550 one-time cost for unlimited number of people in your database.
Elvanto is a church management solution that offers a comprehensive set of features for faith-based communities (such as churches) to manage their people, finances, services, staff, and more.
Elvanto's combination of tools includes:
There's no lack of powerful features here. In our experimentation and usage with Elvanto, we’ve found that this product offers church administrative teams advanced software for managing everything from pastoral teams, to worship, to volunteers, to members, and more.
Elvanto may offer more than a small or mid-sized church really needs, which can complicate administration a bit.
Elvanto costs $50 a month for church giving + management, and $99 a month for church giving + management + a custom app.
Choosing which church management software to use is no easy task. Church teams need to consider what will work best for their budget and administrative teams. A software that's both affordable and easy to use (such as Breeze) is a great choice for most churches.
Church management software benefits are that you can run a more efficient church with smoother, faster workflows and processes. You can get more insight with financial reports and reporting on the health of your church. Most importantly, you can increase member engagement.
Other church management software advantages include a decreased budget on administrative work, better communication between staff members, and increased capacity for ministry.
Church management software costs can range anywhere from $50 a month to $500 a month. Many church software tools that charge less (such as $50 a month) have scaled pricing–in other words, if your church congregation grows, so does your cost. Church management software pricing for mid-sized churches ranges from $75-$150.
The latest ChMS trends include customizability, ease of use, and unlimited usage (such as a tool that offers an unlimited contact database with no extra fee). Great customer service never hurts, either!
