Most people in your church already pay their rent online. They buy groceries with their phone. They split dinner tabs through an app without thinking twice. But when Sunday morning comes, they’re expected to find a checkbook or pull out cash they specifically set aside for the offering.
That disconnect costs your church more than you might think. Not because people don’t want to give, but because the friction between intention and action is real. A member who means to give on Sunday but forgets their checkbook doesn’t usually mail a check on Monday. The moment passes. The intention was genuine. The giving just didn’t happen.
This guide walks through the entire process of setting up online giving for your church. We’ll start with why it matters, then get practical: choosing a platform, getting it running, and bringing your community along with you (including the members who will push back). Real pricing and real platforms, because vague advice about “exploring your options” doesn’t help anyone.
The giving gap nobody talks about
Adding online giving alongside cash and checks opens a second channel for generosity that most churches don’t have yet. Not a moral issue. A logistical one.
Your most consistent givers are often older members who still write checks. That’s faithful, and it works. But younger members and visitors are increasingly unlikely to carry cash at all. According to the Federal Reserve’s Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, cash accounted for only 18% of all U.S. payments in 2023, down from 26% just five years prior [NEEDS SOURCE , verify exact figure against 2023 publication]. Your offering plate is swimming against a current that gets stronger every year.
There’s a second factor that matters even more: recurring giving. When someone sets up a recurring online gift, they give whether they’re sitting in the pew or not. Sick week, vacation, travel for work, it doesn’t matter. The gift still arrives. For most churches that implement online giving, recurring gifts become the most stable and predictable part of their income within 12 months.
Online giving gives your community one more way to be faithful with their resources. The offering plate stays. You’re just adding a second door.
What to look for in a giving platform
Not every platform is built for churches, and the ones that are vary more than you’d expect. Before you start comparing features, get clear on what actually matters for your context.
Transaction fees are the first thing most pastors ask about, and rightly so. Most platforms charge somewhere between 2.5% and 3% per transaction, plus a flat fee (usually $0.30). On a $100 gift, that’s roughly $3.20 going to processing. That sounds small until you do the annual math. A church receiving $200,000 in online gifts per year will pay $6,000 to $7,000 in processing fees. That’s real money. Some platforms let donors cover the fees themselves (often called “fee coverage”), and a surprising number of people opt in when given the choice.
Recurring giving setup is the second priority. You want a platform where setting up a recurring gift takes less than 60 seconds and doesn’t require creating an account with a username and password. Every additional step between “I want to give” and “I just gave” costs you completions.
If you’re already using a ChMS (Church Management System) like Planning Center, Breeze, or Church Community Builder, check whether the giving platform syncs with it. Some do natively, which saves hours of manual data entry each month. If you’re not using a ChMS yet, this is less of a concern right now, but worth keeping in mind.
The other thing you can’t afford to overlook is mobile. More than half of first-time online gifts happen on a phone. If the giving page isn’t clean and fast on a small screen, you’ll lose people before they finish.
Two platforms worth your attention
We could list a dozen giving platforms, but that would just give you more to sort through. Instead, here are two that fit different church contexts well.
Tithe.ly is the strongest option for churches that need to start with zero upfront cost. Their free plan includes a giving page, a mobile app, and basic reporting. You pay nothing monthly. The standard processing fee is 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, which is in line with industry norms. When donors opt into fee coverage, your church receives the full gift amount. Tithe.ly also offers a church app, a website builder, and a ChMS, all of which integrate with the giving platform. For a church that wants one ecosystem without a large monthly expense, it’s a practical starting point.
Pushpay serves churches that want a more polished giving experience and are willing to invest in it. Their pricing is custom and typically starts around $199 per month, which puts them in a different category from free or low-cost tools. What you get for that investment is a refined mobile experience, strong recurring giving features, and detailed analytics that help you understand giving trends over time. Pushpay tends to be a better fit for churches that have moved past the startup phase and want to invest in giving as a long-term system, not just a tool they bolted on.
Neither platform is a bad choice. The question is where your church is right now and what you can sustain.
Setting it up: the practical steps
Getting online giving running is less complicated than most pastors expect. The technical part takes an afternoon. The people part takes longer. Start with the technical.
Every platform will ask for your church’s legal name, EIN (tax ID number), and bank account details for deposits. This is standard payment processing verification, similar to what you’d do to accept credit cards anywhere. Most platforms verify your bank within 1 to 3 business days. Once you’re verified, set up your giving page. Keep it simple: a clear “Give” button, the ability for donors to choose a fund (general, missions, building, etc.), and the option to set up recurring gifts. Resist the temptation to create too many fund categories at the start. Three to five is plenty. You can always add more later.
From there, add a giving link to your website. This is often as simple as adding a button or menu item that points to your giving page. If your website is on WordPress, Squarespace, or a church-specific platform, most giving tools provide embed codes or direct integrations. Put the link where people can find it without searching. “Give” should be visible in your main navigation, not buried in a submenu.
Both Tithe.ly and Pushpay also offer text-to-give. A member texts a keyword to a number, receives a link, and gives from their phone. The first time takes about 90 seconds. After that, returning gifts take under 30 seconds. This is the lowest-friction option for Sunday morning giving, and it’s the one that converts the most “I meant to give” moments into actual gifts.
Test everything before you announce it. Make a small test gift yourself. Go through the entire process on your phone. Make sure the receipt email arrives. Verify the gift shows up in your dashboard. Check that it deposits to your bank account. Do this before you say a word to your community.
Bringing your community along
The technology is the easy part. Getting people to actually use it requires something different: clear communication and patience.
Start by announcing online giving from the pulpit on a Sunday morning. Keep the explanation under two minutes. Cover three things: it exists, where to find it, and that it takes about 60 seconds to set up. That’s it. Don’t apologize for it. Don’t over-explain. Treat it like the practical tool it is.
Print a simple card with a QR code that links directly to your giving page. Put one in every bulletin, on every seat, or on a table in the lobby. The QR code eliminates the “I’ll look it up later” problem that kills adoption. Someone can scan it during the offering moment and give right then.
One pastor we talked with at a 90-person church in Tennessee printed QR code cards and placed them in the chair backs before his first Sunday announcement. Within six weeks, about 40% of his regular givers had set up recurring online gifts. He didn’t run a campaign. He just made the option visible and mentioned it two or three Sundays in a row.
Send a short email to your community during the week. Include the giving link, a brief explanation of how to set up recurring giving, and a note that this doesn’t replace cash or check giving. Both options remain open. You’re adding a door, not closing one.
Mention it again the following two Sundays. Then let it become normal. The biggest mistake churches make with online giving adoption is treating it like a campaign with a start and end date. It’s a permanent option that new people will discover on their own timeline.
If you have volunteers who are comfortable with technology, ask two or three of them to be available after a service to help anyone who wants to set up their giving on the spot. A 60-second walk-through with a real person removes more friction than any tutorial video.
When people push back on online giving
Some members will have concerns about moving away from the offering plate. Their concerns are worth taking seriously, because most of them come from a thoughtful place.
“Giving should be an act of worship during the service.” This is a genuine conviction, and it’s worth honoring. Online giving doesn’t have to replace the offering moment. You can still pass the plate or have a moment of prayer over the gifts. Some churches include a line like, “If you’ve already given online this week, use this moment to pray for how God will use our collective gifts.” The act of worship is the heart posture, not the mechanism.
“I don’t trust putting my financial information online.” This is usually a generational comfort issue, and it’s completely understandable. Point out that the same encryption that protects online banking protects online giving. If they bank online or shop online, they’re already trusting this technology. But don’t push. If someone prefers to write a check, that’s a perfectly good way to give.
“This feels like the church is becoming too corporate.” This concern often masks a deeper feeling: that something about church is changing and they’re not sure they like it. Acknowledge that feeling. You’re not becoming corporate. You’re making it easier for people to follow through on something they already want to do. The mission hasn’t changed. The mailbox just got wider.
“We’ve always done it this way.” The most honest version of resistance. And it deserves a gentle, honest response: the world your members live in has changed. The way they pay for everything else has changed. Giving your community the option to give the same way they handle every other financial transaction removes an unnecessary barrier between generosity and action.
In every case, the approach is the same. Listen. Acknowledge the concern as legitimate. Explain that online giving is an addition, not a replacement. And give people time.
The financial case for getting started now
Every month you wait to implement online giving, you’re losing gifts that people intended to make but didn’t. That’s not speculation. It’s the predictable result of offering only one giving method in a world where that method is used less and less.
Churches that make this shift commonly report annual giving increases of 10 to 15% within the first year. Not because people are giving more per gift, but because they’re giving more consistently. The missed Sundays stop being missed gifts.
The setup cost is minimal. With Tithe.ly, it’s zero dollars upfront and no monthly fee. With Pushpay, it’s a monthly investment that pays for itself if it generates even a modest increase in giving consistency. The processing fees are a cost of doing ministry in the current environment, the same way postage was a cost of ministry communication 20 years ago.
You don’t need a committee. You don’t need a consultant. You need an afternoon, a bank account, and the willingness to give your community one more way to be faithful.
Where this fits in the bigger picture
Online giving is one piece of a larger shift happening in how churches handle their finances and operations. If you’re just getting started with church technology, giving is one of the highest-return places to begin. It directly affects your church’s ability to fund its mission, and it requires the least technical skill to implement.
Once online giving is running, you’ll have data you didn’t have before: who’s giving, how often, which funds are growing, and where seasonal dips happen. That information helps you plan better, communicate more clearly about needs, and steward your community’s generosity with more precision.
Faithfulness and effectiveness aren’t in tension. When we make it easier for people to act on their generosity, we’re doing both.
