ChurchWork currently offers three plans: Free, Standard at $49 per month, and Premium at $99 per month. If the monthly price remains unchanged for 12 months, the base annual cost is $0, $588, or $1,188 before taxes, payment fees, usage charges, and any separately quoted services.
Put the annual base cost on one page
Finance committees should begin with the amount the church can calculate directly.
| Plan | Monthly price | 12-month base cost | |---|---:|---:| | Free | $0 | $0 | | Standard | $49 | $588 | | Premium | $99 | $1,188 |
These figures assume 12 monthly payments at the stated price. They do not establish the final amount that will leave the church’s account.
Before approving a budget, confirm four details in writing: the billing currency, applicable taxes, exchange-rate treatment, and whether an annual payment option changes the price. A Ghanaian church budgeting in cedis should also agree on the exchange rate or contingency margin it will use. Otherwise, a fixed dollar subscription can still produce a changing monthly expense.
If two ChurchWork pages or documents show different prices, pause the approval and follow the checks in What Should I Do When a Church Software Vendor Shows Two Plan Prices?.
Match each plan to the work the church will do
The Free, Standard, and Premium structure uses plan-based feature access and limits. The church should choose from its expected activity, not from the plan name.
Write down the operational requirements for the year:
- How many member records will the church maintain?
- How many SMS messages might it send each month?
- How much file storage will it need?
- Will multiple branches use the account?
- Which roles need administrative access?
- Which event, group, transport, and check-in functions are essential?
ChurchWork tracks usage such as members, SMS, and storage by church. However, the supplied product information does not state the exact allowance for each plan. Do not insert assumed numbers into the finance paper. Ask for the current plan table or quote, then record each allowance beside the expected annual usage.
This matters most for SMS. A church that sends one message to 2,000 members has created 2,000 recipient sends, not one. During IMPACT 2025, ChurchWork handled a real campaign to 5,296 recipients. That scale is useful evidence, but it does not tell your committee what SMS allowance or charge applies to its chosen plan.
Separate subscription cost from variable cost
A clean budget should have separate lines for the base subscription and costs that may move with use.
Include these rows, even when the current amount is zero or awaiting confirmation:
- ChurchWork subscription
- SMS usage above the included allowance
- Taxes
- Currency conversion or bank charges
- Data migration and setup
- Staff training
- Custom branding or configuration
- Devices for QR scanning or check-in
- Mobile data and connectivity
- Contingency
Mark every unconfirmed item as “pending written quote.” Do not hide it inside a general software line.
For example, a Standard-plan budget might begin at $588 for the year. The approved amount should rise only when documented taxes, usage charges, hardware, or services require it. This approach also makes competing proposals easier to compare. Church Software Pricing: How Efua Made Three Quotes Comparable provides a practical comparison method.
Record the limits before approving the plan
A low subscription price can become expensive if the church crosses a limit during its busiest event.
Ask ChurchWork to confirm:
- the member limit for the selected plan;
- included SMS volume and the price of additional sends;
- included storage and any excess-storage charge;
- which features are available on each plan today;
- whether limits reset monthly or apply across the subscription year;
- what happens when the church reaches a limit;
- how upgrades and downgrades affect billing;
- whether cancellation produces refunds or credits.
The finance minutes should include the answers or refer to an attached quote. A verbal explanation during a demo is too easy to remember differently six months later.
Exclude two unavailable capabilities from the business case
Do not budget on the assumption that ChurchWork currently processes real online donations. The giving interface exists, but card capture still uses a mock Stripe payment method. Until production payment processing is confirmed through a controlled test, projected donation income should remain outside the return calculation.
Do not treat “AI Analytics” as an available Premium benefit either. The current product has a plan flag for it, but no usable analytics feature behind that claim.
ChurchWork does have platform usage reporting for authorized administrators, including signups, active-user measures, user records, and plan-based revenue reporting. Some retention and funnel panels depend on PostHog configuration, and live presence also depends on production WebSocket configuration. Those administrative reports should not be confused with the unavailable Premium claim.
Test the features that support the purchase
ChurchWork’s strongest current evidence comes from event operations. It has supported about 8,752 conference registrations for IMPACT 2025 and includes conference registration, QR check-in, GPS-validated self-check-in, groups, branch management, bus coordination, and member communications.
Your approval should still depend on the church’s own acceptance test. Use sample member records to run one event from registration through check-in. Create a bus route, test capacity handling, assign a group, and send a small approved communication. Record what passed, what failed, and which functions require additional work.
The mobile app is still in progress. If app-store availability is essential to adoption, make it a dated condition in the purchase decision rather than assuming it will arrive during the subscription year.
Approve a ceiling, owner, and review date
Take a one-page cost sheet into the finance meeting. It should show the selected plan, the 12-month base cost, confirmed limits, variable-cost assumptions, unavailable features, contingency, and total approval ceiling.
Name one person to monitor member, SMS, and storage usage. Set a review before the church’s largest conference, when usage is most likely to change. Then approve only the documented amount, with any increase returning to the finance committee.
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