What free church management software costs you

The cheapest church management software is rarely the one with the lowest sticker price. It’s the one whose limits you don’t hit for the longest time.

That’s the part most pricing pages skip. A free plan looks great in month one. Then you cross a member cap, or a first-time visitor’s kid needs a secure check-in tag on your third Sunday, or your launch-team treasurer wants a giving report the free tier won’t generate. Now you’re paying more than you planned. Or migrating everything to a new system while you’re still learning the old one.

So this compares two things: what each platform costs, and where it starts costing you something other than money.

Need to collect gifts before your first service? Tithe.ly giving is free at any size.

Running lean with a small launch team? ChMeetings is free up to 50 members. Planning Center’s free tier works if you stay under its module caps. Rock RMS does as well, if you’ve got a developer on your team.

Want one predictable bill as you grow past launch day? ChurchTrac and Breeze ChMS are the value picks.

Church plant? Pushpay’s church plant technology grant offers pre-launch church plants the opportunity to get the full Pushpay platform free for a year.

Church software pricing at a glance

ChurchTrac does the most for the least

ChurchTrac has been around since 2002, and the pitch hasn’t changed. Everything in one login, cheap. Pricing scales by the number of names you track, starting around $7 to $9 a month, with a free tier for the smallest churches and a 30-day trial on paid plans. The base plan covers people records, giving, check-in, groups, volunteer scheduling, a basic website and app, and human support.

Two add-ons sit outside that base: accounting (+$15 a month for fund accounting and budgets) and Enhanced Messaging (+$7 a month for two-way texting and a dedicated number). Neither is expensive alone. But a church that wants real accounting and lives on text is closer to $31 a month than $9, before adding a single name.

Still a strong value. Just not the $9 you saw first.

Breeze ChMS keeps it simple, for a price

Breeze, now owned by Tithe.ly, does one thing well: providing a database your volunteers will actually open. Flat rate, right around $72 a month, unlimited members, no per-member creep, and support included.

No permanent free plan, however. You get a trial, then the full monthly rate whether you run 40 members or 400. For a church that mostly needs contacts, tags, basic giving, and events, that flat and predictable price is easy to budget around. Push the software on accounting or layered reporting and you’ll feel the edges. It stays shallow on purpose. That’s what keeps it easy.

Planning Center and the module math

Planning Center works differently. You don’t buy one product, you assemble modules: People, Services, Giving, Check-Ins, Groups, Registrations, Calendar.

People is free with unlimited records. Most other modules carry a free tier with a hard cap: five team members in Services, 15 members in a Group, one room on the Calendar, roughly 10 check-ins a day, Giving free up to a set donation volume.

Those caps are the story. A launch team of five fits. A growing student ministry with 30 volunteers doesn’t. The modules themselves are genuinely strong, especially Services for worship planning. You pay per module you switch on, but rising costs can sneak up on you.

Tithe.ly and the free giving on-ramp

Tithe.ly splits the difference. Giving is free to run, no monthly fee, with standard processing of 2.9% plus 30 cents on cards and 1% plus 30 cents on ACH. For a church that only needs online giving today, that’s a genuine on-ramp at zero.

Tithe.ly Church Management is the paid layer at $72 a month. There’s an all-access bundle at $119 that folds in a branded app, website builder, and worship tools. No per-member fees, so member count doesn’t move the price. Start free on giving, add Church Management when your records and scheduling outgrow the spreadsheet.

The truly free options, and their hidden bill

Two names come up whenever someone says “free.”

ChMeetings gives you a free account up to 50 members, core features included. Cross 50 and you’re on a paid plan: about $12 a month for 100 members, scaling to $60 for unlimited. Support stays free on every tier. Fine, no-frills choice for a congregation that’s genuinely small and plans to stay that way.

Rock RMS is free the way a puppy is free. The software costs nothing. Open source, no license fees, no per-user pricing, and it’s shockingly capable across giving, check-in, workflows, and reporting. But you have to host it. Windows or Azure cost $50 to $200 a month, plus someone who can run and support it. Churches that thrive on Rock almost always have a developer on staff or on contract. If you don’t, “free” becomes your most expensive line item, paid in someone’s nights and weekends.

What the free tiers leave out

Notice the pattern. Free church management software almost never takes away your people records. It takes away the operational features that make a Sunday run and keep staff sane:

• Advanced reporting: exportable giving and attendance reports the free tier won’t generate.
• Secure check-in: printed name tags and security codes at real Sunday volume.
• Volunteer scheduling: filling and confirming rosters across multiple teams.
• Bulk messaging: email and text blasts to the whole congregation.
• Integrations and an app: giving, your website, and a member app landing in one place.

The database rarely forces the upgrade. It’s the twentieth volunteer, the first busy check-in Sunday, the finance report you can’t export. Figure out which one you’re closest to. That’s the wall you’ll hit first.

A different starting point for church plants

The math flips for one kind of church. If you’re planting, you’re not really choosing between a $12 tier and a $72 tier. You can start on the full platform, at no cost, for a year.

Qualified pre-launch church plants (6 to 18 months out, affiliated with a recognized planting network) can apply for the Pushpay church plant technology grant: 12 months of the complete platform, free. Not a starter tier. The same giving, people management, and church app that multi-site churches run every Sunday, with onboarding support before your first service. Standard payment processing rates still apply, but the software itself is covered.

Why does that matter more than saving $70 a month? Because the expensive part was never the subscription. It’s the migration. When you outgrow a free plan in year two, you’re moving member records, retraining volunteers, and re-teaching your congregation how to give, all while trying to grow. Start on a platform that scales from 50 people to 10,000, and you skip that step entirely.

Everygift® works quietly in the background here too, catching failed and expired-card gifts on its own so the recurring giving you build early doesn’t leak back out.

Planting outside a formal network? The grant is built for network-affiliated plants specifically, but we still work with independent church plants on pricing that fits their stage. Either way, have that conversation before you commit to a tool you’ll eventually have to leave.

Free and low-cost church management software questions, answered

Does ChurchTrac offer a free tier, and what’s restricted?
Yes. ChurchTrac has a free tier for the smallest churches and a 30-day trial on paid plans. The free and entry tiers cover core people records, giving, and check-in. What’s restricted is scale, since pricing tracks how many names you manage, plus the accounting and Enhanced Messaging add-ons.

Does Breeze ChMS have a permanent free plan or only a trial?
Only a trial. Breeze has no permanent free plan. You get a trial, then a flat rate around $72 a month with unlimited members and support included on every plan.

Is ChMeetings truly free, and what member limits apply?
Genuinely free up to 50 members. Past that, ChMeetings moves to paid plans priced by active people: about $12 a month for 100 members, scaling to $60 for unlimited.

Is Rock RMS really free, and what costs come with self-hosting?
The software is free and open source, no license or per-user fees. The real costs are hosting ($50 to $200 a month on Windows or Azure, or Rock’s own cloud) and the technical support to install, configure, and maintain it. Budget for a developer, not a subscription.

Is Tithe.ly giving really free?
Yes. No monthly fee, just standard processing on each gift. The paid part is Church Management at $72 a month, so Tithe.ly is free if all you need today is online giving.

Which church management options work best for churches under 100 people?
For pure cost, ChMeetings’ free 50-member tier or Planning Center’s capped free plan. If you only need to collect gifts, Tithe.ly giving is free at any size. For one simple all-in-one bill, ChurchTrac or Breeze. For a church plant under 100 people, the Pushpay grant runs the full platform free for a year.