Tithe.ly vs Pushpay: Breaking Down What You Actually Get

A pastor we know spent three weeks researching giving platforms last spring. He had two browser tabs open the entire time: Tithe.ly and Pushpay. Both looked great. Both had churches raving about them. And after three weeks, he still could not figure out which one was actually the right fit for his 120-person church with no dedicated admin staff. The pricing pages told him what each platform cost. They did not tell him what he would actually get for the money.

That is the gap we want to close here. Not a winner and a loser. Not a verdict. Just a clear, honest look at what each platform offers, what it costs, and which ministry situations each one fits best. You can make the call from there.

Two different philosophies of church giving

Tithe.ly and Pushpay are not two versions of the same product. They are built on different assumptions about who their customer is and what that customer needs.

Tithe.ly was built to make digital giving accessible to every church, regardless of size or budget. Their free tier exists because they believe giving technology should not be a barrier for a church planter or a small congregation trying to move beyond the offering plate. The product has expanded well beyond giving into church management, websites, and media, but the core DNA is accessibility. If you have fifty people and a tight budget, Tithe.ly wants you to be able to start today.

Pushpay was built for churches that want a premium giving experience integrated into a broader engagement platform. Their product assumes a certain level of organizational maturity. It works best when you have staff to manage the system and a budget that can absorb the investment, because the return shows up most clearly in larger congregations. Pushpay is not trying to serve everyone. They are trying to serve mid-size to large churches exceptionally well.

Neither philosophy is wrong. They serve different realities.

What you pay: pricing tiers

Tithe.ly pricing

Tithe.ly offers a free plan. That is not a gimmick or a trial period. You can accept online donations, set up a giving page, and process contributions without paying a monthly subscription fee. You pay only the transaction processing fees on each gift.

Their paid plans add features like church management tools (ChMS), a church app, a website builder, and media storage. As of early 2026, the paid tiers look roughly like this:

The exact pricing can shift depending on your church size and which combination of products you choose. But the core principle holds: you can start giving for free and add tools as your church grows and your needs change.

Pushpay pricing

Pushpay does not publish pricing on their website. You have to talk to a sales representative. That is not unusual for enterprise-grade software, but it does make comparison harder for a pastor who just wants to know the number.

From publicly available information and church reports, Pushpay’s monthly cost typically starts around $199/month for their core giving product and can run significantly higher depending on the package. Their ChurchStaq platform, which bundles giving with church management and engagement tools, often runs between $300 and $600+ per month depending on church size and feature set.

These numbers are estimates based on reports from churches using the platform. Your actual quote may vary. Pushpay often structures contracts annually, so you are typically committing to a 12-month agreement.

The pricing difference is significant. A church on Tithe.ly’s free plan pays nothing monthly. A church on Pushpay’s entry-level plan is investing around $2,400 per year before processing fees. That gap matters when your resources are limited.

Processing fees: the cost you cannot avoid

Every digital giving platform charges processing fees on each transaction. This is the cost of moving money electronically, and no platform can eliminate it entirely.

Tithe.ly charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction on credit and debit cards. ACH (bank transfer) transactions are lower at around 1% + $0.30. These are standard rates in the industry, and they apply whether you are on the free plan or a paid plan.

Pushpay charges similar processing rates, typically around 2.9% + $0.30 for card transactions. ACH rates tend to be lower as well. One difference worth noting: Pushpay often negotiates custom processing rates for larger churches as part of their contract, so if your church processes a high volume of giving, you may be able to get a better rate through their sales process.

For a church receiving $10,000 per month in digital gifts, the processing fees on either platform will run roughly $300 to $350 per month on card transactions. On ACH, that drops considerably. Both platforms encourage givers to use ACH for this reason, and both make it easy to set up.

For most churches, the processing fees are functionally the same on both platforms. The stewardship question is really about the monthly subscription, not the per-transaction cost. Every dollar you spend on platform fees is a dollar your community gave in faith that is not going to ministry. That does not make the expense wrong. It means the expense should be proportional to the value you actually receive.

Mobile giving and the app experience

Tithe.ly’s mobile approach

Tithe.ly has a standalone giving app available in both app stores. Your church members download the Tithe.ly app, find your church, and give through it. The experience is clean and simple. For churches on a paid plan, Tithe.ly also offers a custom-branded church app where giving is built in alongside other features like sermon streaming, event calendars, and push notifications.

The standalone Tithe.ly app is free for your church to use. Your members do have to search for your church within the app, but the setup process takes minutes. For a church that wants mobile giving running by next Sunday, Tithe.ly can make that happen.

Pushpay’s mobile approach

Pushpay built their reputation on mobile giving. Their app experience is polished and designed to reduce friction at every step. A first-time giver can complete a gift in under a minute. Recurring giving setup is straightforward, and the app remembers payment preferences so repeat giving takes seconds.

Pushpay also offers a custom church app through their platform, and the giving experience is deeply integrated rather than bolted on. For churches where the app is a central hub for engagement, communication, and giving all in one place, Pushpay’s integration is noticeably tight.

Pushpay’s edge is in the polish and the speed of the first-time giving experience. If you have ever watched someone in the pew fumble with a giving app for two minutes and then give up, you understand why that matters. Tithe.ly’s edge is in accessibility: you can have mobile giving live today at no monthly cost. Both platforms also offer text-to-give, where a member texts a dollar amount to a dedicated number. The experience is smooth on both sides, and it will not be the feature that tips your decision.

Reporting and analytics

Tithe.ly reporting

Tithe.ly tracks donation history by fund and generates the year-end giving statements your people need for taxes. You can see who gave, how much, and to which fund. For most churches, that is exactly what faithful financial stewardship requires: clear records, accurate statements, and enough trend data to know whether giving is moving in the right direction.

The reporting is functional and clear. It does what it needs to do without overwhelming you with data you do not have time to analyze. If you are the pastor, the administrator, and the person who reconciles the books on Monday morning, that simplicity is worth more than a hundred data points you will never open.

Pushpay reporting

Pushpay goes deeper. Their higher-tier packages can flag givers who have stopped giving and score overall donor engagement over time, which gives a stewardship team real data to act on. If you have someone dedicated to following up with your community about generosity, those insights change how you care for people. You stop guessing who fell off and start reaching out with intention.

Pushpay’s reporting also integrates with their broader engagement platform, so you can see giving data alongside attendance and group participation. When you have the staff capacity to act on that kind of information, it becomes a tool for shepherding, not just accounting.

The real question is whether you have someone on your team who will actually sit with advanced analytics each month. If you do, Pushpay’s depth is worth paying for. If your giving reports go from the dashboard to the accountant and nowhere else, Tithe.ly’s reporting does the job well.

Integrations

Your giving platform needs to talk to your accounting software and your church management system. If it does not, you end up re-entering data by hand on a Monday morning when you should be doing almost anything else.

Tithe.ly integrates with QuickBooks, Church Center, and a number of church management systems. Their own expanding product suite (ChMS, websites, apps, media) means you can keep more of your tools under one roof if you choose their ecosystem. They also offer an open API for churches with technical resources.

Pushpay integrates with several major church management systems including Church Community Builder, Fellowship One, and Rock RMS, among others. Their ChurchStaq platform bundles their own ChMS, which means integration between giving and management is native rather than connected through a third-party bridge.

If you are already committed to a specific ChMS, check the integration list for both platforms before making a decision. The best giving platform in the world creates friction if it does not talk to your existing systems.

Which churches does each platform fit best?

When tithe.ly tends to be the better fit

Tithe.ly fits well when your church is working with limited resources and needs to get digital giving running without a significant financial commitment. If you are a church planter meeting in a school gym, a solo pastor running a church of 75, or a mid-size congregation that needs giving technology but cannot justify $200+ per month, Tithe.ly meets you where you are.

The free tier is genuinely useful. It is not a stripped-down demo designed to push you toward a paid plan. Churches run on it for years. We have seen church plants go from their first Sunday offering with a Tithe.ly link texted out in a group chat to processing several thousand dollars a month, all without paying a subscription fee. When you are ready for more, the paid tiers scale up without requiring you to migrate to a different platform.

Tithe.ly also fits well for churches that want an integrated ecosystem without an enterprise price tag. Their combination of giving, ChMS, app, and website tools at the All-Access tier gives you a full technology stack at a fraction of what you would pay assembling those tools separately.

When pushpay tends to be the better fit

Pushpay fits well when your church has the budget for a premium tool and the staff to take full advantage of it. If you are running a church of 500 or more, have a dedicated operations or finance person, and want the most polished giving experience available, Pushpay delivers on that promise.

The depth of analytics, the quality of the mobile experience, and the integration across giving and engagement tools make Pushpay a strong choice for churches that treat technology as a strategic investment rather than a utility expense. The annual contract and higher price point make more sense when you have the organizational capacity to extract full value from the platform.

Pushpay also fits well for multi-site churches or larger organizations that need centralized reporting across multiple locations. Their platform was built with that use case in mind, and it handles it well.

The decision that actually matters

Choosing a giving platform is a stewardship decision. You are deciding how to handle the resources your community entrusts to your church. That deserves careful thought, not a snap judgment based on a feature checklist.

Both Tithe.ly and Pushpay are good platforms run by companies that care about serving churches. Both will process gifts reliably, provide your givers with a good experience, and give you the reporting you need for financial accountability.

What matters is which platform fits your church right now, with the resources you actually have, serving the people actually in your community.

If your budget is tight and your staff is thin, start where the barrier to entry is lowest. You can always grow into more.

If your church has the resources to invest in a premium experience and the staff to manage it well, that investment can produce real fruit in giver engagement and operational clarity.

The best giving platform is the one your people will actually use, managed by a team that actually has capacity to run it well. Start there. The rest follows.

Tithe.ly vs Pushpay: Breaking Down What You Actually Get

Two different philosophies of church giving