Your church website remains to be the most frequented front door of your church. While mobile apps, text and email communication, and social media remain extremely valuable communication methods, the church website is all-important, whether viewed on a mobile device or computer.
Since last publishing this list in 2015, the church technology industry has undergone much consolidation such that this list of church website companies is vastly different. If your church uses one of these seven church website companies, please leave a comment below to share your experience.
Website trends have changed over the last handful of years; speed, flat design, and mobile-first designs are vital.
Listed below, in alphabetical order, is a round-up of some of the top church website companies. Their focus is to serve the faith-based market well in providing valuable content management systems (CMS) and feature-rich solutions:
#1 – Clover Sites
Clover Sites offers many templates to choose from and an easy-to-use content management system, churches can easily change themes and customize them with Clover Media, which includes 90,000 images, templates, and pre-designed files to use on church websites for an additional $20 per month. Photo editing, forms and events, plus integrated giving through Clover Give round out their feature set. In the Ministry Brands family of church tools, Clover's fully-responsive websites are extremely robust with section editing, SEO optimization, support, automatic updates, unlimited storage, traffic, pages, and media.
Pricing: $1,000 one time setup fee plus $29 per month (no tiered plans, contracts, or upgrade fees)
Digital Church Platform is an exciting new church website solution that provides everything a church needs to become a digital church. The company offers a free trial without a credit card – a rare unicorn in the software industry. You can preview the demo site and test out all the features. With dual front-end editors, you can choose the live editor to make lightning-fast quick edits, or use the advanced editor to make more significant updates to your site. Churches can build their own content library including video, podcast, and file downloads. Additional features include embedding events management, forms, and connection cards. Built on WordPress, the sky's the limit when you combine Digital Church Platform with Missional Marketing for customizations.
Pricing: Three tiers – Basic / Standard / Premium ranging from $12 to $45/month on the annual plan.
#2 – Ekklesia 360
Ekklesia 360 boasts simple enough CMS for a church plant and powerful enough for a worldwide ministry. Over 8,500 churches use their solutions. Ekklesia 360 combines consulting options into their menu of services alongside sermon management, giving, event and RSVP tools, social media management, and more. In the Ministry Brands suite of church tools, Ekklesia 360 offers turnkey as well as fully-custom website options.
Pricing: $500 onboarding, training, and setup, $60 – 295/month for hosting and support
#3 Faithlife Sites
Faithlife Sites seeks to solve the problem of keeping the church website up-to-date by using information churches are already creating. Giving churches control over their websites is key to a successful online outreach. Churches can upload sermons, announcements, and calendar items, and display this information beautifully and simply. There's even a place to upload the church bulletin. By engaging your congregation through live streams, podcasts, events calendars, and even email newsletters, Faithlife Sites, a newcomer to the church website market, boasts much promise.
Pricing: Free option available; more robust version is $16.67 when paid annually
#4 –FaithNetwork
FaithNetwork’s packages entitle churches with a beautiful, custom-designed, fully-responsive and mobile-friendly website that fits the design direction and branding your church desires. Their expert team handles maintenance of site and page features and churches can benefit from their content management system. Features include comprehensive media management of podcasts, sermons, social media integration, prayer wall, file sharing, site analysis, unlimited storage, and third-party integrations. Faith Network also offers many other church technology solutions such as online giving, church apps, text-to-give, and live streaming.
Pricing: $1700 one-time fee, $30/month for hosting
#5 – Ministry Designs
Ministry Designs' primary goal is to partner with your ministry, helping you more effectively communicate online. The company offers unlimited training and comprehensive customer support to manage its drag and drop CMS. With domain email services, online giving, sermon storage, unlimited web pages, and parallax scrolling, Ministry Designs has many features to meet any church's online presence needs.
Pricing: $1000.00 one-time fee, $20/mo for hosting, training, support, and updates – No Contracts / No Hidden Fees
#6 – ShareFaith
ShareFaith offers clear, crisp church website templates to create beautiful church websites. With an emphasis on publishing fast and easy, ShareFaith, in the Ministry Brands suite of church tools, has many features and a free demo to peek under the hood. With drag and drop functionality, churches can make use of the online giving tools, audio, video, sermons, calendar, and email tools, plus an embedded graphics editor.
Pricing: $600 annual fee with some discounts if you purchase other ShareFaith solutions
#7 – Fully-Custom Church Website
There are many custom web design agencies available to build completely custom websites for churches. Costs for a fully-custom site built on WordPress or another open source platform can cost $2,000 on the low end up to $15,000 on the high end. There are some advantages that include a completely unique design and/or functionality that exceeds what a content management system can offer. For churches that are multisite, this might be the best option. WordPress' Multisite option can allow for churches with multiple campuses to flow content simply from one site to another.
Links to other related church website posts on ChurchTechToday:
- 4 Church Website Options for Your Digital Front Door
- How to Improve Your Church Website's ‘About Us' Page
- Does Your Church Website Need An SSL Certificate?
- Leveraging Your Church Website with Email Marketing
Thanks for sharing on what you read, this will be really helpful for many newbie blogger like me.
Hello Lauren,
Thank you for your positive feedback about the website. We’ve been utilizing the features provided by Faithconnector, but one of the church administrators has been experimenting with Elexio for the child check-in process. I’ve observed that Elexio excels in integrating check-in stations with their site, but it falls short in terms of limited website designs and hosting costs, which are twice as much as Faithconnector. On the other hand, Faithconnector lacks the infrastructure to connect with a kiosk system, yet it boasts some of the most aesthetically pleasing sites and the capability to create a high-end custom site similar to what we currently have. In an ideal scenario, a company would offer the strengths of both platforms. I’ve set up a page using the Elexio API for upcoming women’s events, but I’m dissatisfied with the Elexio interface, specifically the payment tab displaying the word “giving.” This could potentially confuse users, as it should be customizable to display specific terms like “event payment.” It appears that each system has its limitations, but my preference leans toward Faithconnector, as it allows for extensive customization to meet our specific needs.
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Thanks for sharing the list!
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Check out Churchly as well. Really great!
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Thankfulness to you for sharing that very knowledge of yours each as well as every time with all of us.
I would rather go for FAITHLIFE SITES after evaluating their portfolio and what design they can build for our website. In the past we have tried a couple of freelancers for our Company formation website as well as Business center website, which are quite outdated designs, besides all that most of the companies charge for their brand name, so for any startup entrepreneur it is a good option to go with some economic budgeted company and having good experience alongside.
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Really encouraging article. Thanks for sharing this article.
Thanks for sharing this informative article, I like it, I hope I will see more updates in the future
Great Article! Many churches find that a ChurchCMS can help them get their church website in place and online with all of the features they need out of the box (and at an affordable cost). Our team has built hundreds of custom church websites using WordPress as the CMS. I have seen that some churches do not need all of the features the ChCMS come with but they do want a customized design. Or they need all of the features but have heavy custom design needs and mobile responsive needs. That is where a custom wordpress design may be the better choice. You can install all of the needed features that most churches need (Donation System, Sermon Manager, Events Management etc). But you have complete freedom with design and you can pick and choose what features to install. Also, a custom wordpress design usually is a one-time cost versus a monthly recurring or annual cost. Of course you will still have a domain and hosting recurring cost, but you may save in the long run. Every church and team will have unique needs. Some may fit well with a ChCMS and other may find that need a professional team consulting them along the way and building custom solutions for them.
Hi Josh, Thanks so much for your comment. Your designs are quite impressive. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Lauren Hunter !!
I am very impressed with your website. Your website article is very informative and helpful and unique. Thank you for sharing your valuable information.
Thanks again for the amazing information !!
Hello Dr. Lissa,
Thank you for reading! Have a great day.
Blessings, Lauren
Hello Dr. Lissa,
Thank you for reading! Have a great day.
Blessings, Lauren
I would highly recommend http://www.finalweb.com. They offer the best combination of affordable pricing ($29/month, no setup fee), extreme ease of use, fantastic looking websites, and massive feature set for churches and ministries. Plus they offer live streaming services and mobile apps. Tech support is amazing.
Thanks for the recommendation. Thanks for your readership! Cheers, Lauren
We are going to use them, they are helpful and nice product overall esp for the price
Very good ranking. I specifically like elexio website but their charges are beyond the budget of start up churches. Indeed all communities need websites to enhance social cohesion.
[…] Top 7 Church Website Companies – churchtechtoday.com – #7 – Fully-Custom Church Website. There are many custom web design agencies available to build completely custom websites for churches. Costs for a fully-custom site built on WordPress or another open source platform can cost $2,000 on the low end up to $15,000 on the high end. […]
Have you had a chance to check out Omnia Sites? (sites.omnia-app.org) We launched it about a year ago, and our plans start at $6/month! We built this church website builder to have the beauty and ease of use of Squarespace while also the power of WordPress. We wanted churches of all sizes to be able to afford beautiful, custom websites. We also have a Partnership Program for designers and developers that love to build websites for churches and ministries. 😀
Thanks for the info on the new website solution. We wish you the best and thank you for helping churches with their online presence needs. Sincerely, Lauren
Thanks for sharing this post with us.Very informative and useful content.
A website that has a discount depends on its packages and a website’s pricing increases according to its design. Money will be the same as well as the website you can make the best website by giving good money.
Website Design Packages Price
Best Blog commenting. Different type of website design. Design is very important in every website. And many website design packages are available in website. But I have some packages about best website design so you must be visit: Best Website Design Packages
I wish you the best of luck Lauren We do provide SEO service to the church at affordable prices visit to check out our SEO packages in USA.
Thanks!
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Agree with your idea. Website that are responsive, attractive, interactive, affordable, visitor and search engine friendly are essential components that create more usability by the end users. Among all, affordability is a factor that are focused by user first. Similarly our organization also provide its services in very affordable ranges. You can check it out Web development packages
Agree with your thoughts that professional designing of website makes a webpage more professional and give good look and feel to entire website. If you are running your business at a professional level with big market then professionalism leads to the top of the page because better look and feel then more you will get the audience. We also work for it you can check it out our designs. – Professional web design .
True facts. Website Packages is essential part to represent yourself among the market that how and in which rates you are working with which quality of work. Web design is a very important part to get more audience because first impression is a last. As we know in market there are several competitors, So every new website have a tough competition , for that purpose to grab attention to your website first thing is focused by the audience is UI of website. Our company also work for it you can check it out different packages and design over here: – Website designs packages .
Thanks for sharing such a useful blog. It’s actually remarkable piece of writing, I have got much clear guideline about website companies.
Our church started using https://www.orbitalsites.com and they have been awesome! Beautiful designs, easy to use website editor and a great team to back it up. Also, podcast hosting is fully integrated!
Our team recently finished The Collective Church’s website,(https://www.collectivechurch.org/) check it out and let me know what you think… Also to answer Jeremy’s question about hamburger menus, my answer would be does the client love them or do they prefer a more traditional “desktop” menu look and feel. Always make the customer happy!
Joe Provence
https://www.sltcreative.com
Wow, I never knew there were companies which were dedicated for church websites. Nice article Lauren 🙂
Hello Author,
Thanks for sharing this important information about church website companies out there there’s no way I could include all of them. This article was merely intended to get the conversation going about church websites.
Great post! Thanks for informing people about Church websites. It’s nice to know that you can get to know about different Church websites through this post. There are plenty of other websites too, like Aquila Christian International that provide online biblical diploma’s and certifications. Thanks for sharing this list!
Hey Lauren, good article. I’m always interested to see people’s perspective on the various church website builders available. Did you try OurChurch.Com’s WP-EZ Website Builder? It’s based on WordPress but does the installation of the WordPress core, theme, and plugins for you. It’s got a drag-and-drop page editor and pre-designed pages that enable users to swap in their own text and images, making the whole process super quick and easy.
Ekklesia 360 has some of the best custom websites that I’ve seen and they offer strategy to grow churches: https://www.ekklesia360.com/custom-websites/
Custom CMS are often the best option as it smoothed the transformation of mundane website into customized website
Thanks for sharing I admire your blog since it has diverse custom web design packages together with that is very informative for other web design packages user.
Hi
Thanks for sharing this information church website companies out there there’s no way I could include all of them. This article was merely intended to get the conversation going about church websites.
It’s really a very useful part of facts. I’m just glad you contributed this convenient details here.. web developer google Please keep us up to par like that. Thanks for giving.
Nice, you have provided a proper list of website trends and important features like mobile friendly and loading speed of a website.
[…] Top 7 Church Website Companies – Church Tech Today […]
Hello Sam! I was not aware of ministry design, but your given info is too much informative and helpful. I’d love to connect with you guys. Thanks
Nice post. Already a follower of your blog… I think concept is a core element when looking to Need a logo design for a business which has to make a connection with its consumer and that is why the custom logo design is a pretty hard thing and is not everyone’s cup of tea. Paste Word Here
Very much Informative. I love your blogs and already a follower of it. I think that when it comes to website so it’s very necessary for new business to have a custom website that perfectly show their business digitally and a complete designing solution to connect with its consumers digitally.
It is great to see this list get an update. This is so helpful! As the owner of a company that falls into #7 – Custom Church Websites – It is always nice to have a resource to refer churches to when they aren’t a fit for a custom website at REACHRIGHT. For a church looking to build their own site, these are all great options! We will be sending people your way.
Keep up the great work you do for the Church. We appreciate you Lauren and Church Tech Today!
Thanks for reading and commenting, Thomas. I’ve heard nothing but positive things about REACHRIGHT. I appreciate the kind words! Blessings, Lauren
Hi Lauren, I’m always interested to see how leaders in the church communications field rate the various church website options. Not sure if you considered OurChurch.Com for your list this year, but we offer DYI church websites for $7-$25/mo and custom built websites starting at $1,000. More than 100 beautiful themes, drag-and-drop editor, premium page page layouts make creating new pages super faster and easy, sermon manager, online giving and more. If you need more info or want to demo a site, just let me know.
Thanks for your comment, Paul!
Such a great list! Thank you for including Digital Church Platform among so many other great companies. We know that each of these businesses is doing their very best to create solutions that help the church live out its mission to reach the world in a culture that is becoming more and more digital every day. We are honored to be a part of it, and as a thank you to you and your readers for trying us out, we’d like to offer a 10% discount off the first year for your readers. Just use the coupon code CHURCHTECH10 during signup.
Thank you!
Thanks for the generous offer to our readers, Mark! Cheers, Lauren
Look for a unique web design, avoid copy or reused design template if your budget permits.
Social Search: Social search is a new term that a majority of of folks involved in the game of online marketing are referring to, these days.
If bid prices are high for a particular keyword, you merely could be unable to acquire the clicks you will need in your limited
budget.
Here’s another list of website builders made specifically for churches:
https://www.websitebuilderindex.com/church-website-builders
Thanks for providing the list of top 7 church websites, Nowadays people look at the websites first before heading anywhere.
[…] 10) 7 TOP CHURCH WEBSITE COMPANIES […]
[…] The world we have today is full of distractions. Everyone is always busy with something – some are busy with work, others are busy with their families, and a few are obsessed with the internet. We are all so preoccupied with something to the extent that we lose sight of more important things. We tend to neglect our physical health, interpersonal relationships, and spiritual growth. Churches are beginning to feel alarmed by all these changes and the complete ignorance of things that actually matter is becoming contagious – thus, the birth of religious websites. […]
Stay away from Sharefaith. We had a horrible experience with them. They migrated our site (but I completely). Then instead of finishing the process had us trying to update custom CSS. The add on App is terrible and e had to try to figure out most of it on our own. We spent countless hours trying to make this site and app work, but it was never really satisfactory. When we asked to discounting the site, Sharefaith demanded a year of payment.
We had a bad experience with them too. Their support is horrible. I recently started at a church that has a site from them and I’m trying to figure out a different company to use. We lost our email for a day because I tried to repoint our site and they wouldn’t answer their phones. I ended up getting help from the company with whom we have our domain name registered.
Thanks, Tom! Glad to hear of the solutions you offer churches.
FaithConnector is pretty great for offering a free app, free website migration, 0% giving and a lot of church features with some starter church management features.
Most of the companies listed here are now owned by the behemoth Ministry Brands. We’re still independent.
I appreciate that post is so useful and I want to know more
It is a good concept. Waiting for your next post.
Your list is a good one.Thank you for your good information about business.
Hi Ian, Thanks for your comment and suggestion. I agree, we need to publish a revised list. Appreciate your readership – stay tuned! -Lauren
Pastor,
My name is Tyler Rominger, I’m the owner of Ministry Designs, one of the companies on this list. I noticed your comment and wanted to respond. It looks like everything you have shared as needs for a site, we can do without having to do a custom build. We would love chance give you demo of our editor and a discount on your design just for being a part of this awesome Church Tech Today community. Give our office a call, ask for me and mention this comment. I hope you have a great day!
Hi Lauren! Our team at ChurchPress created another great player in this space. You can check it out here: churchpress.co
Hello, Ms. Lauren!! I just found this online and thought I would share. http://carpenterspath.com would be another addition to this list. I might have a little bias in making the recommendation though.. because it’s mine. I hope this finds you doing wonderfully in all things!
Tyler
I am the Pastor’s wife/worship leader of a small Calvary Chapel in Coronado, CA, we are in the market to upgrade/redesign our website. It needs to simple enough for a non-tech head person to add sermons and updates and various notices, after it is developed, but it also has to be savvy enough to meet the social media needs of the average person these days. We are looking into HostGator who currently does our hosting – thinking it would be wise to have our designer and host the same……If you are interested in giving us a bid we would be interested. I would prefer to work with a faith based company that truly understands the needs of the church. If you believe you are a good fit for us – please reach out soon – we are hoping to move on this quickly.
Blessings,
Penny Boggs
Calvary Chapel Coronado – Living Waters
Penny,
As a web designer, my suggestion would be to find a faith based website provider for your church. They will ask different questions and provide church friendly solutions for you that a non-faith based service may not be accustomed to.
That said, this post and the comments attached, offer a lot of options for you to consider. Tyler from Ministry Brands would be a great option for you consider. I would even be willing to throw my name in the hat.
Hi Lauren,
I hope 2017 is off to a great start for you! This post has been so helpful to so many for a while now but any chance on an updated list now? A lot of these companies have merged since this post was originally written. Just thought it might be helpful to everyone. Keep up the great work you are doing to serve churches. I have been enjoying a lot of your content you have been consistently putting out there!
Hey Lauren! I hope it’s okay if we can include our company to your list? We’ve been doing this for the past 5 years and recently launched our official website http://www.freechurchwebsite.org. We specialize in custom WordPress church websites and cross platform Mobile Apps developments, graphic designs and website maintenance too, we do design and development of church websites at no cost, It is totally FREE! and also we have paid services too http://freechurchwebsite.org/pricing/ .
Please Add our site in your listings and help us reach few churches in need.
Jesus loves you
Raju shetty
WHAT IF YOU ARE A LAY PERSON THAT FEELS LED TO WRITE, READ AND FORWARD, CHRISTIAN MATERIAL, THINGS ABOUT THE END TIMES, ETC. SO, YOU NEED A WEB SITE, A BLOG, OR SOMETHING AND DO NOT KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT…..i ALREADY HAVE ONE PAID DOMAIN BUT HAVE NOT USED THE NAME BECAUSE I DO NOT HAVE A HOSTING SERVICE. i AM ON A LIMITED INCOME AND HAVE TO BE CAREFUL….THE DOMAIN NAME HAS ALREADY BEEN RAISED ABOUT TWO TIMES (I REALLY NEED TO MOVE TO A CHEAPER SERVICE, IF I CAN) . WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP……I DO NOT WANT A HOST THAT WILL ELIMINATE CHRISTIAN THINKING.
Hello from a Pastor!
I also work during the week as a sales & marketing director. We currently have a GoDaddy site that is informational only and MemberLink for an online directory. I have found the process of choosing a web developer difficult since we are looking for a straightforward site with all the bells & whistles such as online giving, mobile apps, online sermons, etc., and the ability to communicate with our members. No such animal exists in the market unless you are willing to create a custom website and proprietary software which is simply too expensive. Any help finding a web design company who can give you all the bells and whistles while providing an online member directory and communication tool would be terrific!
LOL No we haven’t sold out. 😉
We’d sure love to see churchthemes.com listed.
I didn’t realize so many of the hosted proprietary church CMS’s were owned by the same company. Were they acquired recently or has this been going on for a while?
Lauren, I would love to find a faith based company for hosting that have an option where they don’t do everything, they allow a little wiggle room for customization when we have techies on site that do web development. Everything I am looking at seems to be for the non-tech staff. Do you know of such an option? Thank you for your work on this!
Hi Lauren,
Thanks for your work on this. I would encourage you to also take a look at http://www.finalweb.com. We have been providing websites for churches for the last 16 years. Our CMS is very easy to use, and our staff will actually import the existing website into our system for most churches at no cost. We also provide live streaming and a native mobile app. Thanks!
Hi Lauren. Thank you for sharing your knowledge about church website companies. I would also like to add http://www.mychurchwebsite.net to this flock of church website companies. Independently, we serve thousands of great churches, and we have been in business for 12 years. We love being able to do what we do!
Hi Steven, Thanks for your comment. I’d love to take a closer look at ChurchThemes.com in the future. Yes, it’s crazy that one company owns so many brands. It’s happened gradually over the last two years or so.
Thanks for your comment, Paul! I’m sure OurChurch is still a wonderful solution. Your company is still independent, correct? You didn’t sell to Ministry Brands like most of the other companies on this top 7 list? Just curious. Thanks for chiming in!
I’m working on updating the website companies in this article for the third time and so would love to connect with any companies who are not listed above. Shoot me an email! Sincerely, Lauren
Thanks for your input, Jim. I was aware of this years ago with Clover Sites but had hoped that they had improved their options. I’m guessing most likely since they’ve been bought by Ministry Brands that improvements are on their way. Does your church still use Clover? I would be interested in hearing if they plan to make Google search functionality a priority–if you do them, I would reach out and ask.
As an FYI, FaithConnector.com is still here, is NOT owned by Ministry Brands, has great SEO features, HAS been HTML5 for years…and is still not on this list. 🙂 And, we have new designs and our new Flex Design system.
Hey Lauren, how are you doing? I saw this post after Mark referenced your post 25 Features of a Powerful Church Website on Christian Web Trends – http://j.mp/28KrIc I saw an earlier reply you posted in which you indicated you were going to be updating this post. I hope you’ll also consider adding OurChurch.Com. We’re celebrating our 20th year helping churches live out their mission online, providing both custom designed websites and DIY sites using our WP-EZ Website Builder. Shoot me an email if you’d like more info.
Quick FYI … Churches: When potential new attenders search Google for a church, how will they search for you? Probably using a phrase that includes your City name + the word “church” … good luck with that. Clover will build you a great looking site, BUT you will NOT be able to optimize your site for search — It’s very likely people will not find you in Google search, based on your town. Clover’s HTML is missing even the most basic, best-practice search elements … This is particularly a concern if there are lots of churches (search competition) in your area.
I don’t have any experience with Thrive e-zekiel personally other than they were a sponsor of our site a few years back. I believe they are now owned by Ministry Brands.
You might want to check out Grace Church Sites, who is offering free websites with hosting, for churches: http://gracechurchsites.com
Yes, Lauren is right, in fact at least half of these companies listed in this article have since been acquired by Ministry Brands. Thrive from e-zekiel is the same system offered under a different name from a few of these companies. I have some experience with it, and it isn’t a bad template website builder if your church is looking to design the site yourself.
Do you have any information about or experience with Thrive e-zekiel?
Greetings,
I write from the Grenada Baptist Association in Grenada, Caribbean.
We are a small body and like to have an online presence.
Which is the cheapest church website designer will you recommend?
You have listed a lot of great church web design companies here. May I share our own company too? We haven’t been around as long as some of these others, but what we lack in age of business, we make up in customer service and enthusiasm! We try to keep our pricing affordable for churches and non-profits, as neither has money to spare and want to be good stewards of what they have.
You can visit us at http://dlchurchwebsites.com
Thank you!
Hi,
Thanks for providing us this wonderful list on a single page of your blog. Thanks alot.
Wow, there are a ton of amazing web designers out there for churches! I love seeing so many people serving the church with their God given gifts and abilities, each with something different to offer. Our company, REACHRIGHT (http://reachrightstudios.com) focuses more on the custom route, but we will be sure to pass along this post to churches who are looking to do something outside of our wheelhouse. Keep up the good work Church Tech Today!
Hi, Grace Church Websites launched this month. We are offering free websites, hosting, and domain registration for churches. Visit us at http://www.gracechurchsites.com for more info.
Thanks for chiming in, David! We appreciate more great church website builders!
I wanted to offer Faithlab to the mix as well. We’ve been around since 2010 and work with both Squarespace and WordPress systems. We also offer custom photography to help church sites have a strong visual connection. Hope you’ll check us out! http://www.faithlab.com
Another company I would highly recommend for church websites is Church Plant Media (http://www.churchplantmedia.com/). CPM builds and hosts beautiful, modern, professional websites for church and mission and have worked with The Gospel Coalition, Tim Challies, and Ed Stetzer to name a few clients. Church Plant Media’s websites are easy to setup and customize and are custom built for churches and other Christian ministries. I especially appreciate this company for their commitment to the gospel and highly recommend them! For an example of their work, I would point you to this beautifully designed website: http://gfcto.com/
I was suggested this website through my cousin.
I’m no longer sure whether or not this submit is written via him as nobody else recognise such
specific about my problem. You are incredible!
Thanks!
Hi Ian, Thanks for throwing your name in the mix! We love to hear about companies serving churches well. God bless you, Lauren
A template for church should must be simple and elegant with custom CMS for easy navigate to users. As many professionals are using their own designed CMS.
Hi Lauren, Great blog and thanks for all you are doing for churches! We would love to be added to the mix as well. Here at http://reachrightstudios.com/ we are team of pastors who have over a decade of ministry and website design experience. Our heart is to really listen to the vision of church and then consult them on how they can get the best results online! We do full custom branded design on WordPress. We offer a hands on consultative relationship for the long-haul so a church can continue to get great results.
Thanks so much Lauren and you too!
Aboundant.com Church Websites is an up-and-coming church website provider that I believe deserves some consideration. Their site creation process is the slickest I’ve seen and can your site up in 10 minutes!
Thanks for adding your company into the mix!
Hey Lauren! I hope it’s okay if we can include our company to your list? We’ve been doing this for the past 11 years at http://www.mychurchwebsite.com. We specialize in custom church websites ONLY, along with our own custom content management system specifically for churches.
We also just put out a new system recently, so if anyone is looking for a company who will work together closely with a church and do all the hard work for you (vs a do it yourself template company), we’d love for you to check us out too. We give each church a lot of one on one time and answer our support tickets very quickly. God Bless!
Thanks for your comment, Dave! We will check it out.
I loved looking at the other posts and grading them in my mind as friendly competitors since we all have the same basic main goal in our lives. Thank you for being here.
When time permits, we would appreciate your checking our site. We offer some of the best pricing and the best sites for all uses by any religion and anywhere.
While we are relatively new, we are already growing faster than expected because we offer almost everything a Ministry could want/need. for a very low price.
Also, you might look at http://www.afslist.com
Thanks so much Lauren, Indeed this is timely and i do trust that Ministries allover the planet must understand this and pass much for the sake of the Lord.
It is encouraging and i must share it with my church members.
God bless you
Frank
Uganda
I’d like to add our service http://www.Churchdev.com to the list of church website developers. For $199 setup we do the complete design and turn over a fully completed website. Then you can manage it with the ease of drag and drop page builder and fill in the blank sermon, staff and event systems. You’ll not find a company that provides this level of customer service for the price.
Hi Lauren,
Good reply. I understand the challenge. My guess is that just as many (or more) companies who provide website services to churches are drawn to your blog and listing of five website providers as are individuals in churches seeking a supplier.
Without doing some type of quantitative research (e-mailing and securing the participation of a large number of churches), you won’t be able to judge satisfaction or popularity because those related to companies serving the church market will respond at much higher rates than those churches being served. Again, my own perspective.
If you can get the number of churches served by a company, certainly that would be one good metric, but I don’t know if suppliers make that kind of information available.
The no cost solution is probably to do what you are doing … but make it very, very clear as to how you selected those companies you feature. And, because Google rankings change, I’d suggest you expand your list to perhaps ten companies, encourage feedback on those companies, and update your list monthly or quarterly … noting the date with each update.
Otherwise, I think your readers may see your posts / listing as little more than a promotional tool to hype a few firms that supply websites for churches … including those who are (or have been) sponsors of your site.
Hope that’s helpful.
Thanks, Michael
Hi Sam, Thanks for reaching out! I wasn’t aware of Ministry Designs so thanks for leaving a comment! I’d love to connect with you guys. Sincerely, Lauren
Hi Lauren,
Appreciate your list, but I’m a bit confused. Given Elexio is a CTT site sponser, I wondered how you compiled your list of “5 top church website companies.” I do applaud your disclosure.)
Is it based on the number of clients? Total annual revenues? Some type of satisfaction survey? A google search?
As a sometime journalist, when I see a listing, I want to know the criteria used to create it, especially when the list is “in no particiular order,” but a site sponsor is listed first.
Thanks, Michael
I have to agree with Mike on this one. That’s actually encouraging to hear that they would choose to turn down a job which conflicts with God’s leading.
As a Christian web designer myself, I have had to turn down work and even stop working with existing clients who are promoting things that simply do not line up with God’s word. The Bible says in James 4:17 “Therefore to him that knoweth how to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” If a church or ministry is promoting something that is not true according to God’s word, then those who are participating in the promotion of that church/ministry are committing a sin if they know better than what they’re teaching.
Personally, with each new client (or project from an existing client) that is put in my path, I pray about it first and foremost. I ask God to make the path clear if I should work on this or not. If, for whatever reason, He convicts me to not work on it, then I listen. Not only is this extremely rewarding to my relationship with God, but as a bi-product God so blesses my business and I’m very grateful for that.
God is faithful and good and He rewards those who abide in Him above all other things.
Hi Lauren,
You have put together a great list. I also found a provide called http://www.mychurchwebsite.net that does some great work. They have a really easy CMS church system and are really affordable. It looks like they offer a lot of great templates to choose from as well.
Elexio made a choice to honor the same position as both the Old and New Testaments as well as the historical Christian position for the past 2000 years. If that costs them revenue from liberal “churches” then great is their reward in heaven according to Luke 6. I’m encouraged some Christians in business hold to the authority of the Scriptures even when it costs them something.
Hi Lauren, I thought I should mention Ministry Designs as a contender for the top 5 church website companies. Compared to the others, Ministry is a very hands on company that will either let you build your church website on your own with their custom drag-and-drop website builder, or they can help design your own site from the ground up. The pricing is very fair and for what you get (an html5 dynamic website and cms) and the out-of-the-box templates are very high quality. http://www.ministrydesigns.org
Hope we can make the list next time!
I am disappointed to see Elexio on this list as they refuse to do business with any church not in 100% agreement with the National Association of Evangelicals’ ultra conservative statement of faith.
When our mainline Presbyterian (PC(USA)) church asked about their products, we were told by Elexio that they would not do business with us because of our open and affirming position regarding homosexuality. Elexio considers the loving commitment of same-gender Christians to be as evil as bestiality, witchcraft, and necrophilia.
I pray that Elexio’s narrow and judgmental beliefs, and the beliefs of other companies such as Church Community Builder, do not represent the attitude of ChurchTechToday. If they do, please let visitors to your site know, as many of us cannot, in Christian faith and good conscience, continue to frequent your site.
We hope your experience on our website has been an inspiring experience. No matter what your reason is for contacting us, we welcome your comments and suggestions. It is a passion of ours to assist individuals, organizations and businesses in creating sacred spaces and places for your home and/or work environment – where your life, the life of your family and the life of your community unfolds. We look forward to hearing from you!
http://www.creatormundi.com/
I just checked out Videostir – WOW! This is really cool. I can see churches using this by having their pastor record a short video to welcome people to the church website and invite them to come on Sunday. Thanks for bringing your services to ChurchTechToday’s attention! – Lauren
Thanks Lauren,
You can also take your website visitor to a video tour while the background keeps on changing from once webpage to another. It’s like giving an online video presentation while the slides (pages) appear behind you.
Here is an example (watch it from your PC and wait a few seconds) : http://videostir.com/follow-me-demo.html
Drop us a line at http://videostir.com if you have any questions.
Good luck
Shy
With VideoStir you can add automatically add your own “floating clip” to your church website in less than 5 minutes (without green screen).
It’s perfect for church website where you can deliver a clear message to the viewers with a sophisticated video clip.
Have a look at http://videostir.com and try it.
More and more church websites are beginning to use it as it is a DIY solution and it is easy to handle.
Good luck,
Shy
Hey Lauren, I just realized that we never circled back to your request so share some sites that have built on our platform. Here is a short list in an effort to not spam your post. But on the other hand would love to connect anyone one on one to share a more extensive list.
Our new site is built on our system: http://www.ministrywebsitedesigns.com/
http://makingofchampions.ca/
http://www.lifesong.net/
http://thegatheringbc.org/
Lauren,
Thank you so much for the mention. We are in some great company with these other website providers. 2012 was an awesome year and 2013 is turning out even better.
I wanted to drop a note about a few new things that people may not be aware of.
1. All our websites are HTML5.
http://www.BridgeElement.com/church-websites
2. We have a completely upgraded CMS with tons of great features
http://bridgeelement.com/editing
3. We have Online Giving / Online Tithing. We have the lowest rates possible!
http://bridgeelement.com/online-giving
4. We will be coming out with Apps very shorty! I con’t get into to much detail but it is going to be awesome!
Again thank you so much for the mention.
God bless,
Also check out how easy it is to use on our live Demo: http://www.ministrydesigns.org/demo/site/admin
Hi Cale, Thanks so much for sharing about your webdesign company. Some of your site designs are really innovative – I’d love to see you post a link of a couple of church sites that run on your CMS to give our readers a sense of what they look like. Again, thanks for reading and posting a comment here! –Lauren
Let’s not forget about NetMinistry. We’ve been around for over 12 years and worked with over 7,000 organizations. The platform is a combination CMS, CRM, and e-commerce management system and the design services all completely custom. For the price, everyone else is only offering premade templates. Just a shout out, folks.
Your list is a good one. Since we have recently started a church web design business ourselves, we have look a lot at other companies. The ones you have chosen do a great job. I think it is really important, being in this industry, to keep our prices affordable while still giving a quality product.
I am actually part of a family-owned Church Website Development company MinistryDesigns.org. We started this company because we realize the importance of a church having a visually pleasing website to reach the community with 70% of people looking at a church’s website before they even attend. It’s our Ministry to be able to help churches and that’s why we offer one of the most powerful and easy-to-use website builders in the industry at the lowest price you will find. We have over 28 years combined full-time christian service at your disposal and realize the importance of a great product at a great price that can fit into any budget. We would love the opportunity to help grow your church and ministry and to help spread the good word. It truly is a blessing every time we get to help a church with a new website.
Gutensite, as Lauren/Will Lee mentioned earlier, is also powerful CMS for churches [Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Gutensite team]. They have packages to fit any budget, professional yet personal designs (they can do custom designs too) and scalability to grow with your church. Whether you want to podcast sermons, receive donations or even create a forum to foster community discussions, Gutensite’s functionality is robust and can take care of any church’s needs.
One especially helpful feature they offer is the ability to create member profiles. This way, members can have their own log in information and have access to specific content. Also, church admin can allow specific members the ability to add/edit content on the site independently and since the Gutensite CMS separates design from content, you don’t have to stress about how the site will look every time you update something, Gutensite keeps it looking good.
Gutensite is definitely a valuable CMS solution to consider.
They separate design from content (as a good CMS does) and allow you to focus on your
The website designs are first created in HTML and HTML5 and then they are converted to WordPress. We have customized the wordpress backend to be a custom CMS which includes modules that are relevant to what churches need on their website.
Full features of what we have can be found here: http://m28initiative.com/pricing/
There are various bundles available and we are willing to create new custom bundles to fit ministries’ needs.
I have heard good things about all 5 companies listed above. We use ACS Technologies, they are wonderful! Highly recommend them.
Visit MinistryMediaPR.weebly.com for Church Internet Marketing tips when it comes to your church website and social media platforms.
Thanks for updating our readers and congrats on your new company launch! Please feel free to share a little more about your services – are you designs built on WordPress or a custom CMS? What is your pricing like? Do you offer bundled packages for churches looking for a website and an app?
Thanks!
Lauren
Thanks so much for your detailed input, Liz! I hadn’t heard of iMinistries and it didn’t come up in Google – I will check them out. I appreciate the info for my readers! Blessings,
Lauren
Liz,
Thank you for being open to questions. My pastor asked me to look into different options for our online giving and ChMS and I’m completely new to all of this. We currently use Church Community Builder. Could you by chance tell me how they compare with iMinistries?
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your comment. I stated in the article that these were some of the most highly ranked church website companies on my Google search. Yes, a few of them were also sponsors, like Elexio and Clover (at that time, not currently), however, they were and still are some of the best website providers to the church market. There are SO MANY church website companies out there – there’s no way I could include all of them. This article was merely intended to get the conversation going about church websites, not be a comprehensive “Top 20” list. If we were to do an article like this, what in your opinion would be the best criteria? Most number of churches served? Customer satisfaction survey? I could do an informal poll among my readers to see what they feel are the best solutions out there. Thoughts?
Custom CMS are often the best option as it smoothes the transformation of mundane website into customized website.
Elexio doesn’t have true integration with any church management product. It’s actually more along the lines of linking to a product. Also, Bridge, while cheap, has probably the fewest features of any services you’ll find in a Google search.
At the creation of this article we had not yet released our service. On April 15, 2012 inPhocus Media (www.inphocusmedia.com) started the M28 initiative (www.m28initiative.com) which is a special website building service for churches.
From Twitter:
AnwothWill Will Lee
@ChurchTechToday You really should have @gutensite in your top five. Their designs, CMS, and support are second to none.
Mar 28, 9:09 PM via Twitter for iPhone
Hi Dave, I appreciate your feedback and will check out Faith Connector. I’m always happy to hear about church website companies that serve the church well. I checked out your site both using Google Chrome and my Android phone. I love the layout and simplicity! Also, from my phone I can easily listen to your sermons right from the mobile site, which is a huge plus. What church management software does your church use? I see the place for church members to login. Just curious. Thanks for your input and your readership! Sincerely, Lauren
Hi Lauren,
Thanks for your complements on the site. We use what Faithconnector has provided so far but one of the admins at church has been experimenting with Elexio for the child check in at our church. What I have noticed is that where Elexios strengths are tying in the check in stations to their site but their shortfalls are that they have limited website designs and they are double the cost for hosting it vs Faithconnector. On the flipside Faithconnector doesn’t have the infrastructure to tie into a kiosk system but they have some of the most beautiful sites and have the ability to build a high end custom site like what we have. In a perfect world there would be a company that would have both. I have created a page that I put the Elexio API to use for things like one of the upcoming women’s events but I’m disappointed in the Elexio interface as the payment tab has the words “giving”. This would bring confusion to the user as it should be customizable to say what you need it to say like “event payment” or something like that. So it seems that every system has its limitation but I lean toward Faithconnector to handle most all since pretty much everything is customizable to fit the need.
Thanks for posting a comment for more details on your website services! If you guys would be interested in sponsoring ChurchTechToday, please shoot me an email at lauren@churchtechtoday.com. Thanks!
Very good ranking. I specifically like elexio website but their charges are beyond the budget of start up churches. Indeed all communities need websites to enhance social cohesion. See our website in Glasgow UK http://www.sauti-nexus-projects-and-training.co.uk/
As the Communication Manager of Web/Digital Media at Wheaton Bible Church in West Chicago, IL (www.wheatonbible.org & http://www.iglesiadelpueblo.net), I did SOOOOOOOO much research last year as to which church CMS was the best, and I looked at all the big ones, including all 3 you listed here, but the far and AWAY winner is iMinistries (www.iministries.org).
iMinistries has the MOST POWERFUL CMS I’ve seen from a christian organization (I believe it is comparable with WordPress & other large CMS platforms), and they’re a great organization to work with. They even have a Church Management System built in (ChMS – like “the city” from ekklesia 360). And they’ll give you CSS access (unheard of from every other church website that I researched). And my older-than-baby-boomer-generation boss, who has no knowledge of code can edit & update our site with ease!
As a church within a church (we have a smaller Hispanic congregation and a larger english-speaking congregation), I can say that they are affordable whether you’re talking a small budget for a small church with a small website (iglesiadelpueblo.net), or a mega church with a massive website who is still trying to be good stewards of our money.
I’m not trying to be negative about other companies, but I have tested, tried, conversed, poked & prodded through them all and literally nothing compares with the flexibility, beauty, and power of iMinistries!
Email me ANY questions you have, I have spreadsheets with ALL of these companies on them, their features, what they can/can’t do, etc.
Liz Carver
lcarver@wheatonbible.org
Wheaton Bible Church
West Chicago, IL
I agree with Cathy. You cannot do much of a search for church website builders and not feel compelled to evaluate the Faith Connector product. They seem have a very complete (not a partial) product.
We have also used http://www.faithconnector.com for several years now. I had my site built custom. They tied all the specialty items I had created back to their content management system. They were easy to work with and their customer service is excellent. Before I chose Faithconnector I researched all the church website creators and hosting companies before making my choice. No one can touch their pricing nor quality. They also update their content management system with the latest and greatest on a regular basis. I am surprised that Faithconnector did not make your list. I would put them at number one. They do have an area that collects all the member info, built in sign up, custom forms, online giving, integrated into the site like the company you have at your number one spot. I would re evaluate your list or at least keep it up to date with the latest technologies out there.
Thanks for starting this list, there are so many companies out there that provide church websites now, I’d mention 3 more that are also very visible, like http://www.ekklesia360.com/ , http://www.churchcommunitybuilder.com/ and http://www.faithhighway.com/ . For a more comprehensive listing, also see the search engine at greatchurchwebsites.org -> http://www.greatchurchwebsites.org/web_content_management_systems_vendor_directory.php
Thanks for your comment! Just to clarify, Church Community Builder is not church website software, but church management software (ChMS) – they sponsor this site. They do integrate their system nicely with some of the church website companies out there by providing a point of entry that is seamless with a church’s website.
Thanks for throwing in the others! Many blessings!
Lauren
I did much research also, and looked at 3 of the companies you listed. I chose FaithConnector (http://www.faithconnector.com) and have been extremely happy. Their pricing is affordable for a small church with a small budget, their customer service is outstanding, and their platform easy to learn and use. Highly recommended!
Hi Dave, Good discussion here. I know API integration can be a bit tricky. Have you had Elexio step in and try and get it set up to meet your needs better? They are one of our site sponsors, and great folks to work with. I’m wondering if you’re also using their Fusion database product and how that is working for you. If FaithConnector is working really well for your website, I would perhaps look at a check in solution that works better for you rather than shifting your church website (huge undertaking, I’m sure you know.) Would it help you if I wrote up a children’s check in software round up list with all the vendors available to churches? Sincerely, Lauren