Adjoa’s $49 plan assumptions. The committee meets tomorrow.

A five-minute pricing audit can prevent a church from choosing a ChurchWork plan based on a label or price that means something different elsewhere. Before self-serve signup, compare the plan name, price, billing period, member limits, message limits, storage limits, and included features across every pricing surface.

At 4:40 p.m. in a church office in Accra, Adjoa had the finance committee’s notes open beside a half-charged phone. The committee had approved “the $49 plan,” but one leader expected custom branding, another had budgeted for a larger member list, and the treasurer wanted to know whether the price covered a month or a year.

The signup screen was waiting. So was a meeting the next morning.

If those assumptions were wrong, the church could approve a plan that failed its needs before members ever saw the app. Adjoa paused the signup and ran a short audit instead.

Put every pricing surface side by side

Start with the public pricing page, signup flow, billing dashboard, plan comparison table, and any proposal or sales document your church has received. Copy each plan into one simple sheet.

For every plan, record:

• The exact plan name.
• The displayed price and currency.
• The billing period shown beside that price.
• Member, SMS, storage, or feature limits.
• Included features and features that require a higher tier.
• Any trial terms, renewal details, or setup costs shown.

ChurchWork has Free, Standard, and Premium plan tiers, with published price points of Free, $49, and $99. The useful work begins after you see those numbers. A price without a billing period cannot support a budget. A plan name without limits cannot support a rollout decision.

Keep the wording exactly as it appears. “Up to 500 members” and “unlimited members” lead to very different committee conversations. So do “SMS included” and “SMS allowance,” especially for a church that depends on urgent transport or event updates.

Check that each promised feature is usable today

A plan can list a feature before that feature is ready for everyday church use. Your audit should separate three categories: available now, available with a stated limitation, and planned or in development.

This matters particularly when a feature affects money, reporting, or a member-facing promise. ChurchWork’s current materials identify two areas that need careful handling: AI Analytics should not be presented as a usable Premium feature today, and Online Giving should not be described as processing real member payments today.

That is not a reason to abandon the comparison. It is a reason to make it accurate.

Adjoa returned to the committee’s notes and marked those two items for discussion. The $49 price still mattered, but the decision now rested on the features the church could actually put in members’ hands: events, groups, conference registration, QR check-in, transport coordination, and communications that match the church’s immediate needs.

For a deeper feature-by-feature conversation, What Does Member Engagement Actually Include in This Plan? can help keep the team focused on how members participate, rather than on a broad category label.

Match limits to one real church moment

Do not evaluate limits in the abstract. Use a real upcoming moment: a conference, a branch gathering, a registration drive, or a season when leaders expect to send more updates than usual.

Ask practical questions:

• How many active members need access in the first month?
• Which members need SMS, and which can rely on push or email?
• How many event registrations could arrive in a short window?
• Which team needs admin access?
• What happens if the church reaches a limit during a major event?

ChurchWork’s operational backbone has handled large-scale conference activity, including approximately 8,752 registrations for IMPACT 2025. That history is meaningful proof for churches planning busy events. It does not replace checking the limits and entitlements attached to the plan your church is considering.

Adjoa’s church expected several branches to join its next event. Once she listed the likely registrations, the question changed from “Can we afford $49?” to “Does this plan cover the people and messages we need when registration opens?” That was the question the committee needed answered.

Save the audit with the approval record

Before someone enters card details or invites administrators, save the completed comparison with the date, source, and any unanswered item. Pricing pages change. Plans are revised. A short record protects the church from relying on a screenshot passed around in a WhatsApp group.

If one surface conflicts with another, pause and get the discrepancy resolved in writing before signup. Plan names can match while limits differ, a problem explored in What Happens When Matching Plan Names Hide Different Church Limits?.

The next morning, Adjoa brought one page to the committee: the exact tier, its displayed price and billing period, the limits that mattered, and two features marked for confirmation. The group could approve a plan with its eyes open.