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ChurchTrac Software 2023 – Features, Reviews, and Pricing

Cons:

  • User-friendly and straightforward.
  • It has a free version, also a free trial.
  • Affordable, compared to other church management softwares.

Cons:

  • Few of the features are not customizable.
  • software contains less marketing functionality.

Average Rating: 4

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Want to learn more about ChurchTrac? Pricing, features, and lots more? Stay foot! Because we are about to give you the grand tour of everything that we will elaborate on in this ChurchTrac review.

Table of contents:

  • ChurchTrac Overview
  • Highlights
  • ChurchTrac Features
  • Pricing and Plans
  • ChurchTrac Alternatives
    • ChurchTrac vs. Aplos
    • ChurchTrac vs. Breeze
    • ChurchTrac vs. Churchteams
  • Pros and Cons
  • ChurchTrac Ratings and Reviews
  • Conclusion
  • Frequently Asked Questions

ChurchTrac Overview

What is ChurchTrac?

ChurchTrac is a cloud-based church management software that helps churches keep track of their parish members and organize their team and ministry.

Churchtrac.com was first established back in 2002, by Byron Tedder. Initially, the software started as a modest database to keep track of records and the church’s members. However, with time it advanced to be much more. The church recognized the need for improvement and digital assistance for a more organized and successful conveying of their mission. By integrating new features and perks technology offers, today, ChurchTrac is not just a tracking software but also a church financial software.

Who is it best for?

ChurchTrac is affordable and perfect for small to large churches. Churches that need a system that is strong in accounting, one that improves communication, and keeps track of ministry positions and prospects should purchase ChurchTrac. It’s also great for people who want to keep neat records of online church donations, budgeting, and income.

How big is their network?

ChurchTrac is trusted by thousands of churches. Some of them are:

  • The Open Door Church
  • Westside Gathering
  • Redemption Church
  • Fresh Start Christian Center
  • All Nations’ Centre, The Agnostic Church, and many more.

How much is it worth?

The software offers three plans. The free version grants you access to a few basic features. The standard plan costs $5, whereas, you can have everything the free version offers + much more. And for a humble $15 price, you can use the Plus Plan too.

In general, we came to a piece of information stating that the church management software market is expected to grow by 126.48 million from 2020 to 2024. This information is a sneak peek of just how much this market weighs in value, and it highlights its importance too.

How secure is it?

ChurchTrac is extremely secure. For instance, their free version doesn’t ask for credit card details. The software doesn’t store credit card and banking information when you make a payment to ChurchTrac, or if someone makes an online donation to your church.

Nevertheless, ChurchTrac, apart from the above-mentioned precautions, has undertaken other safety measures too. Like the following:

  • The ChurchTrac accounts are individually separated, and therefore, each of them has its specific database.
  • The passwords you use, to sign into the accounts, aren’t saved as texts. Even better, their password protection works in such a manner that no one from the inside can ever find out this information.
  • ChurchTrac goes as far as limiting their employees’ access to your credentials, to make sure your privacy is protected.

Highlights

Any Integration tools?

ChurchTrac connects to as much as ten percent of the most sought-for applications.

Here’s a list of which ChurchTrac integration tools you can make use of:

  • Mailchimp: An email and advertising marketing platform.
  • SendGrid: Used for transactional and marketing emails – excellent for campaigns.
  • Plaid: Helps companies build fintech solutions and connect with banks.
  • Twilio: Used for marketing, customer care, operations, and sales purposes.
  • Stripe: An online payment processing platform.

What kind of deployments does it support?

ChurchTrac offers and supports Cloud, SaaS, and Web-based deployment.

Is it user-friendly?

After going through numerous ChurchTrac reviews, we got the idea that the software is easy to use, anyone could easily manage their way around it, and as most customers described it to be: as straightforward as software can be. Also, unlike other church management softwares, this one’s cost-efficient too.

Availability of customer support?

Yes, ChurchTrac offers one-of-a-kind customer support to its users. There are several ways of getting in touch with their support agents.

Here’s how you can do that:

  • You can either create a ticket or schedule a call.
  • They offer a well-elaborated ‘Get Started’ and ‘FAQs’ section.
  • You can also reach out to them via their social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Vimeo). On Vimeo and YouTube, you can find many useful videos and webinars.

Keep in mind that the most common queries are already answered on their support page/FAQs section.

Does it have a Native Mobile App?

ChurchTrac is not a native application, meaning, you can’t download it from any ‘store.’ It’s a web-based application that can be installed from your browser, and you can still access it via a shortcut created on your screen. It sounds complex, but it isn’t at all. Because installing ChurchTrac is easier than installing any other native app.

Additionally, if you’d like to enjoy features like worship planning, online giving, and text messaging, all you have to do is visit churchtrac.com and point your phone camera at the QR code. Right after that, you will be taken to a page where you will be given the option to install the app.

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There’s a reasonable explanation, why Church Connect isn’t a native mobile app. According to the team, the reason Church Connect is not a native app is only because of the price native mobile apps come with. Also, the difficulty they require to be maintained. As well as the fact that native mobile apps don’t enable ‘online giving’ unless you share the revenue with Apple.

However, unlike native ones, web-based apps don’t require you to share your revenue with Apple, though you have to pay Stripe’s processing fee. Either way, it’s safe to say that as a web app, ChurchTrac doesn’t come with any limitations.

What kinds of training are provided?

The ChurchTrac software offers live online training, videos, documentation, and webinars.

The only type of training ChurchTrac doesn’t offer is in-person training. However, the software is very easy to use, so you wouldn’t need any kind of training to get started in the first place.

ChurchTrac Features

If you want to use a freeware program to track your donations and at the same time send alerts to your members, ChurchTrac is the way to do it.

What makes ChurchTrac better than software like Ministry Tracker and Breeze is its price and features.

Therefore, we decided to enlist and explain the most important and unique features of ChurchTrac. As follows:

  • People

If you want to keep track of ‘your people,’ use ChurchTrac’s people feature. The software lets you save personal information like birthdays, addresses, and a group of people by age.

Even better, ChurchTrac has indulged its users with a unique feature; one that lets you add notes and keep records of some extra information of high importance for a particular member.

Simply put, this top feature enables you to stay in touch with your people and schedule all sorts of follow-ups.

  • Giving

This church database software helps you keep track of the charity and contributions people send to you. You can also print out contribution statements.

Moreover, the ChurchTrac team introduced a way, where people can contribute by simple texting (this is a feature that is absolutely free of charge).

  • Tags

With the ‘tags’ feature, you can organize your members into groups and track their attendance. The software lets you tag as many people as you want.

  • Attendance and Check-Ins

This option assists you to track your members’ attendance: Sunday school attendance, worship ministries, church events, etc. So, if you need everything to be in order, and to make sure you have all the names from the list, ease your job and try the church attendance software and church check-in system. Or, as an extra layer of protection, the software has developed a Family-Check In feature too.

  • Online Giving

The easy way to track online donations is to use the ChurchTrac ‘online giving’ feature. With Online Giving, you can either set one-time charities or set up recurring donations.

The software makes online donation easy and stress-free, and it helps you to keep track of all your online donations. With the use of this feature, you can also check and print out donation details (from the Giving Screen).

  • Text Messaging

Conveying a message to just ten or thousands of people has never been easier. Thanks to the ChurchTrac text messaging option, now you can inform and notify members about an upcoming event or re-scheduling of something in the blink of a second.

Their Text Messaging feature lets you text as many as 10.000 people at once. This one-of-a-kind church planner lets you send both text and voice messages. And it is up to you to choose whether you want to send messages from a dedicated ChurchTrac number, or a shared toll-free number.

  • Accounting

Tracking your budgeting, incomes, and spendings, are easily done with ChurchTrac’s Accounting feature.
This app can generate and print accounting reports with a single click. You can also create budgets to plan future events and to make sure every dime that enters and exists doesn’t go unnoticed.

  • Worship (Planing)

Planning has never been an easy task, so is the case with planning a service, or worship planning for a big number of people. ChurchTrac changed this hectic task and made it more simple and stress-free.
The integration of this feature lets you schedule/block dates upfront, manage your playlist, assign teams, member management, and organization of volunteers, and set up automatic reminders in the form of texts/emails.

Check out the below table that includes ChurchTrac’s main and additional features:

ChurchTrac Main Features ChurchTrac Additional Features
Accounts Payable Member Portal
Asset Tracking Chord Chart Management
Fund Accounting Volunteer Management
Built-In Accounting Website Management
Member Directory Small-Group Management
Member Communication Pledge Management
Member Management Payroll Management
Online Giving Church Record-Keeping
Donation Management Mobile Access
Events Management Online Calendar
Bank Reconciliation Basic/Advanced Scheduling
Budgeting/Forecasting Family-Check In
Donation Management Automatic Reminders
Attach Reminders To Notes Live Attendance Mode
Child Check-In Event URL
Worship Planning Intuitive Search

Pricing and Plans

ChurchTrac pricing starts from $5 a month. You can choose between three plans: the Free Plan, a Standard Plan, and a Plus Plan.

Let’s check out each of the plans separately:

1. The Free Plan – is free of charge.

– as many as 75 names
– able to manage people and families
– user accounts and security options available
– usage of free imports and backups
– able to print reports and directories
– you can send emails, SMS, and messages
– technical support available

2. The Standard Plan – $5 a month, or $50 a year.

The Standard Plan includes everything that the Free Plan includes and offers a few additional features as well.

These are the additional features included:
– track giving and pledges
– church connect portal
– events signups
– basic scheduling
– track attendance
– child check-in
– online donations
– priority support

The price for this plan is more affordable than what most church management software can offer, alongside the features it comes with.

3. The Plus Plan – $15 a month, or $150 a year.

The Plus Plan includes everything that the Free and the Standard plans offer.

The additional features it offers include:

– creation of budgets
– track deposits and spending
– monitor fund balances
– advanced scheduling
– plan worship services
– manage song library
– schedule teams and volunteers

If you run a mid to large-sized church, the Plus Plan would be ideal for your church and its organization. By subscribing to this plan you are also entitled to 250 messages a month.

If you want to keep track of unlimited people, the Standard Plan can make that possible for the cost of $50 a month. Whereas, the Plus Plan can grant you the same as the Standard one, for just $60.

Nonetheless, what’s important to remember is that the pricing of the plans depends highly on the number of names you need to enter. Therefore, the price increases as the number of members/names increases. Therefore, the yearly price of the Standard Plan (with unlimited names) is $500, while for the Plus Plan, it is $600.

As far as the Free Plan goes, you can add as many names as you want to it, and the cost will still remain 0.

Apart from the choice of three plans, you can decide whether you want to purchase a monthly or annual subscription. If you opt for an annual plan subscription, you’ll save up as much as a two-month payment.

Does it have any free trial/free version?

The software offers a free trial, as well as a free version. By availing of the free church accounting software, you get to enjoy the following features and services:

  • User accounts and security
  • Manage people and families
  • Send Messages, Emails, and SMS
  • Free imports and backups

The software also lets you print reports and directories. This free church software also comes with tech support.
If you decide to try the ChurchTrac free trial, you won’t be disappointed. One of the best things about it is that the free trial gives you access to what the Plus Plan offers.

Even better, ChurchTrac doesn’t require any credit/debit card details from you to enjoy the free perks their software offers.

How does ChurchTrac work?

We did say this church track software is pretty straightforward, even so, let us give you a step-by-step guide on how to start using its services.

  1. Open www.churchtrac.com in your browser. You need to sign up and choose a plan to get started.
  2. The sign-up process doesn’t ask for much. You’ll need to type in the name of your church or ministry and provide a valid email address. Once this info is filled in, go ahead and press the ‘validate email address button.
  3. Once this is done, you’ll receive an email confirmation regarding your newly created ChurchTrac account. At this point, you are free to choose whether you want to subscribe to their free plan or opt for the paid ones.

What makes ChurchTrac easy to navigate is how well it’s divided amongst screens. As soon as you log in, you will see icons of five screens, including home screen, attendance/events screen, working screen, giving screen, and accounting/budget screen.

These icons can be either viewed as toolbars on the left-hand side or tabs across the top of the screen.

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The first you will see after logging into your ChurchTrac account is the dashboard. The dashboard shows recent contributions, church metrics, the number of people added to your min

  • Asset Tracking
  • Attendance Management
  • Attendance Tracking
  • Automatic Backup
  • Bank Reconciliation
  • Budgeting
  • Forecasting
  • Built-in Accounting
  • Calendar Management
  • Cash Flow Management
  • Check Printing
  • Child Check-in
  • Chord Chart Management
  • Communication Management
  • Contact Database
  • Contact Management
  • Content Library
  • Customer Database
  • Customizable Branding/Fields/Reports/Templates
  • Data Import and Export
  • Document Management/Storage
  • Donation Management
  • Drag and Drop
  • Electronic Payments
  • Event Calendar/Management/Scheduling
  • Expense Tracking
  • File Management
  • Filtering
  • Financial Analysis/Management/Reporting
  • For Religious Organizations
  • Forms Management
  • Fund Accounting
  • General Ledger
  • Labeling
  • Media Library
  • Member Communication/Directory/Portal
  • Membership Management
  • Mobile Access
  • Online Calendar
  • Online Forums
  • Online Giving
  • Payroll Management
  • Personalization
  • Pledge Management
  • Project Management
  • Real-Time Data/Reporting
  • Receipt Management
  • Registration Management
  • Reminders
  • Reporting and Statistics
  • Role-Based Permissions
  • SMS Messaging
  • SSL Security
  • Search/Filter
  • Small-Group Management
  • Status Tracking
  • Third-Party Integrations
  • Transaction History
  • Visitor Tracking
  • Volunteer Management
  • Website Integration/Management
  • Worship Planning

ChurchTrac Alternatives

No matter how affordable, efficient, and needed software can be, or it is, there are always other alternatives.
This is the case with ChurchTrac too. Though there are many other alternatives to it, we decided to compare it against three of its best: Aplos, Breeze, and Churchteams.

ChurchTrac vs. Aplos

ChurchTrac Aplos
ChurchTrac software offers both a free version and a free trial. Aplos offers a free trial only.
ChurchTrac is significantly more affordable than Aplos, as its prices start from $5 a month. Aplos’ monthly price starts from $59.
It’s best for small-size to large churches. The software is best for small and mid-sized churches.
ChurchTrac is a web-based software. Aplos is also a web-based software and is also available on Windows and Mac.

ChurchTrac vs. Breeze

ChurchTrac Breeze
Offers a free trial and free version too. Breeze doesn’t offer a free version. It does, however, provide a free trial.
The starting price of ChurchTrac is $5/month. The monthly price of Breeze is $50.
ChurchTrac is specially created for small to large-sized businesses. Breeze is perfect for small to mid-sized businesses.

ChurchTrac vs. Churchteams

ChurchTrac Churchteams
ChurchTrac comes with a starting price of $5 per month. Churchteams’ starting price is $37, monthly.
ChurchTrac offers a free version and a free trial period. Churchteams have a 30-day trial free of charge.
It is easy to use and self-explanatory. There are divided opinions on its level of easiness/difficulty. While others say that is user-friendly, others claim it isn’t. It’s also limiting for people who don’t have administrative permissions.

Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
Allows you to track membership databases, accounting, etc. The software contains less marketing functionality.
Affordable, compared to other church management software. Few of the features are not customizable.
It offers various features, which means you don’t require multiple programs to perform all the tasks. The software doesn’t give you the option to directly connect it with your bank.
User-friendly and straightforward. There’s a limited amount of personalization you can do for receipts.
It has a free version, also a free trial. The ‘Report’ capabilities aren’t as impressive.

ChurchTrac Ratings and Reviews

Before we get to the customers’ reviews, let us first see what ChurchTrac’s online ranking is.

  • GetApp – ChurchTrac has a 4.7-star rating, out of 5. This ranking is based on 440 reviews.
  • Capterra – Capterra also gives ChurchTrac a 4.7-star rating, based on 441 customer reviews.
  • G2 – ChurchTrac has an excellent 5/5 star rating, based on only seven reviews.
  • FinancesOnline – This platform rated ChurchTrac with a 4.5-star rating, out of 5, based on five customer reviews only.

From the above figures, we can conclude this church management software is among the ‘favorites.

However, let’s round-up this section by bringing you up close to some more and less positive verified ChurchTrac customer reviews.

Positive Customer Reviews

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(The screenshots are taken from verified customer reviews left on FinancesOnline and GetApp)

Negative Customer Reviews

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(The screenshots are taken from verified customer reviews left on GetApp)

Conclusion

We are coming to the end of this review. And after having gone through all of its features, customer reviews, and attractive pricing that it comes with, we have nothing else to add, except, go ahead and start using this church management software – now!

If you are looking for cheap software to keep track of your income and donations, ChurchTrac should be your number one choice. Apart from being truly affordable, compared to similar software, it is also incredible and user-friendly.

You’ll be able to manage everything needed for a smooth and organized run of your church/ministry. For instance, you can manage worship planning, keep track of attendance, manage multiple team members, your all-in-all finances, set up automatic reminders, send (voice) messages, texts, emails, and much more.

On the plus side, it does offer the chance to integrate with some great applications, like Mailchimp and Stripe.

In the end, what makes ChurchTrac the best church management software is its affordability and the top features it offers. We hope that in this ChurchTrac review you were able to find all the answers you’ve been looking for and much more.

FAQ

1. Are all the features available in the trial period?

You can access almost all the features during the trial period, apart from voice and text messaging, and the Online Giving feature.

However, if you want to try these features during your trial period, you can reach out to the support team and discuss this further with them.

2. Where are the Tags used?

If you want to organize and include your people into groups, you can use Tags. This can easily be done by clicking on the People Screen, after logging into your ChurchTrac account. There, you will see the ‘tags’ tab, right next to the ‘people’ tab.

Eventually, by using tags, you can track your people’s attendance and add personal information. Keep in mind that you can have as many tags as you need, also, one person can have more than just one, or a couple of tags.

To add a tag, you have to go to the People Screen, select ‘tag,’ and click ‘create a tag.’

Also by ‘tagging’ people, you will be able to quickly find a particular name and find out more about them.

3. Which browsers are recommended for ChurchTrac?

ChurchTrac recommends two of the most well-known browsers on which you can access and use their platform without any hassle – Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

On the other hand, software like Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge aren’t supported by ChurchTrac.