Church Management Software Cost (2026)
Church management software is priced four ways: one flat rate, tiers by the number of names, a price per module, or a quote from sales. The same church can pay very different amounts depending on which model a vendor uses.
Below, we work out the monthly and annual subscription for a church of 100 people and a church of 500 people from each vendor's published prices, with every assumption and every sum shown.
Then we add a cost that is easy to miss: processing fees on online giving, which grow with your giving rather than your headcount.
By Felix Tang · Founder, Relius Church Management
Last reviewed by Felix Tang
Prices from vendors' public pricing pages, checked Oct 2026. Relius prices and plan limits checked against the product.
How church software is priced
- Flat rate
- One price whatever your size. Breeze publishes one flat rate with no tiers by church size. Relius Church Management has three flat plans ($0, $60/month and $150/month), each with unlimited members.
- Tiers by number of names
- The price steps up as your database grows. ChurchTrac prices this way, from a 75-name tier to unlimited names. Count everyone you keep a record for, not only members.
- Per module
- Each product (people, giving, groups, worship planning, check-in) has its own price ladder. Planning Center prices this way: People is free, and each other module has a free tier and paid steps set by usage, such as donations per month or people in groups.
- Quoted by sales
- No published price. Realm's plans page lists its plans without prices; you get a quote by contacting ACS Technologies.
Each vendor's pricing page, and the month we checked it, is linked in the cost table below.
What it costs at 100 and 500 people
Subscription only; giving fees are in the next section. Each competitor row states what we assumed and links every published price we used, with the month we checked it. Annual figures are 12 monthly payments unless the vendor prints an annual price.
| Vendor, assumptions and published prices | 100 people | 500 people |
|---|---|---|
Planning Center Four modules: People (free), Giving, Groups and Services. At 100 people we assume up to 75 donations a month, up to 75 people in groups and up to 20 people on Services teams. At 500 people we assume up to 500 donations a month, up to 200 people in groups and up to 50 people on Services teams. Check-Ins, Registrations, Calendar and Publishing are left out; add their tiers if you use them.
| $45/mo · $540/yr People $0/mo + Giving: 75 donations/mo $15/mo + Groups: 75 group members $15/mo + Services: 20 team members $15/mo = $45/mo $45/mo × 12 = $540/yr | $133/mo · $1,596/yr People $0/mo + Giving: 500 donations/mo $69/mo + Groups: 200 group members $32/mo + Services: 50 team members $32/mo = $133/mo $133/mo × 12 = $1,596/yr |
Tithely The Church Management plan, at the price its plan selector shows. Giving is the separate Free Giving plan, so only processing fees apply to gifts. Plan selector shows $72/mo; the same page's FAQ refers to a "$119/mo Giving + Church Management plan", so confirm the price with Tithely.
| $72/mo · $864/yr Church Management $72/mo $72/mo × 12 = $864/yr | $72/mo · $864/yr Church Management $72/mo $72/mo × 12 = $864/yr |
Breeze The Church Management + Free Giving plan. No add-ons: Worship Tools and texting beyond the monthly allowance are left out. Flat rate, no tiers by church size; texting 250 free/mo then $10 per 500
| $72/mo · $864/yr Church Management + Free Giving $72/mo $72/mo × 12 = $864/yr | $72/mo · $864/yr Church Management + Free Giving $72/mo $72/mo × 12 = $864/yr |
ChurchTrac One name per person, so 100 people sit on the 125-name tier and 500 people on the 500-name tier. Monthly billing; ChurchTrac's page says yearly billing saves 10% but prints no yearly price, so the annual figure is 12 monthly payments. No Enhanced Messaging add-on.
| $39/mo · $468/yr 125 names $39/mo $39/mo × 12 = $468/yr | $79/mo · $948/yr 500 names $79/mo $79/mo × 12 = $948/yr |
Realm Realm's plans page lists three plans and publishes no prices, so there is nothing to compute.
| Not published; quoted by sales | Not published; quoted by sales |
Relius Free $0 subscription, unlimited members. No email on Free; online gifts carry a 1.3% platform fee plus processor fees. | $0/mo $0/yr | $0/mo $0/yr |
Relius Free + Text-to-Give Free with the Text-to-Give add-on, which costs $10/mo on Free. | $10/mo $0/mo + $10/mo Text-to-Give = $10/mo $10/mo × 12 = $120/yr | $10/mo $0/mo + $10/mo Text-to-Give = $10/mo $10/mo × 12 = $120/yr |
Relius Accounting Adds pastoral care, prayer, service planning, volunteers and unlimited email. Accounting records aren't enabled yet. | $60/mo $60/mo × 12 = $720/yr billed monthly, or $612/yr billed annually | $60/mo $60/mo × 12 = $720/yr billed monthly, or $612/yr billed annually |
Relius AI Adds Sermon Planner, Content Studio, Translation Console, Bible Search and volunteer fill suggestions, as drafts your team reviews. | $150/mo $150/mo × 12 = $1,800/yr billed monthly, or $1,530/yr billed annually | $150/mo $150/mo × 12 = $1,800/yr billed monthly, or $1,530/yr billed annually |
These are subscription comparisons, not like-for-like ones. Vendors include different things at each price, so check what each plan covers on the vendor's own page before you compare totals. Relius has no check-in for children and no native mobile app, and its accounting records aren't enabled yet.
Relius plans are the same price at 100 and 500 people because every plan has unlimited members. Free has no email; email starts on the $60/month plan.
Giving fees: the cost that grows with your giving
Every online gift carries a processing fee, usually a percentage of the gift plus a fixed amount per transaction. Some platforms add their own platform fee on top. Because these fees scale with how much your church receives online, they can exceed the subscription. A rough check: each percentage point on $25,000 a month of online giving is $250 a month, or $3,000 a year.
- Ask for the full rate for cards and for bank (ACH) payments, including any per-gift amount.
- Ask whether there is a platform fee on top of the processor's fee.
- Check whether donors can choose to cover the fees, and how many of your donors do.
- Encourage bank payments for recurring gifts if your provider charges less for them.
A worked example
Assume $5,000 a month of online giving in 50 card gifts of $100. Only vendors whose own pricing page publishes a card rate are shown.
Planning Center Giving
Processing fees: 2.15% + $0.30 card, $0.30 ACH (US), per Planning Center pricing, checked Oct 2026
2.15% × $5,000 = $107.50, plus 50 gifts × $0.30 = $15.00; total $122.50/mo
Tithely Free Giving
Processing fees: 2.9% + $0.30 card, 1% + $0.30 ACH (US), per Tithely pricing, checked Oct 2026
2.9% × $5,000 = $145.00, plus 50 gifts × $0.30 = $15.00; total $160.00/mo
Relius Church Management (any plan)
1.3% Relius platform fee plus Stripe's processing fees for your church's Stripe account. Online giving needs Stripe onboarding first.
1.3% × $5,000 = $65.00/mo platform fee, plus Stripe's fees.
Our pricing page calculator illustrates Stripe with a 2.9% + $0.30 card rate: 2.9% × $5,000 + 50 × $0.30 = $160.00/mo, for $225.00/mo in total. Actual Stripe and nonprofit rates may differ.
Donors can choose to cover fees at Relius checkout, which moves part of this cost off the church. Text-to-give can be priced separately; the published add-on prices are below.
Text-to-give add-ons
- Planning Center, Giving: Text2Give toll-free number: $5/mo, per Planning Center pricing, checked Oct 2026 (Add-on)
- Tithely, Text-to-give (with Free Giving): $19/mo, per Tithely pricing, checked Oct 2026 (Included with All Access)
- Relius Church Management: Text-to-Give is a $10/month add-on on the Free plan.
Other costs to budget for
- Add-ons you will actually use: texting credits, worship or music tools, extra modules or higher module tiers.
- Moving your data: staff and volunteer time to export, clean and check records, and to re-enrol recurring donors if schedules don't transfer.
- Training: the hours it takes your staff and volunteers to learn a new system.
- Growth: on name-based or usage-based tiers, the next tier up; on flat plans, nothing changes as you grow.
Methodology
- Competitor prices are copied from each vendor's own public pricing page, never from third-party lists, and each one links to that page with the month we checked it (Oct 2026). Unpublished prices are shown as “Contact sales”.
- Costs are worked out for two stated church sizes, 100 and 500 people. Where a vendor prices by usage, we state the tier we assumed; your own counts may put you on a different tier.
- Monthly totals add the published prices shown in the same row. Annual totals are 12 monthly payments unless the vendor prints an annual price; Relius prints its annual prices.
- Add-ons are left out of totals unless the assumption names them. Giving fees are kept separate because they depend on your giving, not your size.
- Relius prices and plan limits are checked against the product.
- We re-check every price at least every 90 days. A price older than 90 days is replaced by a link to the vendor's current pricing until we re-check it.
Church management software cost FAQ
How much does church management software cost?
It depends on how the vendor prices: some charge one flat rate, some price by the number of names in your database, some price each module separately, and some quote through sales. Work out the subscription at your own church size from each vendor's published tiers, then add giving processing fees, which grow with your online giving rather than with your headcount.
What does Relius Church Management cost?
Free is a $0 subscription with unlimited members. The Accounting plan is $60/month or $612/year billed annually, and the AI plan is $150/month or $1,530/year. Every plan has unlimited members. No email communications on Free. Online giving needs Stripe onboarding and carries a 1.3% Relius platform fee plus processor fees. Text-to-Give is a $10/month add-on on Free. The guided import wizard brings in people only; giving history imports through a fixed CSV template.
Is there free church management software?
Yes. Relius Church Management's Free plan is a $0 subscription with unlimited members. No email communications on Free. Online giving needs Stripe onboarding and carries a 1.3% Relius platform fee plus processor fees. Text-to-Give is a $10/month add-on on Free. The guided import wizard brings in people only; giving history imports through a fixed CSV template. Some other vendors publish free tiers for parts of their product; check each vendor's pricing page for what the free tier covers.
Do giving processing fees count as part of the software cost?
Yes, budget for them. Card and bank processing fees are charged on every online gift, so a church with significant online giving can pay more in fees each month than in subscription. Relius charges a 1.3% platform fee on online gifts plus Stripe's processing fees, and donors can choose to cover fees at checkout.
Does church size change the price?
With some vendors, yes: tiers by number of names, or module tiers by donations, group members or team members, step up as a church grows. Relius plans are flat, with unlimited members on every plan, so the subscription is the same at 100 and at 500 people. Giving fees still grow with giving.
How were these numbers worked out?
Each competitor figure is a published price from the vendor's own pricing page, linked with the month we checked it. We state the church size and the tier or modules we assumed, show the arithmetic, and leave out add-ons unless the assumption names them. Annual figures are 12 monthly payments unless the vendor prints an annual price. Prices older than 90 days are replaced by a link to the vendor's current pricing.
See Relius prices in full
Free is a $0 subscription with unlimited members. No email on Free; giving fees (1.3% plus processor fees) and the $10/month Text-to-Give add-on apply.