If you want to create a website for your church, you should start with finding a good site builder. You don't need to have any coding or design skills to use this type of software. You pick a template, customize it and add all the functions that you need. From this article, you'll get to know how to select a top-notch church website builder that will best meet your demands.
When choosing a church website builder, you should pay primary attention to the following features:
Calendar. You should be able to list your regular services, and perhaps other activities, on your website.
Sermons. The builder should allow you to upload sermons on the site quickly and conveniently.
User accounts and permissions. Most likely, you won't be the only person in charge of the website. Other church members will help you to update the site, so you'll need to distribute access rights among them.
Sign-up and sign-in functionality. Selected content might be available only to registered members, such as the minutes of church meetings.
Donations. Your site should feature software that enables you to accept donations.
Plus, the church website builder should contain various templates that you can customize to match your brand.
Now, let's talk about the most popular software that you might want to use to create a website for your church. Some of these solutions are generic website builders, others were tailor-made for religious organizations and all of them are excellent.
Bitrix24 is a powerful and versatile solution with extensive functionality. Over 10 million businesses from all over the world rely on it. The website builder is one of the numerous features of Bitrix24. If you use it to build the site of your church, you can be sure to get a superb result.
Here is the list of the basic features that you can get for free:
Own domain name
Hosting
Unlimited pages
Unlimited bandwidth
Forms
SSL encryption
This means your site will effortlessly cope with any spike in traffic. It will guarantee the maximum safety of your congregation's private data. Your website will be fully mobile-optimized and SEO-ready. You'll get direct access to advertising networks that should help you to promote your church.
The block-based editor of Bitrix24 is very easy to use. You don't need to have any coding skills to make the most of it. This solution is famous for its top-notch training courses and the highest quality of client support. You can find a lot of educational videos on its YouTube channel.
Whenever you need to add a picture to the site, you can choose it from the free image bank. If you want to talk with your congregation through the site, you can add the live chat widget. Moreover, you'll be able to host videoconferences or collective prayers on your site. Bitrix24 can accept online payments — and you can use this function to accept donations.
This software is available in the cloud and on-premise versions as well as a mobile app for iOS and Android. The cloud version should be optimal for building a church website.
The only disadvantage of this solution consists in the fact that it has many options that you don't need. But since you don't have to pay for them, you can just pay no attention to them. For instance, you won't need task and project planning functionality, a CRM or Scrum teams.
The basic functionality of Bitrix24 is available for free for an unlimited number of users, including the website builder. If you ever need extended functionality, you can upgrade to one of the following plans:
|
The name of the plan |
Number of users |
Price per month when paying annually |
|---|---|---|
|
Basic |
5 |
$39 |
|
Standard |
50 |
$79 |
|
Professional |
Unlimited |
$149 |
This brand offers two solutions: WordPress.org and WordPress.com. These are not synonyms!
The former is known as "self-hosted WordPress". It's a 100% free open-source website builder that provides you with anything you might need to create a site. But you should be ready to register a domain name and find web hosting yourself. All major hosting providers support WordPress, so it shouldn't be a problem for you to find a plan. To handle updates, backups and security, you can rely on WordPress plugins. Such an approach is good for site owners who already have some experience. If you start from scratch, you should be patient and ready to learn.
Here are the main reasons why WordPress.org is so popular:
It features hundreds of free and premium templates and layouts. Many of them are suitable for churches.
You fully own your website. This means you won't see any annoying ads on your site, as it might happen if you opt for a free or cheap website builder.
There are over 59,000+ free WordPress plugins to choose from. With their help, you can get additional functionality for your website, such as contact forms, photo galleries, image sliders, sermon management, donation and fundraising. Plugins carry out more or less the same functions for your website as apps for a smartphone.
You can create as many user accounts as you wish. For each account, you can flexibly adjust roles and permissions. Only one or two people (you and your assistant) might have full admin rights.
Last but not least, there's a large supportive community around this software brand. Whenever you need a consultation, you'll promptly get exhaustive and up-to-date answers to your questions.
Now, let's talk about WordPress.com. It's a commercial offering and an all-in-one hosted platform. It relies on the same underlying code as WordPress.org. The functionality of its free plan is limited and lacks support. Plus, there are many other restrictions. For instance, you can't drag and drop elements in WordPress.org and you won't be able to customize your site to the same degree as you can with many other software solutions.
Nevertheless, you might want to consider using this church website builder for the following reasons:
It offers hundreds of design themes to choose from. Many of them are suitable for churches. Some themes are free, others are premium.
You don't need to take care of your website hosting yourself. Backups, updates and security will be handled on your behalf.
If you want to switch from WordPress.com to WordPress.org one day, you should be able to do so with minimum effort.
Here are the WordPress.com hosting prices per month, billed yearly:
|
The name of the plan |
Price |
Target audience |
|---|---|---|
|
Personal |
$4 |
For personal use |
|
Premium |
$8 |
Freelancers |
|
Business |
$25 |
For small businesses |
|
eCommerce |
$45 |
For online stores |
You can start building your church website on WordPress free of charge.
It's an all-in-one website solution that provides web hosting. Here are the primary arguments in favor of using it:
No matter which plan you choose, you'll get a free domain, business email address, free backups, security features, analytics and more.
There are thousands of pre-designed templates to choose from. It should be very easy for you to customize each template with the help of a drag-and-drop builder.
Feel free to use the large collection of stock images. When choosing the type of your site, you should indicate "church". The system will offer you an impressive selection of themed pictures that you can use at no cost. Besides, you can upload your own images.
The support crew is ready to attend to you 24/7 through live chat or email. The reps are polite and professional. They won't make you wait for too long.
Web.com lacks a dedicated donations feature. But you can create a product that's called "Donation" and sell it. Such an approach might seem a bit unusual but your congregation should feel comfortable with it.
The shortcomings of this church website builder are not too numerous. Firstly, it might lack advanced and powerful customization features. Blog features might be limited too. Secondly, the number of users that you can create for your site is limited even for paid plans. When you want volunteers to upload or edit the content on your site, you might need to share your account data with them. That might potentially lead to security breaches, so you should be very selective when appointing your assistants. Finally, if you ever decide to relocate your site to another platform, it might be challenging to do so since Web.com is a proprietary website builder. To save time and effort, you might prefer to build a new site from scratch.
Here are the Web.com prices, billed per month:
|
The name of the plan |
For the first month |
Starting with the second month |
|---|---|---|
|
Starter |
$1.95 |
$22.95 |
|
Marketing |
$2.95 |
$32.95 |
|
Ecommerce |
$3.95 |
$42.95 |
Try Bitrix24. Build and host a website for free without any coding or design skills. A single eco system for your church.
HostGator is one of the largest web hosting platforms on a global scale. This church website builder enables you to create a fully hosted site. You can either purchase a domain name for it yourself, or connect it to your already existing website, or use a free Gator domain which is available only for 1 year.
Users love this software for the following reasons:
You can choose from 200 templates. You won't be able to switch them completely in the future but you can customize them when building the site.
Your site will be able to cope with any amount of traffic. You'll never run out of space. You'll have unlimited bandwidth and number of pages.
Whenever you have any questions, you can reach out to the support team by email, phone or live chat 24/7.
This all-in-one solution makes the site-building process as easy as possible.
Most disadvantages of Gator are related to finance. It lacks free trials and free plans. Its pricing is not too transparent. To accept donations, you might need to upgrade to the Business plan.
Here are the available Gator by HostGator plans, billed per month:
|
The name of the plan |
The price |
|---|---|
|
Hatchling |
$2.75 |
|
Baby |
$3.50 |
|
Business |
$5.25 |
Unlike all the above-mentioned solutions, this one was designed specifically for churches. Here are its primary benefits:
It features an extensive collection of templates, all of which were tailor-made for churches.
Once you've picked a template, you can preview and test it at no cost.
The media library contains over 90,000 visual files, including videos. Plus, you can upload your own content.
When you upload a sermon to your site, you can indicate who preached it and the name of the series that it belongs to.
You can add a calendar to the site to list services and other events.
The Sharefaith Giving feature facilitates the process of receiving donations.
With the help of advanced tools, you can add additional users to your site.
The support crew will help you to get started quickly.
If you want to migrate your already existing site to Sharefaith, you'll be allowed to do so free of charge if you purchase a yearly plan.
Compared to WordPress, Sharefaith features fewer extensions and plugins. This means you won't be able to add a lot of extra features to your site. But probably, you'll be happy with the very decent basic functionality.
Sharefaith prices start at $50 per month. You can have a 2-weeks free trial.
This solution is focused on building websites only for churches. Here are the most important arguments in favor of using it:
The collection of templates is very impressive and all of them are mobile-optimized.
You can add to your website all the features that were listed at the beginning of the article: a calendar, an opportunity to accept donations and upload sermons and so on.
When you get started, you'll get a 60-minute set-up phone consultation.
Whenever you need more help, you can reach out to the support crew through live chat. Training time is unlimited. During consultations, Ministry Design reps will be using screen-sharing technology.
You can add 3 users to your site at no cost. For an additional fee, you'll be able to add more.
Critics might say it would be unfair to call Ministry Designs a full-fledged church website builder. You can't design or create a site here. The functionality of this solution is limited to selecting templates and customizing them. Besides, the ongoing hosting is rather costly and you'll be required to pay a large upfront fee. Nevertheless, many excellent church sites were built with the help of Ministry Designs and their owners are very happy with them.
This solution has only two plans and both are rather costly:
|
The name of the plan |
The price |
|---|---|
|
Omega Lite |
$57 |
|
Omega Plus |
$97 |
This all-in-one solution has the following competitive edges:
As you sign up, you get access to the Nucleus library of video footage clips. During the free trial, you can use only a small part of this library. To check the whole collection, you should upgrade to a paid plan.
Apart from videos, you'll also discover a selection of pre-created social media posts that you can share at your discretion. You won't need to think about captions to your visual content anymore.
Nucleus features signup forms and enables you to create email lists. It should be easy for you to manage your congregation contacts.
You'll appreciate the comprehensive documentation and the professionalism of the support crew.
Nucleus strives to become a central hub for religious organizations. This software solution has a dedicated group on Facebook where users exchange experiences and ask for advice.
On the flip side, the support crew is not ready to attend to users through live chat 24/7. Their working hours are from 9 am to 5 pm EST. Besides, you'll need to pay a flat fee for the donation-receiving feature powered by RebelGive. Plus, you would fail to add multiple users to your site.
Here are the available Nucleus plans:
|
The name of the plan |
The price |
|---|---|
|
Web |
$99/month |
|
Giving |
$790/year |
|
Media |
$39/month |
On the official Nucleus site, you can find a handy calculator for the Giving plan. This plan enables you to receive 100% of donations without paying a fee. To get started, you can request a 30-day free trial without sharing your credit card details. If your church is small and you might struggle to pay the full price of the plan that suits you best, you might try to apply for a Nucleus scholarship.
This is also an all-in-one solution. It has the following main advantages:
Excellent quality of support services. Clients with Professional and Performance plans can reach out to the support crew by phone. Clients with any plan can submit their queries to live chat from 6 am to 6 pm PST or use email 24/7.
Intuitive drag-and-drop interface. This software is perfect for people who have never built websites before. It will take you a few minutes to figure out how it functions.
Opportunity to accept donations through the eCommerce feature. Please mind that you'll need to pay a 3% transaction fee on sales through your website to Weebly.
App Center that enables you to add extra features to the site. If you want to upload sermons, you can add an audio player app.
The disadvantages of this software are not too numerous. Unlike some of its competitors, Weebly isn't AI-powered, which means the process of creating a website might take a bit longer. Plus, not all third-party apps are compatible with this church website builder.
Here are the available plans:
|
The name of the plan |
Price |
Billed |
|---|---|---|
|
Basic |
$0 |
- |
|
Personal |
$6 |
Annually |
|
Professional |
$12 |
Annually |
|
Performance |
$26 |
Monthly |
Website owners with Professional and Performance plans are allowed to create membership areas for their websites. The information that you publish in such an area will be available only to registered users.
This all-in-one church website builder is great for site owners who love to delegate responsibilities and work collaboratively. With the cheapest plan, you can have a maximum of two contributors. But if you upgrade, you can invite an unlimited number of assistants for help.
Here is why you might want to use Squarespace:
It features an extensive collection of templates. There is no Churches section but you can choose from Community & Non-Profits templates and modify them.
You'll appreciate the convenience of Squarespace's block editor. It enables you to add text, audio and visual content to the site in a couple of clicks.
You can select free photos from Unsplash right through the interface of this website builder. The pictures will look stunning on any type of device.
The selection of fonts is very large. You should be able to effortlessly find fonts for your site that will match the aesthetics of your printed materials.
This software enables you to add the Donations block on any page — but only if you upgrade to the Business plan or higher. With the Business plan, you'll need to pay a 3% fee on donations plus the fee to the processing company. To avoid the 3% fee, you might consider upgrading to the eCommerce plan.
As for the drawbacks, the number of third-party extensions that are compatible with Squarespace is limited.
Here are the available Squarespace plans, billed monthly. If you pay annually, you can save up to 30%:
|
The name of the plan |
The price |
|---|---|
|
Personal |
$12 |
|
Business |
$18 |
|
Basic Commerce |
$26 |
|
Advanced Commerce |
$40 |
You won't need to share your credit card number to have a free trial.
Hopefully, you found this article informative and now you better understand how to select a church website builder. You can use either genetic software or a solution that was tailor-made for religious organizations. An optimal builder should feature a calendar and an opportunity to accept donations. It should allow you to upload sermons, distribute access rights among users and allow people to sign up and sign in. Among all the software that is currently available on the market, you might want to opt for Bitrix24. This popular and versatile solution enables you to build and host a website for free without any coding or design skills.