Church management software for growing churches
Churchory helps a growing church hand work to more leaders without handing over everything, with 23 permission areas, group waitlists and coaches, and insights you grant one area at a time. Churchory is church management software for small and mid-size churches. Start free with Core (your people directory, families, roles and church-wide email and push), then add only the products you need, like groups, events, Sunday serving and check-in, kids, care, chat and voting, or get everything with Churchory One.
What changes when a church starts to grow?
The pastor stops knowing everyone, and the systems that worked on goodwill start to break. Somewhere past a hundred and fifty people, a church usually adds a second service, hires its first or second staff member, and starts multiplying small groups faster than anyone can track. The volunteer who kept the directory in a spreadsheet cannot keep up. The welcome team notices new faces every week but cannot tell whether last month's new faces came back.
Growth is a good problem, but it is a problem of delegation: more people need to do more of the work, and each of them needs exactly enough access to do it.
What do growing churches struggle with most?
- Access that cannot be split. To let a new staff member run kids check-in, they get a login that sees the whole church.
- Groups that fill up and fall apart. Popular groups overflow, new people cannot find a group with room, and nobody notices when a group quietly stops meeting.
- Too many places to look. Attendance in one tool, groups in another, serving in a third, so nobody has the whole picture.
- Communication that multiplies. Every ministry wants its own email, announcement and push, on the same Sunday.
- Prices that jump at a headcount line. Many systems move a church up a tier as it grows.
How does Churchory help a growing church delegate?
Churchory's permissions are a grid of 23 areas, each with up to four levels: None, View, Manage (assigned) and Manage (all). Manage (assigned) means only what that person leads, such as their group, their serving team or their care train, so you can hand a leader real responsibility without handing over the church.
A few examples of how growing churches split the work:
| Person | Typical access |
|---|---|
| New associate pastor | Staff role: manage everything except church settings, roles and billing |
| Kids director | Kids: Manage (all); People: View |
| Head greeter | Welcome Team role: runs Sunday check-in, views the directory |
| Small group leader | Small Group Leader role: runs their own groups, takes their own attendance |
| Group coach | Small Group Coach: sees only the groups they are assigned to |
| Bulletin volunteer | Bulletin: Manage (assigned), which drafts but cannot publish |
Insights are separate grants on purpose, because running a ministry and seeing its trends are different jobs. There are nine insight areas, including Sunday attendance, groups, serving, care, giving and engagement. The church administrators page explains how to set up roles.
How does Churchory help small groups multiply?
Groups is built for a church adding groups faster than staff can follow. People find a group on a map, with a privacy radius so no leader's address is published. Groups can have a capacity, and when a seat opens the next person on the waitlist is promoted. Leaders take attendance from their phone, and a missing-attendance list shows staff which groups have gone quiet. Coaches are assigned to specific groups, so oversight grows with the number of groups. The small group leaders page covers the leader side.
How does Churchory handle more services and more volunteers?
Sunday schedules serving teams across weeks and services, with availability entered by volunteers, an auto-scheduler with per-person limits, and swap requests that go to the people who can cover. A weekly email tells everyone serving that Sunday what they are on for and who else is serving. Sunday check-in shows who came, how many and who is new, week over week, and with Care every first-time guest lands on a follow-up list with a person's name next to them. The volunteer coordinators page goes deeper.
How do growing churches keep communication under control?
By putting it on one calendar. Newsletters sends the weekly email to the whole church, one audience or a mailing list, with unsubscribe links and suppression handled on every send, and can pull in upcoming events. Digital Bulletin is built once and published as a push notification, a public link and a lobby QR code. Owning either one unlocks a communications planner where every send sits on one calendar, so two ministries stop emailing the church on the same morning. Church-wide email and push announcements are part of Core, which is free forever.
What about events, retreats and giving?
Events adds RSVPs, sign-up sheets, room booking so ministries stop double-booking the same space, and paid registration through your church's own Stripe account, with ticket types, discount codes, deposits and waivers. For camps and retreats, Retreat Builder adds rooms and cabins, rides, small discussion groups and the budget; it is its own product at $99 a year or $25 a month, works with Events, and is included in Churchory One. Giving handles online giving through your own Stripe account, with funds, recurring gifts and year-end statements.
Which plan makes sense for a growing church?
Many growing churches end up on Churchory One: $599 a year, which saves $949 against $129 a month, for every product, every future product, and your church's own app on the App Store and Google Play. A growing church typically runs Sunday, Groups, Care and Kids, and often Events, Newsletters or Chat as well. Bought one by one that is $396 to $693 a year, or $100 to $175 a month. Churchory One is 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 church's own app.
The value for a growing church is in what it no longer has to stitch together: one directory, one set of permissions and one place to look, instead of a separate tool per ministry that each needs its own list and its own logins. Giving carries no Churchory platform fee, only Stripe's processing fees, and our team migrates your data for free.
If you would rather grow into it, buy products one at a time at $99 a year each, which saves $201 against paying $25 a month. There are no people-count tiers on the new plans, so growth itself never moves your bill. Every church starts with a 45-day free trial with no card.
Can our staff work in other languages?
Yes. The Churchory app is available in English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean, which helps churches whose staff or members are more at home in one of those languages.
How do we move a bigger church's data?
Churchory's team migrates your data for free from Planning Center, Breeze, Church Community Builder, Tithe.ly and Elvanto, Realm, Servant Keeper, ChurchTrac and spreadsheets, with 12 to 24 months of history. Giving ledgers are not migrated. The switching page explains the process, and the comparison page shows how Churchory compares with the systems growing churches usually consider. If your church runs many distinct ministries, the multi-ministry churches page is also worth reading.
Churchory products in this page
Frequently asked questions
Does Churchory charge more as our church grows?
No. Churchory's new plans are priced per product, $99 a year ($25 a month) each, or $599 a year ($129 a month) for Churchory One, with no people-count tiers. Adding people does not change the price.
How do we give new staff and leaders the right access?
Create roles with your own names and set each of 23 permission areas to None, View, Manage (assigned) or Manage (all). Assigned means only what that person leads, such as their group or serving team.
Can a pastor see trends without running every ministry?
Yes. Insights are granted separately from running a ministry, across nine areas such as Sunday attendance, groups, serving, care and giving, so trends go only to the people who should see them.
What happens when a small group is full?
Set a capacity and a waitlist forms. When a seat opens, the next person on the waitlist is promoted automatically.
Is Churchory One worth it for a growing church?
Often, yes. Many growing churches end up using six or seven products or more, and Churchory One, at $599 a year or $129 a month, is the better deal from the sixth product on monthly billing and the seventh on yearly billing. It also includes every future product and your church's own app.
Does each product work on its own?
Yes. Every product runs on Core by itself except Retreat Builder, which needs Events because every retreat is an event. Products light up extra features when you own them together: Groups plus Chat gives each group its own channel, Sunday plus Care puts first-time guests on the follow-up list, and Events plus Newsletters pulls upcoming events into a newsletter.
Does Churchory use AI?
Yes, for first drafts only: Churchory prepares things like a check-in note when someone has missed three group meetings, an ask to volunteers who are free when a team is short, or an event recap, and then waits. Nothing goes to anyone until a person reads it and presses send. AI features are in beta.