Don't Overpay for Online Giving: The Best Platform for Small and Mid-Size Churches

There are hundreds of online giving platforms being marketed towards small and mid-size churches. 

Unfortunately, most of them are either missing important features, have high fees, or participate in rev-sharing.

If your church is processing under 1.5 million dollars a year in online donations, ChurchTrac is probably going to be the best fit for your ministry.

As someone who obsesses over saving churches money and has been in this industry for nearly a decade, I'll explain why...

1. ChurchTrac Has Online Giving Features Your Church Needs

ChurchTrac includes the "must have" giving features every church needs to make stewardship paramount. These features include:

• Help cover the fees
• Recurring donations 
• Give with ACH
• Online contribution statements

Ability To Cover The Fees

When you give your people the ability to cover the fees, many do. I've seen stats regarding covering the fees range from as little as 30% to as much as 65%. 

What this means for your church: You pay less for giving fees when donors opt to cover them.

Recurring Donations

When you give your people the ability to setup their giving to be automatic, they give regularly without fail. Even when they're not at church. Not to get crazy technical, but the lifetime value of a recurring donor is 9x more than a one-time donor.

What this means for your church: Recurring donors give more to your ministry.

ACH Giving

If your church is located in the USA, ACH giving lets donors give directly from their bank to your church's bank. This can result in a savings of over $70 a year for every donor compared to credit card donations. Only downside of ACH is that the donations take a few days to post and clear your account.

I actually did a killer whiteboard video showing off ACH VS Credit Card Donations. It's old, but more relevant than ever.

Online Giving Statements

When people can check all of their giving online, it reduces the need to mail out physical giving statements to your people. This saves trees, time, and money. 

2. ChurchTrac Has Low Transaction Fees (they matter)

All giving platforms have transaction fees with the exception of a few outliers like Zelle (which isn't purpose-built for online donations).

Typical Giving Providers:

You'll frequently see the 2.9% rate across many online giving providers like Tithe.ly or Givelify. Why? Because this puts them in the sweet spot of making a reasonable profit on donations while still being relatively affordable.

As an industry insider, we often refer to this 2.9% rate as the "rack rate" or simply the sticker price. It's not the actual interchange cost. 

Fun fact: Many giving providers are a middle man that's connected to another middle man which is actually handling your donation. Wild right? 

ChurchTrac Giving (with Stripe Non-Profit Rate):

Note: ChurchTrac Online Giving uses Stripe for processing. Churches and non-profits often qualify for Stripe's published rate for non-profit organizations. Though ChurchTrac is technically a middleman between you and Stripe, the key is that ChurchTrac doesn't take a cut. Not a single cent!

3. ChurchTrac Says NO to Rev-Sharing

Think of revenue sharing as an invisible "tech tax" tacked onto your transaction fees, where the merchant processor and your giving platform quietly split a percentage of every tithe as a commission.

Instead of your fees just covering basic card processing, multiple companies are taking a cut of your church's generosity before the money ever hits your bank account.

It's hard to find hard data on rev-sharing practices, but I would estimate that over 80% of online donation platforms participate in rev-sharing.

Why ChurchTrac Doesn't Participate in Rev-Sharing?

Rather than make money from church donations, ChurchTrac decided to build our platform to integrate with Stripe and pass the savings onto the church. It goes back to our core values instilled by our founder. 

4. ChurchTrac Has No Monthly Giving Fees

ChurchTrac doesn't have a monthly giving fee for using our online giving platform. Other platforms like Planning Center or PushPay charge you a monthly fee based on the number of donations processed. We don't do that.

The only monthly fee associated with ChurchTrac is your subscription cost. Your subscription gives you access to ChurchTrac's all-in-one church software. This includes:

• A church website builder
• Mobile app for members
• Worship Planning & Scheduling
• Child Check-In
• And dozens of other ministry tools

Giving Made For Small and Mid-Size Churches

For churches under 2,000 people, ChurchTrac is often the best platform for accepting donations online. It's got the features, the competitive rates (especially ACH), and makes no money from monthly fees or rev-sharing.

Not already using ChurchTrac? Start your free trial today.

If you have more questions about ChurchTrac's online giving, just reach out to our team. We're here to help you build the body of Christ.