Church management software for church plants

What makes a church plant different from an established church?

A church plant changes shape every few months, and its software has to change with it. Before launch, a plant is a planting pastor, a core team and a list of interested people. Around launch it becomes a portable church that sets up and tears down in a school, theatre or community centre every Sunday. In its first two years it is a church where most people are new, many are new to faith, and nearly everyone serves.

That means a plant's needs are different at each stage, and paying for an all-in-one bundle from day one usually means paying for things the plant will not use for a year.

What problems do church planters run into?

• The launch team lives in a group text. It grows past fifty people and nobody can find anything.
• Interest meetings with no follow-through. People sign a sheet at a vision night and never hear back.
• Portable Sundays. Everything, including kids check-in, has to fit in a trailer and work on borrowed wifi.
• Everybody is new. Guests arrive every week, and the planter cannot personally follow up with them all.
• Money is tight and uncertain. A plant cannot commit to a year-long contract for software it might outgrow or abandon.

Which Churchory products does a plant need at each stage?

Buy for the stage you are in, and add products as you go. Each product is $99 a year, which saves $201 against paying $25 a month, and Core, the shared people directory with families, roles and permissions, church-wide email and push, and the Churchory apps, is free forever.

If you keep Events and Chat through launch, that is five products, $495 a year or $125 a month, still under Churchory One. Churchory One, at $599 a year or $129 a month, becomes the better deal from the sixth product on monthly billing and the seventh on yearly billing, and it is the only way to get your own app. It includes every future product as well. For a plant the value is starting on one directory from the first interest meeting, so the people who came to vision night are already there on launch Sunday, with free Core, no platform fee on giving and free help moving anything you already have.

How does Churchory help before launch?

Before launch, the work is gathering people and keeping them together. Events handles vision nights, interest meetings and preview services: a short creation wizard, RSVPs by email with add-to-calendar, and sign-up sheets for the parts people bring. Because everyone who RSVPs is in the same people directory, the list of interested people stops being a pile of sign-in sheets.

If the plant takes its core team away for a launch weekend, Retreat Builder adds rooms, rides, small discussion groups and the budget on top of Events; it is its own product at $99 a year or $25 a month and is included in Churchory One.

Chat replaces the launch-team group text with channels for each team, chat spaces anyone can start with the people they pick, and direct messages. New team members see the conversation when they join.

For a vision night with real questions, Open Floor gives the room a public Q&A link with no app, account or login. People submit questions before or during the evening, upvote the ones they care about, and the planter works through them on screen.

How does a portable church run Sunday on Churchory?

Everything runs in a browser or on a phone, so nothing has to be installed in the building you rent.

• Serving teams for set-up, tear-down, welcome, kids and band live in Sunday. Volunteers enter their own availability and blockout dates, an auto-scheduler drafts the rotation with per-person limits, and swap requests go to the people who can cover. New volunteers can sign up from a link without an account.
• Kids check-in runs from a kiosk link on a tablet or laptop that needs no volunteer login. Labels print on a Brother QL printer or on plain paper, with a security code on each child's tag and on the claim ticket the parent keeps. A Print Agent on a Mac or Windows laptop prints silently. See the kids ministry page.
• Sunday check-in and attendance tell you who came, how many, and who is new, week over week.

How does a plant follow up with so many new people?

With Sunday and Care together, every first-time guest from Sunday check-in lands on a follow-up list with a person's name next to them. The planter does not have to do every follow-up; a member of the launch team can be given access to just the people assigned to them. When a family in the plant has a baby or a hard week, Care's meal trains have a public link so friends outside the church can help too.

What permissions does a small launch team need?

Keep it simple at first. The planter is the admin. A second leader can hold the Staff role, which manages everything except church settings, roles and billing. Team leads get Manage (assigned) on Serving so they run their own team. The Welcome Team role, which Churchory creates for every church, runs Sunday check-in and can view the directory. As the plant grows, the 23-area permission grid lets you hand off more without handing over everything. The church administrators page explains roles.

Is Churchory a safe choice if our plant's future is uncertain?

There is no contract, and you can cancel anytime. Every church starts with a 45-day free trial with no card, which covers the products you pick, and adding another product during the trial is one click and free. If you stop paying for a product, its data becomes read-only for admins rather than being deleted, and turning it back on restores it. Nothing switches off automatically when a trial ends.

When should a plant get its own app?

When the church has a name people recognise and wants to be found in the App Store under it. Your own app comes with Churchory One, published under your church's own Apple and Google developer accounts, with guest mode so visitors can look around before they belong. Apple charges its own $99 a year for that account. Until then, every member can use Churchory Mobile. See the branded app page.

Where should a planter go next?

The pastors page covers what a lead pastor uses week to week. Once the plant is through its first year and adding groups fast, the growing churches page is the next stage. If your sending church already uses another system, the switching page explains our free migration, and pricing has the full table.