Managing a church is an enormous undertaking, and according to research, 90% of pastors say they often feel tired and worn out by their weekly or daily tasks. This leaves church leaders with little time and energy to personally attend to church members. One of the best ways to maximize time is by using church administrative software to manage your church.
This article looks closely at some of the best church administration software for church management and how they can help you serve your congregation better.
Software Shortlist
Here’s the list of the best tools that I’ll cover in this article.
- GoDoChurch
- Ministry SCheduler Pro
- ChurchSuite
- Planning Center
- Sunergo
- PushPay
- DonorPerfect
- Aplos
- Tithe.ly
- ChurchTrac
Comparison Criteria
What do I look for when I select the best church administration solution? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): Church leaders need to find useful features quickly, so I look for software with a clean interface.
- Usability: Besides church leaders, employees, volunteers, and members will also use the software, so I look for church management software that’s easy to use and master.
- Integrations: Churches use several software and tools, so I look for church management software that will work well with other tools.
- Value for $: Churches have limited funds, so I look for church management software with many features but reasonable monthly fees.
Church Administration Platform: Key Features
- Membership management: The ability to gather and store crucial member information like personal details, contact information, and important dates.
- Volunteer management: Allows church leaders to organize, schedule, and communicate with volunteers.
- Online giving: Enables churches to receive donations from members and visitors through mobile donations, cask, check, and online donations.
- Fund accounting: Bookkeeping feature to help churches monitor funds, payments, receivables, and donations to gauge the financial health of the church.
- Worship planning: Allows church leaders to plan and execute worship services.
The Lead Pastor is reader-supported. We may earn a commission when you click through links on our site — learn more about how we aim to stay transparent.
Overviews Of The 10 Best Church Administration Software Solution
Here’s a brief description of each church administration app to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
1. GoDoChurch – Church administration software for boosting discipleship.
GoDoChurch is a church administration software for staying connected to congregants. It has a membership database to record church members and their information. Church leaders can use GoDoChurch to capture and maintain a database of church employee records like employment details, salaries, benefits, and preaching license expiration dates. The software allows you to communicate with church members through custom SMS and emails.
GoDoChurch is the best church administration software if you want to boost the discipleship program of your church because it has a module that church members can use to craft their growth path. GoDoChurch’s Growth Path Module allows members to take classes and seminars to advance their discipleship. Members can tick off activities they’ve completed to concentrate on activities they haven’t attended. Church leaders can use GoDoChurch to monitor the progress of congregants to assist struggling members.
GoDoChurch pricing starts at $22/month/account. You can try their software for free for 30 days.
2. Ministry Scheduler Pro – Church administration software with a volunteer scheduling feature.
Ministry Scheduler Pro is church administration software for handling all your church’s scheduling requirements. You can use it to ensure a proper rotation of readers. Ministry Scheduler Pro lets you print sign-in sheets during services and events for attendance tracking purposes. This church software also lets you monitor training and background checks to guarantee that volunteers and employees have proper skills and training.
Ministry Scheduler Pro is the best church administration software if you want to manage the schedule of volunteers effectively. Volunteers can upload their availability to help you avoid scheduling conflicts. You can use this church software to accommodate volunteers’ preferences. Ministry Scheduler Pro automatically sends SMS and email reminders to help minimize no-shows during events and church services.
Ministry Scheduler Pro integrates with other church software, including Access ACS, ParishSOFT, Gabriel Software, and Servant Keeper.
Ministry Scheduler Pro pricing starts at $28/month/up to 100 volunteers and a one-time licensing fee of $350. They offer a 30-day free trial.
3. ChurchSuite – Church administration software with a church membership management feature.
ChurchSuite is church administration software to help you manage members, volunteers, and employees. It has an event management feature for planning and holding free and paid events. ChurchSuite has an attendance tracking feature that includes a secure check-in feature for children and visitors.
This online church management software also has a giving feature for gift and donation management.
ChurchSuite is the best church management software to maintain a comprehensive church membership database. Maintain an address book with critical information like personal details, contact information, and key dates. Your church leadership can add custom tags to church membership database entries to make it easier to search entries. ChurchSuite has a mobile app that allows church members to edit their information, so you always have updated data.
ChurchSuite pricing starts at $15.50/month/account, and they offer a 30-day free trial.
4. Planning Center – Church administration software for building a church website.
Planning Center is church management software with a membership management feature for maintaining a centralized database of membership information. This church management software has an online giving feature that gives church members several donation options, including cash, check, text-to-give, and credit/debit cards. This church management solution has a church community builder feature for organizing and maintaining church teams and groups to keep members engaged.
Planning Center is the best church management software for keeping members informed by building and maintaining a church website and mobile app. This church management system allows you to create a custom home page for welcoming visitors and members to your website. You can use Planning Center to broadcast recorded or live worship services on your church website. This church management software lets you customize the icon systems on your website and mobile app to promote your church branding.
Planning Center integrates with other church management software, including Faithlife Proclaim, MailChimp, MediaShout, and ProPresenter.
Planning Center pricing starts at $14/month/up to 75 group members, and they offer a 30-day free trial.
5. Sunergo – Church administration software with an attendance tracking feature.
Sunergo is a church administration software with a volunteer management feature for volunteer scheduling and database maintenance. This church software has an online giving feature for receiving donations and gifts to help finance church activities. Sunergo has church accounting software for generating financial statements to help you assess your church’s financial health.
Sunergo is the best church management software for gathering insightful data on church members through attendance tracking. You can use this church management solution to record attendance counts and determine which activities attract more members. Sunergo’s attendance tracking feature lets you record and assess individual attendance to know which members require follow-ups. This church management solution also allows church leaders to generate reports on different age groups to know which groups are more active in your church and which ones require more attention.
Sunergo provides pricing information and a demo upon request.
6. PushPay – Church administration software for worship planning.
PushPay is church management software with donor management and online giving tools. You can use this church management system to create and maintain a membership database with personal information, interests, and contact details to get to know your congregation better. It has a resource management feature for managing the availability of venues, tools, and equipment for your church.
PushPay is the best church management software with a worship planning feature for holding successful worship services. You can use this church management system to create detailed worship service plans your staff and volunteers can follow. PushPay allows you to maintain a comprehensive library of songs and lyrics to make worship services livelier. You can use PushPay to generate reports on worship leaders and volunteers to promote participation and prevent burnout.
PushPay pricing is available upon request.
PushPay integrates with other church software, including Fellowship One, Quickbooks, Servant Keeper, and Ministry Safe.
7. DonorPerfect – Church administration software for managing fundraising activities.
DonorPerfect is a church management software for creating a unified constituent database for storing member and donor information. This church management solution has a reporting and analytics feature for analyzing donor information and identifying fundraising opportunities. This church management software lets you automate simple yet repetitive tasks like recording donations and sending thank you notes to help you save time.
DonorPerfect is the best church management software with a fundraising feature for planning and holding fundraising events. Its ReadySetAuction feature allows you to generate auction catalogs, bid sheets, invoices, and receipts to help raise funds by holding auctions. You can use DonorPerfect to create online donor forms and embed them on your church website to convert visitors into supporters.
DonorPerfect integrates with church management software like Givecloud, Volunteer Matrix, and ShopRaise.
DonorPerfect pricing starts at $99/month/up to 1,000 records.
8. Aplos – Church administration software with built-in fund accounting software.
Aplos is a church management software with an online giving feature that allows church members to choose how they want to send gifts and donations like cash, checks, online giving, or mobile giving. This church management software has a membership management feature for keeping an accurate record of membership data to help engage your congregation. It also has a volunteer management feature for scheduling meetings, managing volunteer sign-ups, and delegating tasks.
Aplos is the best church management software if you want to assess your church’s finances because it has integrated church accounting software. This church accounting software can track and pay bills, create invoices, and accept online payments. This church accounting software also has integrated payroll for managing church employees’ salaries, benefits, and taxes.
Aplos church software pricing starts at $39.50/month/account and provides a 15-day free trial.
9. Tithe.ly – Church administration software with event management capabilities.
Tithe.ly is church management software that church leaders can use to manage small groups, volunteers, and employees. It has a worship planning feature for creating service guides, assigning songs, and coordinating volunteers. Tithe.ly has a fund accounting feature for monitoring your church’s financial health.
Tithe.ly is the best church management software with an event management feature for successfully creating and managing church events. You can use Tithe.ly to set up event registrations and customize the information you collect on registration forms. This church management software allows you to create multiple ticket types for paid events. Tithe.ly lets you use QR codes for faster and more accurate event check-ins.
Tithe.ly is free software but charges a fee of 2.9% plus $.30 per transaction.
10. ChurchTrac – Church administration software with children and family check-in feature.
ChurchTrac is church management software with a membership management feature that allows you to maintain a directory of members with contact details and pictures. It has a giving feature for accepting donations and tracking cash and in-kind gifts. ChurchTrac has an event management feature to plan events, handle registrations, and track attendance. You can use ChurchTrac to create custom forms for collecting prayer requests and guests’ information to help you engage members and visitors.
ChurchTrac is the best church management software if you want to heighten the security of your church because it has a child and family check-in feature. You can use ChurchTrac to set up check-in kiosks to register child members as they arrive. This church management software allows you to print security tags, ensuring that child members get released to authorized family members. You can also add special instructions on security tags to note allergies or special needs.
ChurchTrac has a free version with limited features, while the pricing for paid versions starts at $6/month/account.
Other Options
Here are a few more that didn’t make the top list.
- SimpleChurch CRM - Church management software with membership management, volunteer management, and attendance tracking features.
- Crosspay Giving - Church management solution for automating administrative tasks.
- FellowshipOne - Church management software with online giving, church accounting, and payroll capabilities.
- Church Windows - Church management software with membership, scheduler, accounting, and payroll modules.
- Churchteams - Church management software with an informative dashboard to help you gain insight into your church membership and increase staff efficiency.
- Church Office Online - Cloud-based management software for maintaining membership records and communicating with members.
- MediaShout - Church presentation software for creating slides and sermons.
- PowerChurch - Church management software for attendance tracking and visitation history.
Not sure you need church admin software? Try these instead:
- 10 Best Church Bookkeeping Software For Church Accounting In 2023
- 10 Best Church Membership Software In 2023
- 10 Best Church Attendance Software For Your Congregation In 2023
- 10 Best Church Payroll Software In 2023
What do you think about this list?
Managing a church entails many administrative tasks that take up time and resources. With the help of the best church management software, you can quickly take care of administrative tasks like managing volunteers, updating membership directories, and planning worship services to have more time engaging congregation members.
If you want to learn more about other useful software to help you manage your church, subscribe to The Lead Pastor today.
1 Comment