HomeDigital MinistryManagement (ChMS)9 Important Technologies for Every Church Plant

9 Important Technologies for Every Church Plant

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Planting a church is hard work. In the early stages, a small group of people handles the brunt of the workload. Sunday set-up, child care, budgets, communications, you name it. Resources may be low, but solutions are still necessary. Thankfully, technology can help ease some of the burdens.

A number of free or low-cost technologies are available that even a church plant could afford.

Accounting Software:

Aplos

Web-based fund accounting software developed specifically for churches. Three options are available depending on your accounting needs:

Price: Church plants can qualify for 6 months FREE upon request; $25-$120/month depending on the features*, 15-day free trial available, and organizations who make $50k or less in gross receipts qualify for a 30% discount.

Servant Keeper

Web and iOs solution that ties mobile apps, church management, and accounting into a single platform. The software is customizable based on your needs and focused on saving you time.

Price: Starts at $10 a month, 30-day demo is available

 

Church Communications:

Dial My Calls

A web-based solution to send phone calls, text messages, and emails.

Price: Based on usage with unlimited plans from $7.49 a month

Mail Chimp

Email solution that grows with your needs. Manage lists, add subscribers through your website and more.

Price: Free for up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month, Paid plans start at $10 a month

Send Tree

Engage your church and save time doing it. Send text, email or voice messages to custom groups and help nurture and grow your church.

Price: Plans start at $9 a month and grow based on group size.

 

Church Management and Planning:

By The Book

By the Book has been providing feature rich software for churches since 1991. Roll Call will help your church manage membership, track and report on contributions, understand how folks are involved and much more. With child check-in, iPad access, and web connection options, Roll Call is a great solution for church plants.

Price: One-time purchase with upgrades. Starts at $129

Church Community Builder

CCB's Essential version was designed specifically with the church plant in mind and provides only the features absolutely necessary to launch a new church and begin building a well-connected community. For the purposes of this program, a church plant is a church that has held its very first service within the last 12 months and has a normal weekly attendance of 125 or less, including youth and children.

Price: Starts $200 one-time set up and $45 per month

Church Office Online

Church Office Online's goal is to equip ministries with the best tools available. They believe that price should not hinder or be a barrier to the growth of the Kingdom. They aim to serve churches that have just started and are meeting in someone's home up to churches with 5,000 attendees with their intuitive, web-based church management software.

Price: After the free 60-day trial, the price is $25 per month for 0-60 records. Churches can also save by paying for a year in full and saving 10%.

Elvanto

Church management, worship planning, volunteer scheduling, child check-in, event management, online giving.

Price: Plans based on the active number of adults. Special pricing available for church plants in their first year. The thirty-day free trial, no setup fees, and paid plans begin at $30 a month.

 

Digital Notes & Bible Reading:

YouVersion Events

Create scheduled events for your church that show up in the YouVersion app. Events can include: sermon notes, scripture references, prayer requests, bulletin information, small groups study, website links

Price: Free with an admin account to Bible.com

 

Mobile App:

Emplify

Build engagement, promote events, lower print costs, increase giving, communicate quickly with a mobile app.

Elexio

Share media, register for events, accept payments and contributions through a custom branded app.

 

Online Giving:

MoGiv

Accept tithes and offerings anytime with the ability to direct gifts to church projects or ministries. Supports recurring giving.

Price: Processing fee is per transaction – Credit/Debit Card Fee 2.9% + 70¢

 

Online Meetings & Conference Calls:

Free Conference

Free conference call app for meetings, conference calls, and bible studies. Includes mobile apps, automated invitations, and reminders, moderator controls & more.

Price: Basic plan is free. Upgrade services and capability starts at $9.99 a month.

 

Presentation Software:

AirStream

Create custom worship experiences, share files with your team, synchronize service elements, present your presentation, direct and record your live stream

Price: Starts at $130 a month (This is on the high side for presentation software but not when you consider the live stream capabilities.)

Proclaim

Arrange song lyrics, announcement slides, and sermon notes from anywhere. A single license allows you to install Proclaim on as many computers as you want (Mac or PC).

Price: Proclaim + Pro Media is free for a year to church plants: https://proclaim.faithlife.com/church-plants

Websites:

Grace Church Websites

Free website, domain registration, annual domain renewal, content management system, and hosting for organizations.

Price: Free with application and approval

Ministry Designs 2.0

Highly flexible, drag and drop website builder. Allowing you to keep your site up to date from anywhere.

Price: Initial set up $0, $60 a month after that

Graphics.Church | Unlimited Church Graphic Design | Get 14 days for $99

Ryan Holck
Ryan Holckhttps://rad-ideas.com
Ryan is the founder of RAD Ideas and Graphics.Church. He works with churches and denominations to grow their ministry through graphic design and marketing strategy. Follow Ryan at RAD-Ideas.com.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Great overview Ryan!

    I just wanted to shamelessly plug http://www.churchdesk.com which actually offers nice combination of many of the technologies above 🙂
    ChurchDesk is Church Management Software that combines both planning/management, communication, church websites, giving (coming soon) and a great mobile app for Android and iOS.
    We’re especially proud of our intuitive interface and great user experience. We really try to make church management simple.

  2. Hello Lauren and team,

    Thank you so much for always providing a great read around resources to help grow His Kingdom! Every church, just like every person will need different resources AND have varied budgets so providing a post that even encourages leaders to look for the right solutions is AMAZING!!

    Just wanted to give a shout out for “Churchworks” as we provide free access to our application for any church plant for the first 6 months! The platform includes: finance management, attendance, events, team management, communications follow up tool, and more. We also want every church to be able to make a good decision so we do offer a free 30 day trial (essentially giving church plants another month free!!) YAY! Thanks for the post!

  3. Wow I really hope that no church that’s being planted would follow this articles advice because this totally seems one sided and VERY EXPENSIVE! Mostly with presentation software, website services and online meetings.

    For presentation nothing beats pro presenter or easy worship. Yes it’s $399 USD but that’s all you pay, none of this monthly junk.

    Website services: so many solutions out there for churches. Just google church websites, one of the better solutions Sharefaith.com

    Online meetings: TEAMVIEWER.COM one the best and most reliable programs out there to remote into computers and hold meetings with unlimited number of attendees. Oh and did I mention that’s only with the free version 😉

    I know this article means good in trying to help but dint be a sell out. I know that these companies are your sponsors but you have a responsibility to present all software/hardware in an unbiased manner.

    • Hey Emmanual, Thanks for chiming in. I hear ya on the monthly fees – they do add up! While we did mention some of our sponsors, many companies on the list are not and have never been sponsors. We do aim to be fair and present options from all around the web. We are always open to reader feedback and do appreciate your opinion! In the future, I’d love to have an actual church planter review some software and present their opinions as well. Thanks, Lauren

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