Which church platforms connect best to your giving, people, and website tools?

An integrations page is a wall of logos. Each logo tells you a connection exists and almost nothing else: not which way the data moves, which fields come along, or whether the sync runs as things happen or once a night. Two churches can connect the same giving tool to the same database and end up with different Monday mornings.

The list of platforms is also shorter than it looks. If you’re comparing Tithely, Planning Center, Pushpay®, Church Community Builder, Subsplash, Breeze, and Rock RMS, you’re looking at five companies. Church Community Builder is now the church management system (ChMS, the member database some vendors call a CRM) inside ChurchStaq®, the Pushpay platform for giving, church management, and the church app. Breeze is now Tithely Church Management.

Keep one question in front of every demo. Where does someone on your staff retype data from one system into another today? The integration worth paying for is the one that stops that retyping, in the direction you need it to run. Whether a platform stops it depends on the type of connection it offers, how that connection behaves once it’s running, and whether it fits the work your finance, operations, and communications staff do.

Five companies in one table

The table reflects each vendor’s public product, pricing, help, and developer pages as of October 2026. Integration lists change often, so confirm anything you plan to depend on.

What kind of connection is it?

Native connections, partner tools, and API access

A native connection is one a vendor builds and runs between its own products, so there’s nothing for you to install or maintain. ChurchStaq, Tithely Church Management, and Planning Center each connect giving to member records this way.

Partner integrations work differently: one vendor’s software talks to another vendor’s API. Who built the integration matters, because that’s who you call when it breaks. On Planning Center’s own integration pages, the Pushpay and Subsplash listings each note that the partner wrote the listing, and the Subsplash listing sends support questions to Subsplash.

An API (application programming interface, a set of addresses that a developer’s code calls to read or write records on request) is the route for anything no partner has built. Planning Center offers a personal access token for a single church’s own project and OAuth for apps that serve many churches. At Tithely, access is by request, and only for churches using or moving to Tithely. The Pushpay developer documentation uses OAuth 2.0. With Rock RMS, REST keys keep working until someone revokes them, so store them the way you’d store passwords.

Any API project needs a developer. Budget for one, whether that’s a staff member, a volunteer you’d trust with donor data, or a contractor.

Webhooks and Zapier

A webhook (a message a platform sends to a web address you supply the moment a defined event happens, such as a new gift or a new person) runs in the opposite direction from an API call. Something has to be listening at that address: a server you run, an automation service, or another platform.

Planning Center added webhooks for People in 2017 and for Giving in 2021. The Pushpay Giving webhooks stream new giving transactions. Rock RMS works on the receiving end, where an inbound webhook can start a workflow.

Zapier is a third-party automation service that connects a trigger in one app to an action in another without code. Planning Center has a Zapier app with five triggers (including New Donation and New Form Submission) and no actions. Through that app, Zapier can send Planning Center data out to other tools but can’t write anything back into Planning Center.

Planning Center’s own Zapier listing suggests sending a Slack message when someone lands in a People workflow, or copying new donations into a Google Sheet. That’s the right scale for Zapier: notifications and spreadsheets. For giving records headed to your general ledger, you want a sync with a named owner and an error log.

API access, webhook events, and Zapier support are separate questions, and a platform can have one without the others. Score each on its own.

Which way the data moves, and when

The Pushpay integration with Planning Center offers a two-way sync of profile data, so profile changes made in either system reach the other. Donors, donations, payments, and refunds move one way, from Pushpay into Planning Center Giving and People. Subsplash’s Planning Center integration also runs one way. Funds, donors, and gift amounts arrive in Planning Center as batches.

Timing matters as much as direction. A webhook-driven sync can arrive as the event happens. A scheduled sync waits for its next run, like the nightly batch in Tithely’s Giving-to-Breeze integration. An export-based connection, like Subsplash’s Simple Sync, depends on how the export reaches the other system, so ask who runs it and how often.

Then decide which system owns each record. If address changes flow both ways, staff can edit in either place. If they flow one way, everyone on staff needs to know which screen to edit, or the next sync may overwrite their fix.

How each platform connects

Pushpay and ChurchStaq

The Pushpay platform fits if the retyping you want to stop is between giving and your member records, whether that database is ChurchStaq or a ChMS you’re keeping.

If you use Church Community Builder today, you’re already on the Pushpay ChMS. The product was renamed ChMS in 2022, with the old name phased out of the software over time. Partner pages still list it as Church Community Builder, so an integration under either name connects to the same system.

Inside ChurchStaq, Pushpay Giving and the ChMS share one platform. Every gift syncs into the giver’s profile automatically, and there’s no connector for your staff to set up or monitor. Child check-in connects to the family’s full profile, including attendance, giving, and notes history.

If you’re keeping another ChMS, the Pushpay integrations directory lists Planning Center, Rock RMS, and Ministry Platform among its ChMS partners. The Planning Center integration lets People stay your member database while giving runs on the Pushpay platform. On the finance side, the directory lists QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, and Aplos.

For developers, the ChMS API comes in two versions: v1 handles bulk data sync and onboarding, and v2 covers people, groups, and scheduling. A separate Giving API handles payment records and funds.

The Pushpay integrations directory doesn’t list Zapier, and the published webhooks cover new giving transactions. If your plan depends on no-code automations, the route is a listed partner or a developer working with the API.

Tithely

Tithely fits if the retyping you want to stop is between giving and your member database, and you’d rather buy giving, people, app, and website from one vendor at a published price.

Tithely Church Management (formerly Breeze) keeps giving and people data in one system. For churches keeping a different ChMS, Tithely’s pricing page lists ten giving integrations, including Planning Center, Rock RMS, and Ministry Platform. Tithely Giving can also be embedded in church apps from other vendors, including The Church App, PocketPew, and ApolloApp. QuickBooks Online is the named accounting integration.

The developer side is thinner. Tithely’s API covers accounts, organizations, payment methods, charges, and recurring charges, and its documentation describes no webhooks. Tithely’s integrations help section has no Zapier article.

Planning Center

Planning Center fits if the retyping you want to stop runs across several ministry areas and someone on your team can build on an API.

Planning Center is a set of separate apps (including People, Giving, Services, Groups, and Check-Ins) built on shared People profiles. Each app has its own API, webhooks include People and Giving events, and the Zapier app adds no-code triggers. For a church with a developer, that’s a lot of room to build.

Accounting is the gap. Planning Center has no QuickBooks integration and relies on CSV exports. Giving partners such as the Pushpay platform and Subsplash sync gifts into Planning Center Giving for churches that process giving elsewhere.

Subsplash

Subsplash fits if the retyping you want to stop is between your app, website, and media tools on one side and your other ministry systems on the other.

Subsplash One bundles custom mobile and TV apps, websites, giving, media hosting and live streaming, messaging, and people management. Subsplash also connects giving to Planning Center and, through Simple Sync, to Church Community Builder and Breeze. Simple Sync works by producing a data export formatted for those systems.

API access is an Enterprise feature. The pricing page lists custom API integrations and a Rock RMS integration and plugin on the Enterprise package. The standard packages describe no public API, webhooks, or Zapier app, so ask before you plan around one.

Rock RMS

Rock RMS fits if the retyping you want to stop could be fixed with a custom build, and you have the technical staff to do the building. Rock is open-source church management software that you host yourself or through a hosting provider, so your team owns server resources, security, updates, and every custom connection.

Rock has built-in giving pages that process cards through a payment gateway, and it appears as a giving integration partner for the Pushpay platform, Tithely, and Subsplash Enterprise. Its REST API is secured with REST keys or a user login, and inbound webhooks can start workflows.

Giving, member records, website, and app handoffs

Score each platform on these four handoffs, skipping any you don’t use:

• Giving to member records: native on ChurchStaq, Tithely Church Management, and Planning Center; a partner sync otherwise. Test what happens to a donor the system can’t match.
• Giving to accounting: a direct integration or a CSV export. Check whether fund and campus come across with the amount.
• Website to member records: Tithely All-Access and Subsplash One both include a website. Ask whether a connect card submitted on the site creates or updates a person record, or arrives as an email someone retypes.
• App to giving and people: whether the app comes with the platform or is a third-party app with giving embedded, confirm that a gift made in the app shows up on the same profile as a gift made on the web.

Matching connections to your team

Setup, data coverage, and upkeep

Setup effort scales with the connection type. A native connection needs fund mapping, and a partner integration adds credentials and campus settings. Tithely’s Giving-to-Breeze integration, for example, needs a Breeze API key, a fund map, and each campus enabled one at a time. Anything built on an API is a development project, with a spec, testing, and someone to maintain it.

Before you sign, write down every field your staff relies on (fund, campus, household, address, and giving method), then get a yes or no for each one on each connection.

Demos skip the upkeep. Partners change their APIs, and the person who built a Zap eventually leaves. Every connection you add is a small, permanent job. Somebody owns it, or nobody does and you find out from a donor.

For the setup side of the same decision, see which church giving platform is easiest for your staff to set up.

Finance, operations, and communications

Run each connection on a test record in a trial or sandbox account, and have each team check the handoffs it owns.

Finance runs one test gift through every system it touches, from the giving platform to the ChMS to the ledger. Check that the fund, campus, amount, and date match at each stop. Then refund the gift and see whether the refund follows it.

In operations, create a person through the website form or the app, then edit that person’s address in the other system. If the edit doesn’t come back, note which system owns that field. A second sign-up with the same email shows how duplicates are handled.

For communications, the question is speed. Add the test person to a group or list, and time how long it takes for that person to appear in your email or text tool.

Anything that doesn’t come back on its own becomes a manual job. Write the name of the person who’ll do it next to each one.

One platform or best-of-breed?

Best-of-breed (picking the strongest standalone tool for each job and connecting them) fits when one tool is worth more to you than the connection work. A media-heavy church that wants a particular app and streaming setup is one case. A church with a developer on staff running Rock RMS is another.

A single platform fits when the people doing the retyping are the same people who’d have to maintain the connectors. A middle path puts giving and the member database on one platform and uses partners at the edges, such as streaming, background checks, and accounting. The Pushpay integrations directory lists Resi (part of Pushpay since 2021) for streaming, and MinistrySafe and Protect My Ministry for background checks, alongside its accounting partners.

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Questions about church software integrations

Do church management platforms support Zapier?

Some do. Planning Center has a Zapier app for People and Giving with five triggers and no actions. We found no Zapier app for Tithely Church Management, Subsplash, or Rock RMS. (The Breeze app in Zapier’s directory is an unrelated project management tool.) The Pushpay integrations directory doesn’t list Zapier either. Where there’s no Zapier app, a developer can usually do the same job with a webhook or the API.

What’s the difference between an API and a webhook?

An API waits to be asked, and a webhook speaks first. With an API, your developer’s code requests records on its own schedule. With a webhook, the platform sends a message to your address when an event happens. Planning Center Giving, for example, can notify your system when Giving data changes, so your system doesn’t have to keep asking.

How can you verify an integration before switching?

Ask for the integration’s documentation, and read who’s listed as the builder. Tithely, for instance, publishes help articles for its ChMS integrations, and that’s where details like nightly timing and fund mapping show up. Then ask for a reference church that runs the same pair of systems you plan to run, and run the connection on a test record during your trial or demo.

When is the Pushpay platform a better fit for giving and donor engagement?

When giving is the system you can least afford to get wrong. The Pushpay platform operates as an ISO (an independent sales organization that manages its merchant relationships itself) and owns its giving infrastructure, so there’s no outside processor between your bookkeeper and an answer about a held deposit. When a recurring gift fails, Everygift® prompts the donor to update the payment method and make up the missed gift. Eighty percent of donors who get that prompt say yes.

Donor Development lists first-time, second-time, and recurring donors and flags at-risk and lapsed donors for follow-up. It also fits when you’re keeping Planning Center, Rock RMS, or Ministry Platform as your ChMS, since all three are listed partners.

What does Tithely include for churches that want one platform?

All-Access, at $119 a month, includes giving, church management (the former Breeze), a custom app and website, text giving, messaging, check-in, and service planning. It also includes data migration help and one-on-one onboarding for staff. Tithely’s pricing page lists Church Management alone at $72 a month.

Which integration approach fits small, growing, and multi-campus churches?

It depends on how many systems you’re running. A small church has the fewest people to maintain connectors, so giving and people from one vendor keeps that job list short. A growing church should list every place staff retype data. Once you’re maintaining a second partner sync, weigh that upkeep against moving giving and people onto one platform.

A multi-campus church needs campus to travel through every connection. On ChurchStaq, each campus runs its own people, groups, and operations, while leadership gets unified reporting across all locations. Whatever you choose, ask how each integration handles campus, since some require you to enable every campus separately.

Which platforms offer the best integrations for giving, CRM, and website?

It depends on whether you want to connect tools or replace them. To connect tools, Planning Center offers separate APIs, webhooks, and a Zapier app, and Rock RMS is open source for churches that can host it. To replace them, ChurchStaq, Tithely Church Management, and Subsplash One each put giving and people records in one system. If you’re keeping your current ChMS, the Pushpay platform and Tithely each connect giving to several outside ones. For deeper side-by-side detail, see how the Pushpay platform compares with Tithely, Planning Center, and Subsplash.

Before year-end giving starts

Book a Pushpay demo for November, so any change to how gifts move gets tested before your heaviest giving weeks instead of during them.

In the week before the call, keep a log. Each time someone copies a name, a gift, or an attendance count from one screen into another, write down the two systems and how long it took. Bring the log, and ask to watch each of those connections run on a test record. It’s a better spec than any vendor’s logo wall.

Not ready for a demo? The Church Tech Check is a seven-minute assessment that scores your church’s technology across five areas, including giving and communications, and returns a report with strengths and recommendations.