The Best Church Attendance Software Tools of 2024
10 Best Church Attendance Software: My Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 16 tools reviewed.
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
I grew up in the late eighties and early nineties, back when church attendance tracking consisted of 3-5 ushers doing a headcount and comparing numbers.
Remember those days?
- Sunday school teachers used flannelgraphs
- Worship leaders relied on overhead projectors
- A church directory was a piece of paper with names and phone numbers
It’s been three+ decades since then, and church attendance software has become more sophisticated, flexible, and effective.
If you’re looking to make church attendance tracking easier, more accurate, and less of a headache, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we’ll dive into the ins and outs of church attendance software, why it matters, and how it can help your church grow. We’ll cover everything from key features to real-life case studies, giving you the tools to choose the right solution for your church’s needs. Let’s get started!
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The 10 Best Church Attendance Software Solution Summary
| Tools | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| actiTIME | From $5/user/month | Website |
| ChMeetings | From $12/month | Website |
| Breeze ChMS | $50/account/month. | Website |
| ShelbySystems | No details | Website |
| Servant Keeper | From $64.99/month | Website |
| ChurchSuite | From $15.50/month/account | Website |
| SimpleChurch CRM | From $35.13/month | Website |
| Planning Center | From $14/month/up to 75 group members | Website |
| ACS Realm | No details | Website |
| Elvanto | From $50/month/account | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareHow to Choose Church Attendance Software
As you work through your own unique software selection process, keep the following points in mind:
- Ease of Use: Church attendance software needs to be simple enough for volunteers and staff to use without a ton of training. If the software is complicated, you’ll spend more time teaching people how to use it than actually tracking attendance. Look for something with a straightforward interface that everyone can pick up quickly.
- Integration with Existing Systems: Your church probably uses other tools for management, like accounting software or a church management system. Make sure the church attendance software you choose can easily connect with these tools. The last thing you want is to manually transfer data from one system to another. For example, some software automatically updates your church directory or membership database based on attendance records.
- Mobile Access: These days, it’s essential that church attendance software works well on mobile devices. Whether you’re tracking attendance on the go, like during a church picnic, or volunteers are marking attendance in the kids’ ministry, mobile access is key. Look for software that has a strong mobile app or at least a responsive mobile site.
- Customization Options: Every church tracks attendance differently. Some might want to track small group attendance, while others need to focus on overall Sunday service numbers. Your church attendance software should let you customize how you track and report attendance so it fits your specific needs.
- Reliable Support: No software is perfect, and you’ll likely run into issues. That’s why it’s important to choose a church attendance software with strong customer support. Whether it’s troubleshooting an issue or needing help with a feature, you need support team that’s quick to respond and knowledgeable about the church-specific needs.
Overviews Of The 10 Best Church Attendance Software Solution
Here’s a brief description of each church attendance system to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
actiTIME is a digital project management tool that focuses on time tracking and work management for businesses of various sizes. Its intuitive interface is designed to facilitate accurate time recording and reporting, which is a key selling point for organizations looking to maintain precise control over project timelines and labor costs.
I chose actiTIME for church attendance software because of its adaptability to various project needs and its user-friendly interface, which simplifies the tracking of attendance and time management. What makes actiTIME stand out is its comprehensive feature set that supports not just time tracking but also project management, cost calculation, and detailed reporting, which can be beneficial for managing church events and volunteer schedules. I believe actiTIME is best for intuitive time tracking management because it offers a straightforward approach to entering work hours and managing tasks, which is essential for maintaining accurate records of church attendance and activities.
Features include weekly timesheets for manual time management, a calendar view, time-track comments, overtime calculation, locking feature for data security, approval workflows, notifications and reminders, and automated time tracking.
Integrations include QuickBooks, Outlook, GitHub, Jira, and Trello.
CHmeetings is a church management software for tracking and managing church members. It has an event management feature for planning and holding church events to boost member engagement. This church management software has events and check-in features to create event registration forms and track attendance to church events. CHmeetings also has an online giving feature to give church members several options to contribute to your church, including debit cards, credit cards, online donations, and bank transfers.
CHmeetings is the best church attendance software with a contact management system to create a comprehensive directory of church members. You can create profiles for church members with critical information like personal details, contact information, and family details. You can use this church management software to add personal notes to profiles to help you recall important member details. CHmeetings has a filtering feature to select multiple church members using specific attributes easily.
Breeze is a church management software that lets you create and share member directories. Breeze is an ideal church management system for large churches because it offers single pricing for an unlimited number of members. It has an online giving and text giving feature, allowing members to contribute using their preferred donation method.
Breeze is the best church management software with a group management feature for organizing and managing church groups. This church software can group people using your preferred criteria like age, interests, gender, or membership status. Breeze lets you compose and send emails and text messages to keep group members informed about group activities and schedules.
Shelby Systems is church software with multiple capabilities for caring for your flock, like membership management and online giving. It has a church mobile app that works on iOS and Android mobile devices to keep in touch with church members easily. A church leader can use Shelby Systems to build a church website to reach more people and invite them to your congregation.
Shelby Systems is the best church management software with church website building features to design and manage your church’s online presence. You can live stream events, worship services, and sermons to reach a wider audience. You can embed event registration forms to better understand expected attendance. Shelby Systems lets you publish blogs and newsletters to inform church members about church happenings.
Servant Keeper is a church management software with informative dashboards to assess your ministry’s health. It has an events management and attendance feature for planning and executing events while keeping track of attendees. Servant Keeper has a sacraments manager tool for maintaining a secure database of sacramental records.
Servant Keeper is the best church management solution with a volunteer management feature to fully utilize volunteers. It has a scheduling feature to make sure that all church events and activities have enough human resources. You can use Servant Keeper to track the attendance of volunteers and focus on volunteers with attendance issues. This church management solution lets you send emails and text messages to volunteers to improve communication and foster accountability.
ChurchSuite is a church management software for managing church membership with an address book containing critical member information. It has a calendar and event management feature to organize events and embed an events calendar on your church website to keep members in the loop. ChurchSuite has church accounting software for managing online giving and generating financial reports to assess your church’s financial health.
ChurchSuite is the best church management software with an attendance database feature to help you track your church’s growth. It lets you break down attendance numbers according to events, groups, or activities to know which groups or events attract more attendees. This church management software lets you present attendance numbers in graphs, bars, or charts to make them easier to understand. You can delegate responsibility to group leaders to track the attendance of their small groups to make sure you have attendance records for all groups.
Church attendance software with multiple attendance tracking options
SimpleChurch CRM is a church management solution with a volunteer management feature for scheduling volunteers with enough human resources for events and worship services. It has a membership management feature for creating directories with names, contact information, photos, family details, and notes. It has an online giving and donation management feature to give members flexible giving options to support your church.
SimpleChurch CRM is the best church management system with multiple attendance tracking options to monitor members using your preferred method. SimpleChurch CRM lets you take attendance using a kiosk, a desktop, or mobile devices. It also has an RFID reader to make attendance tracking easier for large events. This church software has an attendance reporting feature to assess attendance trends and help you come up with plans to help boost attendance for future events.
Planning Center is a church management solution with church administration features like membership management, facility scheduling, service planning, and volunteer management. You can use Planning Center to create and publish web and mobile app content to communicate with church members. It also has an online giving feature for donation processing and reporting.
Planning Center is the best church management software with an event registration feature for collecting and organizing information from attendees. It lets you create attendee types with different pricing and requirements like volunteers, VIPs, and children. This church management solution lets attendees purchase add-ons like t-shirts or souvenirs with their tickets. Planning Center lets you create an event page on your church website or app to make sign-ups easier.
Planning Center integrates with other church software, including ChurchSuite, MediaShout, Online Giving, and Worship Extreme.
Realm is a church attendance software for creating member profiles and directories to get to know your members. It has an event management feature for creating opportunities for members to gather, worship, and socialize. Realm has an event registration feature for tracking attendance and collecting payments for paid events. This church management system has a mobile check-in feature to prevent bottlenecks while taking attendance during events.
Realm is the best church management software with communications features to help boost attendance. You can use Realm to create posts with details of church activities to encourage attendance. It has a built-in chat feature to directly invite church members to events and follow up on those missing worship services. Realm has a parent oversight feature to communicate with parents and make sure that child members have parental consent before attending church events.
Elvanto is a church management software with a membership management feature for managing church members and groups. It has a form builder feature for creating forms you can embed on your church website to collect members’ data and receive online payments for events. This church management solution has a child check-in feature to keep youth members safe and protected while attending church activities.
Elvanto is the best church management software with an online giving feature to help church members contribute to your ministry. Elvanto lets you track giving and pledges to help you maintain a record of your finances. This church fund accounting feature enables you to organize giving in several categories to know where donations come from to improve your donation drive. You can use Elvanto to generate giving statements to keep church members and donors aware of where their contributions are going.
Elvanto integrates with other church management software like Tithely Church Giving, SongSelect, and Faithlife Proclaim.
Grace Family Church Improves Community Outreach and Streamlines Resources
Grace Family Church, a church with six campuses in Tampa, Florida, implemented an automated attendance tracking system that allowed them to:
- Accurately measure peak sanctuary occupancy to determine attendance
- Compare attendance patterns across their multiple campuses
- Allocate resources more efficiently based on attendance data
- Predict attendance for future services and events
- Determine food preparation quantities for events
The church accesses and analyzes this data multiple times per week, finding it highly valuable for planning and decision-making. As a result of this, Grace Family Church has been able to achieve the following:
- Targeted outreach: Identifying underrepresented groups in attendance data can inform outreach efforts.
- Benchmarking growth: Attendance data provides concrete metrics to measure church growth over time.
- Member engagement: Tracking individual attendance helps identify highly engaged members as well as those who may be drifting away.
- Resource allocation: Data on which services and events are most popular allows for more efficient use of staff and facilities.
- Trend identification: Analyzing attendance patterns can reveal trends in demographics, service preferences, and seasonal fluctuations.
Selection Criteria for Church Attendance Software
When selecting church attendance software, I focus on the functionality and specific use cases that matter most to churches. The goal is to find tools that reduce the time spent on operations, allowing more focus on ministry. I’ve personally tried and researched these tools to ensure they meet the needs of pastors and church leaders.
Core Church Attendance Software Functionality - 25% of total weighting score
Common features for church attendance software typically include attendance tracking, reporting, mobile access, member management, integration with other systems, customizable fields, real-time updates, visitor tracking, group management, and automated alerts.
To be considered for inclusion on my list of the best church attendance software, the solution had to support the ability to fulfill common use cases:
- Tracking attendance during services and events
- Generating attendance reports for leadership review
- Identifying and reaching out to members with low attendance
- Integrating attendance data with the church management system
- Managing attendance data on mobile devices
Additional Standout Features - 25% of total weighting score
- Unique features that automate follow-up with members who miss multiple services
- Innovative mobile app functionality for tracking attendance on the go
- Advanced customization options for tracking different types of attendance, such as small groups or special events
- Integration that automatically updates the church directory based on attendance
- User-friendly dashboards that provide visual insights into attendance trends
Usability - 10% of total weighting score
- Simple, intuitive interface that even volunteers can use without training
- Easy-to-navigate menus with clear labeling
- Drag-and-drop functionality for organizing and managing attendance data
- Responsive design that works seamlessly on mobile devices
Onboarding - 10% of total weighting score
- Quick and easy setup process with minimal steps
- Access to training videos and interactive product tours for new users
- Availability of templates to streamline initial data input
- Responsive chatbots and live webinars to assist with onboarding
Customer Support - 10% of total weighting score
- 24/7 customer service with quick response times
- Support staff knowledgeable about church-specific needs
- Availability of multiple support channels, including phone, email, and chat
- Access to a community forum for user-to-user support
Value For Money - 10% of total weighting score
- Pricing that aligns with the features offered, providing good value
- Flexible pricing plans that cater to different church sizes and budgets
- Transparent pricing without hidden fees
- Consideration of total cost of ownership, including ongoing support and updates
Customer Reviews - 10% of total weighting score
- High satisfaction ratings from churches similar in size and scope
- Positive feedback on the software’s impact on reducing administrative work
- Reviews highlighting strong customer support and ease of use
- Consistent praise for reliable performance and feature set
These criteria ensure that the church attendance software I recommend meets the practical needs of pastors and church leaders, helping them spend less time on operations and more on ministry.
Trends in Church Attendance Software for 2024
In 2024, church attendance software is seeing rapid evolution as technology continues to adapt to the needs of churches focused on improving their operations and ministry impact. Reviewing the latest updates, press releases, and release logs from the most popular tools reveals several key trends that are shaping the future of church attendance software.
Automation and Integration
- Automated Follow-Ups: Many tools now include automated follow-ups with members who have been absent, streamlining pastoral care and reducing manual work.
- Seamless Integration with Church Management Systems: Integration has become more robust, allowing for real-time data syncing with existing church management tools, which enhances efficiency.
Mobile-First Functionality
- Advanced Mobile Apps: The push toward mobile-friendly interfaces has led to more sophisticated mobile apps that offer full functionality, including attendance tracking and real-time updates.
- Offline Capabilities: Newer apps now offer offline functionality, ensuring that data can be collected even without an internet connection, then synced later.
Customization and Flexibility
- Customizable Reporting: The ability to create and modify reports based on specific church needs has become a standard feature, allowing for more tailored insights.
- Flexible Attendance Tracking: Tools now offer more customization in how attendance is tracked, from small groups to large events, catering to diverse church needs.
Declining Importance of Basic Features
- Manual Data Entry: As automation becomes more prevalent, the demand for manual data entry features is declining, with more churches favoring tools that minimize manual input.
- Basic Reporting: Simple, static reporting is becoming less important as dynamic and customizable reporting options take precedence.
These trends indicate that church attendance software is moving toward more automation, mobile capability, and flexibility, reflecting the evolving needs of churches in 2024.
What is Church Attendance Software?
Church attendance software is a tool that helps churches track who shows up for services, events, and small groups. Instead of counting heads on paper or spreadsheets, this software automatically records attendance, generates reports, and even alerts you when someone hasn’t attended in a while. It’s like a digital roll call for your congregation, making it easier to stay connected and manage your church’s growth.
Features of Church Attendance Software
When choosing church attendance software, it’s important to focus on features that will save you time on operations so you can focus more on ministry. Here are the key features to look for:
- Automated Attendance Tracking: Automatically records who attends services and events, freeing up your time from manual tasks.
- Customizable Reporting: Lets you generate tailored reports quickly, so you spend less time crunching numbers and more time on spiritual leadership.
- Mobile Access: Enables you to track attendance and manage data from anywhere, making it easy to handle operations on the go.
- Integration with Other Tools: Connects with your church management system, so all your data works together without manual input.
- Member Alerts: Automatically notifies you when members have been absent for a set period, helping you quickly reach out to those who need pastoral care.
- Data Export Options: Allows you to easily export attendance data into other formats, saving time when sharing information with the team.
- User-Friendly Interface: Simple and easy to navigate, ensuring that you and your team can use the software without extensive training.
- Role-Based Access: Lets you assign different access levels to team members, so everyone can do their job without stepping on each other’s toes.
- Scalable Solution: Grows with your church, so you don’t need to switch systems as your congregation expands.
- Reliable Support: Provides quick and knowledgeable help when you run into issues, so you can get back to ministry work without delay.
These features will help you handle the operational side of things more efficiently, giving you more time and energy to focus on what really matters—ministering to your congregation.
Benefits of Church Attendance Software
When pastors and churches invest in church attendance software, they gain several key benefits that streamline operations and enhance ministry work. These benefits directly impact the effectiveness and efficiency of church management, helping pastors focus more on their congregational responsibilities.
- Automated Attendance Tracking: Automatically records who attends services and events, reducing time spent on manual tasks and ensuring accurate records.
- Improved Member Engagement: Easily identify and reach out to members who have been absent, fostering stronger relationships and ensuring no one slips through the cracks.
- Customizable Reporting: Generate tailored reports that provide valuable insights into attendance trends, helping pastors make informed decisions about church programs and outreach efforts.
- Mobile Access: Manage attendance data from any location, whether in the church office or at an offsite event, allowing for greater flexibility in managing church operations.
- Seamless Integration with Church Management Systems: Sync attendance data with other church systems, ensuring all records are up-to-date without manual data entry, which saves time and reduces errors.
Using church attendance software gives pastors and churches the tools they need to manage attendance efficiently and engage with their congregations more effectively. By automating processes and providing valuable insights, this software helps pastors focus on what matters most: ministry work.
Costs & Pricing for Church Attendance Software
When choosing church attendance software, it’s important to understand the different plans and pricing options available. Each plan is designed to meet various needs, from basic attendance tracking to advanced features for larger congregations. Below is a breakdown of common plans, their costs, and the features they typically include.
| Plan Type | Average Price | Common Features | Best For… |
| Free | $0 | Basic attendance tracking, limited reporting, and mobile access. | Small churches church plants. |
| Basic | $20/month | Attendance tracking, standard reporting, limited customization, mobile access, and basic member management. | Small to medium churches with straightforward needs. |
| Standard | $50/month | All Basic features plus customizable reports, integration with other church management systems, and email alerts. | Medium to large churches needing more features. |
| Premium | $100/month | All Standard features plus advanced reporting, automated follow-ups, advanced member management, and priority support. | Large churches with complex needs and a focus on engagement. |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | All Premium features plus tailored solutions, dedicated support, and full integration with all church systems. | Very large churches or multi-campus churches. |
When selecting a plan, consider your church’s size, needs, and budget. The right plan will ensure you have the features you need without overpaying for unnecessary extras.
Church Attendance Software Frequently Asked Questions
How secure is the data stored in church attendance software?
Most church attendance software includes strong security measures like encryption, regular backups, and user authentication to keep your data safe. It's designed to protect sensitive information, ensuring that only authorized users can access and manage attendance records.
Can the software handle attendance for special events or one-time gatherings?
Yes, church attendance software usually allows you to track attendance for special events or one-time gatherings in addition to regular services. You can set up these events separately and get specific reports, making it easy to manage and analyze attendance for all types of gatherings.
Does the software offer features for tracking attendance trends over multiple years?
Many tools offer long-term tracking features, letting you monitor church attendance trends over multiple years. This helps you see patterns in attendance and make informed decisions about your church’s programs and outreach efforts.
How easy is it to transition from a manual attendance system to church attendance software?
Transitioning from a manual system to church attendance software is generally straightforward. Most software includes import tools that let you upload your existing records, and some even offer dedicated support to help you get everything set up without hassle.
Can multiple users access and update attendance records simultaneously?
Yes, most church attendance software allows multiple users to access and update records at the same time. This is particularly useful for larger churches where different staff or volunteers need to input data or review attendance records.
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