Having a website for your church is crucial in today's digital age as it serves as a powerful tool for outreach, communication, and community engagement. A church website provides a centralized online platform where both members and newcomers can access essential information such as service schedules, events, and sermons. It fosters a sense of community by enabling online interactions, prayer requests, and discussion forums, transcending geographical barriers and allowing the church to connect with a broader audience.
This article will help you evaluate and compare the best church website builders so you can choose one that will serve your church best.
Best Church Website Builder Shortlist
- GabrielSoft - Best church website builder for versatility and ease of use
- Subsplash - Best church website builder for modern mobile experiences
- WordPress - Best church website builder for free website themes
- SquareSpace - Best church website builder for website analytics
- CloverSites - Best church website builder for member engagement
- Abundant - Best church website builder for full-service websites
- The Church Co - Best church website builder for podcasts and sermon management
- ShareFaith - Best church website builder for website migration
- Nucleus - Best church website builder for on-page SEO
- Tithe.ly - Best church website builder with integrated online giving
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What is a Church Website Builder?
A church website builder is an online platform that allows churches to create and design their own website without needing extensive technical expertise. These website builders typically provide customizable templates, drag-and-drop interfaces, and user-friendly tools to help churches create a website that suits their specific needs and goals.
Church website builders often come with features and tools that are specifically designed for churches, such as online donation forms, event calendars, sermon archives, and integration with social media platforms. Some church website builders also offer additional services, such as website hosting, email marketing, and search engine optimization.
Overviews of the 10 Best Church Website Builders
Here’s a brief description of each of the church website builders on my list, showing what it does best, plus screenshots to showcase some of the features.
1. GabrielSoft - Best church website builder for versatility and ease of use
GabrielSoft is a specialized website builder tailored to the unique needs of churches and ministries. This platform offers intuitive drag-and-drop module, making website building and editing a hassle-free experience. With its distinctive “sections templates”, GabrielSoft simplifies the process of creating beautiful and engaging websites, even for users with limited technical skills.
For those seeking more advanced website customization, GabrielSoft provides features like custom coding and the ability to add CSS classes, offering full creative control. The platform also offers a wide range of modules designed to facilitate church communication and audience engagement. These modules encompass social media and video integrations, text/HTML content creation, robust form-building capabilities, payment forms, donation forms, event posting, photo albums, document uploads, news and blog articles, and staff bios.
In addition to its website-building capabilities, GabrielSoft offers a range of services for tailored for churches including content transfer service, custom designs, branding packages, and logo design, ensuring that your church's online presence aligns with your unique identity and message.
GabrielSoft is cost-effective, with pricing starting at just $25 per month for an annual subscription. To help you experience the platform's capabilities, GabrielSoft offers a 30-day no obligation free trial.
2. Subsplash – Best church website builder for modern mobile experiences
Subsplash Websites is a powerful drag-and-drop website and app builder that works seamlessly with your church management needs. You can manage your website, app, media, events, and giving from one central dashboard. It comes with built-in SEO features, content and responsive templates, cloud hosting, native SSL, automated website backups, and content management functionality.
With Subsplash, you'll also have access to tons of media curation tools for live streaming, podcasts, and video hosting. They also offer a media gallery, 3D tilts, parallax images, and vector image support. With these, you can create an appealing and modern online presence with minimal web design experience. Subsplash Websites comes with 5TB of storage space, so host and post to your heart's content.
Subsplash One offers pricing upon request.
3. WordPress – Best church website builder for free website themes
WordPress is a website builder you can use to publish content anywhere, making it ideal for church leaders who are always on the go. It has built-in social sharing allowing you to share content to church members through your church’s social media accounts, including Twitter, Facebook, and others. Another advantage of using WordPress is it works on almost any device you have, so you can update your website using your Android and iOS mobile devices or using your Mac, Windows, or Linux computer systems.
Themes are crucial in creating websites, and if you want thousands of themes you can choose from, then WordPress is the best website builder for you. WordPress offers users a wide variety of free and premium themes, ensuring that you can build a website according to your preferences. WordPress themes are also easy to use, making it ideal if you have no IT office on staff or are new to building websites.
WordPress has a free plan with a .wordpress URL, but you can opt for a premium plan for more features, including a unique domain name.
4. SquareSpace – Best church website builder for website analytics
Squarespace is a website designer and builder you can use to develop a website that suits your church-specific needs. It has embedded blogging tools for you to share church news, sermons, inspirational messages, and event announcements to congregation members. Squarespace has integrated SEO tools that will help you develop content that will maximize your website’s prominence in search engines to attract more visitors.
If you want a website builder with analytics functionality, Squarespace might be the best choice for you because it can help you analyze how your website performs. The website analytics tool can help you determine who your visitors are and what they are looking at, giving you a better idea of which part of your website you need to improve on. Aside from traffic sources, Squarespace can also tell you which search keywords are leading visitors to your website so you can tweak your content and attract more visitors.
Squarespace pricing starts at $16/account/month.
5. CloverSites – Best church website builder for engagement
Clover Sites is a website builder with a diverse selection of tools you can use to connect to church members. You can use the site to announce and promote the church’s plans, so members have something to look forward to. You can also integrate online giving on your website through Clover Give, where members can support your church using different giving avenues like text to give, online giving, pledges, and kiosks.
Keeping church members engaged is one of the best ways to maintain and grow church membership, and Clover Sites can help you build a website that will foster engagement through online activities. You can build a website where you can live stream worship services to cater to members who cannot physically attend services. You can also use your website to promote and conduct other activities that foster togetherness, like virtual groups and prayer walls to engage with church members during any day of the week.
Clover Sites pricing starts at $34/month plus a $500 setup fee.
6. Abundant – Best church website builder for full-service websites
Abundant is a website builder with website-creation tools to help you get your website up and running. Abundant has a media library you can access for free stock images for your website to make it more interesting for church members. You can use Abundant to embed online forms on your website allowing members to sign up for activities or events, making registration easier.
Website building is not for everybody. If you want a website builder that can assist you in creating and maintaining your church’s website, then Abundant is something you should consider. Abundant provides free consultation services to clients allowing you to relay your vision for your website and receive feedback on how to bring the said vision to life and the challenges you should expect. Abundant also assists in branding and promoting your website, ensuring that your new website gains an abundance of followers in no time at all.
Abundant pricing starts at $180/year.
7. The Church Co – Best church website builder for podcasts and sermon management
The Church Co is a content hub you can use to craft a website that will suit the needs of your congregation. It has a blogging functionality so you can create, post, and categorize blogs that can help your congregation. With The Church Co, you can have a website with a member portal so members can view and update their member profiles or make changes to their recurring giving setup.
The Church Co is the best website builder for you if you want a website where you can post, manage, and broadcast podcasts and sermons to your members because you can upload as many podcasts and sermons as you want without worrying about bandwidth. Members choose how they want to listen to your podcasts and sermons because The Church Co is compatible with iTunes, Spotify, and Google Play. You can also categorize your podcasts and sermons, making it easy for members to search for the content they want to listen to.
The Church Co pricing starts at $29/month.
8. ShareFaith – Best church website builder for website migration
ShareFaith offers a suite of digital tools to help your church provide a wide range of services to your congregation, including church graphics, live streaming, scheduler, and Sunday school classes. ShareFaith can also provide your members with flexible ways of donating and tithing to your church to support services and fund advocacies. You can also count on ShareFaith if you want to create a church mobile app that works on iOS and Android mobile devices so you can reach more members.
ShareFaith is the best website builder for you if you need assistance in migrating your old website because ShareFaith can do it for you for free. Migrating a website can be tedious because you need to copy all the contents of your old website to the new one, and ShareFaith can save you time because they will migrate your website for you. Professionals will handle the website migration for you to avoid errors and minimize the risk of losing the content you’ve worked hard on.
ShareFaith pricing is available upon request, and there is a free demo of their website builder.
9. Nucleus – Best church website builder on-page SEO
Nucleus is a website builder that helps church leaders consolidate all crucial information about their churches on their website so members can have a centralized location for all of their needs. It has a built-in form builder making registration and sign-ups for events for members. You can also use Nucleus in uploading and hosting a library of all your sermons, music, videos, and podcasts so members can listen to them anytime they want to.
Nucleus has an on-page SEO tool for content optimization, so they rank high in search engine results. No matter how beautiful your content is, readers won’t be able to access them if they don’t know your website, making ranking high in search engine results critical. With Nucleus’ on-page SEO tool, you can create stunning optimized content even if you don’t have an SEO-trained writer on staff, allowing you to save money while attracting new visitors to your website.
Nucleus costs $99/month, and they offer a 30-day free trial.
10. Tithe.ly – Best church website builder for integrated online giving
Tithe.ly is a beginner-friendly website builder making it ideal for beginners and experts thanks to its customizable templates. You can create a website where you can post audio clips, videos, events, announcements, and others, ensuring that your website has all the information members need even if they cannot personally go to church. Tithe.ly allows you to embed live streams from your Facebook page, YouTube channel, or Vimeo account, expanding your reach and ensuring members can watch your live stream wherever they are.
Tithe.ly is the best website builder for you if you want to make it easy for members to support your church by integrating online giving on your website. With Tithe.ly, you can add options for members to support your church and its causes either through one-time donations or as recurring ones. What’s great about this setup is even non-members can donate to your church via your website so you can gather support outside of your congregation.
Tithe.ly pricing starts at $19/month and charges $149 as a setup fee.
Other church website builders:
We've not yet had a chance to check out these website builders for churches yet, but it's worth taking a look to see if they meet your needs.
- Weebly - Free website builder for websites, blogs, and ecommerce stores.
- Wix - Cloud-based web development service provider.
- Appypie - No-code web development platform for newbie web builders.
- Elexio - Website design platform to increase engagement and help websites rank higher in search engine results
- FellowshipOne - Web design platform for engaging and mobile-friendly church websites.
- Church Dev - Website developer to make your website easy to find for non-members.
- Church123 - Website builder for easy to update websites.
- Ministry Designs - Website builder with pre-designed themes and embedded SEO tools.
- Digital Church Platform - Website designer for creating websites that target the congregation, the community, and visitors.
- Ekklesia360 - Content management system for churches and ministries that support customization.
- FaithlifeSites - Free church website builder for mobile-friendly websites.
- FaithNetwork - Website builder for churches of all sizes, denominations, and demographics.
Consider, too, that many church management software includes website functionality.
White Label Website Builders
Maybe you've got a few church websites you're trying to build - if so, think about using a white label website builder like those listed below:
How I Selected the Best Church Website Builders
If you're wondering how I selected the best church website builder, here's where I'll break it all down for you. First of all, I started with the best website builder for churches that have high user review and satisfaction ratings. Then, using my experience in church leadership, I discerned what key criteria were most important for church website builders and compared how each of them stacked up against the rest.
I empathize with how much time it takes to source the right software for a job. I do this work so that you don't have to. I've been using and reviewing church software for years so you can trust me to do the heavy lifting and compile all the facts you need to make your final decision.
If you have more general questions about church website builder strategy, you can skip to our FAQ at the bottom of the page. Or, you can jump right to the best website builder for churches overviews if you're ready to start comparing.
Selection Criteria
After careful consideration, I've determined that these are the most important criteria when selecting the best website builder for churches. Here's a brief list outlining the whats and whys of my selection.
Customer Support:
Customer support is an essential aspect to consider when selecting a church website builder because it ensures that you have access to assistance whenever you encounter technical problems or need help with website customization. A website builder with a reliable and efficient customer support team will provide you with prompt and effective solutions to your queries, allowing you to maintain and update your church website with ease. Good customer support also demonstrates a commitment to customer satisfaction and a willingness to help you achieve your website goals, making it an important factor in choosing a website builder for your church.
Ease-of-Use:
Ease-of-use is a crucial factor to consider when selecting a church website builder because it allows you to create and maintain your website without requiring extensive technical knowledge or experience. An intuitive and user-friendly website builder provides you with pre-designed templates, drag-and-drop features, and easy customization tools that make it simple to create a visually appealing and functional website for your church. With an easy-to-use website builder, you can save time and effort while still creating a professional and engaging online presence for your church that helps you connect with your congregation and reach out to potential new members.
Tutorials & Resources:
Tutorials are an important aspect to consider when selecting a church website builder because they provide you with step-by-step guidance on how to use the website builder to its fullest potential. Tutorials can help you understand the different features of the website builder, how to customize your website, and how to optimize it for search engines. They can also provide you with tips and best practices for designing an effective and engaging church website. With tutorials, you can learn at your own pace, and have a better understanding of how to create a website that meets the needs of your church and congregation.
Pricing:
Pricing is an important consideration when selecting a church website builder because it affects the overall cost of your website and your budget. Choosing a website builder with a pricing plan that fits your budget and offers good value for money is essential to ensure that you can afford to maintain your website in the long term. It is important to look beyond just the initial cost and consider any ongoing fees, such as web hosting or domain registration fees. Some website builders may offer free plans or discounts for non-profit organizations, which can be a great way to save money while still getting the features you need for your church website. I looked for church website builders that range in offerings: paid or free domain, free or paid plans, and so on.
People Also Ask
Here are a few common questions that’s I’ve heard before. If you’re just getting started, here’s a good place.
Should a Church Have a Website?
What are the Benefits to a Church Having a Website?
What are Church Website Builder Key Features?
What Other Church Leadership Resources Do I Need?
Church Website Builders: Build Your Community Online
One you have a website, you can then adapt different communication strategies using church communication software linked to your website, email list, or church app in order to keep your congregation up-to-date of goings-ons within the community. This holistic approach will help your congregation feel informed and engaged year-round.
Looking for website building inspiration? Here’s our list of the 20 best church website designs that we’re loving this year.
Related Read: Complete Guide To Church Management For Lead Pastors