Free for every church
freely.church is one app for your whole church: the photo directory, the bulletin and prayer list, who's serving and the order of worship, attendance, Bible classes, groups and each Sunday's contribution, with a printed directory and bulletin when you need them. It works on every phone, and it's free: no subscription, no per-member fees, no contract.
Set up in minutes. Import your current list from a spreadsheet or phone. Take all of your data with you any time.
“Freely you have received; freely give.”
Knowing one another's names and faces, praying for each other, knowing who's serving on Sunday and who hasn't been in lately, and keeping the children's classes running is part of being a church family. None of it should depend on whether a congregation can fit another software subscription into its budget.
freely.church is offered as a free resource for congregations of every size. Every church gets every feature. There are no member limits, no premium tier and no ads, and your members' information is never sold or used for advertising.
Free to use doesn't mean free to run: servers, the domain and ongoing development all cost something. If it serves your church well, you're welcome to help support it. That's always optional.
One app for the whole life of your congregation: the people, Sunday, and everything in between. Every church gets all of it.
People
Names, faces and families, kept current by the members themselves.
Families and individuals with photos, phone numbers, emails, addresses, birthdays and anniversaries at a glance, searchable from any phone.
Upload one family photo and it finds each face, so every member gets their own picture. Crop, turn and straighten any photo right on your phone before it's saved.
Grandparents raising grandchildren, adult children at home, blended families. Each household can link family who live elsewhere, so adult children show with their own children as grandchildren. When a spouse passes away, the household passes to the one who survives, with their late spouse still listed and marked, and earlier marriages are kept on record.
Your elders, deacons and ministers, and any other role you add, with their photos and how to reach them, on their own page and in the printed directory.
A page for each month with every birthday and wedding anniversary, today's highlighted on the home page. Add them all to your phone's calendar with one tap, or print the month for the bulletin board.
Small groups, ministries, committees and teams, each with its own page, leaders and meeting details. Mark events for a group, send news to just its members, and let leaders print their own roster.
New to the congregation, or welcoming new families? A friendly photo quiz and flashcards help everyone put names to faces.
Sunday
Who's serving and who's willing to, the order of worship, who's here and every Bible class.
Who's leading singing, praying, reading, serving the Lord's Supper or greeting each week. Copy last week forward, and members see their own assignments and can add them to their calendar.
Members say where they're willing to serve: teaching the classes they choose, preaching, leading prayers or singing, serving communion or leading a devotional (for women, in women's settings). Admins see it at a glance on Men and Women tabs, and choose for anyone.
Fill the serving schedule and class teachers months ahead from those lists, fairly, in one tap, and keep each person's background check with its expiry date.
Arrange your own order of worship by dragging each part where it belongs, with a different order for each service, and change a single Sunday when it's different.
Tap each person in at Sunday worship, Bible class or Wednesday night, from any phone, with several helpers at once. Add first-time visitors in seconds and keep their details for a welcome and follow-up.
See attendance week by week, and who was coming regularly but hasn't been in lately.
Set up classes by grade or age, with the day, time and room each one meets. Enter each child's grade once: they're placed in the right class and everyone moves up together on promotion day.
Schedule teachers and helpers by the month, quarter or year, and each teacher takes their own class's attendance.
Through the week
The bulletin, the prayer list and the calendar on everyone's phone, and on paper for those who'd rather.
Announcements and a prayer list for the sick, the grieving, new babies, travelers, shut-ins, and college students and those serving in the military. Members can send in requests for an admin to approve.
The week's prayer list, who's serving, events, birthdays and announcements as a one-page insert, a half-page insert, a folded booklet or a tri-fold, ready to print.
Events that repeat daily, weekly or monthly (the 15th, the first Monday, the last Sunday), marked for groups so each group's page shows what's coming up. Members can add any event to their own calendar.
Members who turn on notifications hear about new announcements, events and prayer requests right away. Send a note of your own to everyone, or just to one group.
Record each Sunday's contribution and see it against your weekly budget, with the year to date, ahead or behind. Last Sunday's total can go in the printed bulletin. Only totals are kept, never who gave.
Already give online through Tithe.ly, Pushpay, Planning Center or your bank? Add the link, or paste its embed code, and members find it under Giving. Gifts go straight to your church; freely.church never handles the money.
Running it
Set up in an afternoon, private by default, and yours to take with you.
Invite members with a link or QR code. Each person updates their own family's details and photos, and on a phone can fill them in from their contact card, choosing which fields to bring in. Give a team part of the work (directory admins, ushers taking attendance, the education committee, the prayer list) without making them administrators. Privacy settings protect children's details, and an emergency lock hides everything instantly.
A clean printed or PDF directory with your church's name, logo, service times and staff on the front page, your servants with their photos, families with photos, and a name index. Letter, half-letter and large-print layouts, a full page for each family if you like, and rosters for any group.
Import from Excel or CSV (including exports from other church software), contact cards or straight from a phone's contacts. With your own Claude API key, add a family from a photo of an old directory page and check it before it's saved. Export everything to Excel, CSV, contact cards or a complete backup whenever you like.
Works in any browser on iPhone, Android, tablets and computers, installs to the home screen and keeps working offline. Light and dark mode follow each person's phone.
Screens show a sample church with made-up names and AI-generated photos.
Popular church management, directory and scheduling services, side by side. Most are excellent at what they do. They just aren't free.
| Service | Cost | Contract | Photo directory | Printed directory | Birthdays & anniversaries | Serving schedule | Bulletin & announcements | Attendance | Classes & check-in | Groups | Contribution records | Export your data |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| freely.church | Free, everything included | None | Yes | YesCover page, index, large print, a page per family | YesMonthly page, calendar | YesOrder of worship | YesPrayer list, printed insert | YesVisitors and follow-up | PartlyBible classes by grade; no check-in labels | Yes | PartlyWeekly totals and budget, not who gave | Yes |
| Planning Center | People, the directory and Church Center are free. Services, Check-Ins, Groups and Giving are free at small sizes, then $15 to $239/month each, by size | None | Yes | PartlyHousehold report | YesReports | PartlyFree for 5 team members | YesChurch Center announcements | PartlyThrough Check-Ins or Groups | PartlyCheck-Ins, free to 10 a day | PartlyFree to 15 members | PartlyGiving, free to 10 gifts a month | Yes |
| Breeze Tithely Church Management | $72/month, unlimited people | None | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | PartlyEmail newsletters; app pushes cost $89/month more | Yes | YesChildren's check-in | Yes | YesDonor records, statements | Yes |
| ChurchTrac | $29 to $119/month, by number of people (10% off yearly) | None | PartlyOnline directory; photos confirmed in print | YesPicture directory | YesReports, workflows | Yes | YesNewsletters, app announcements | Yes | YesChildren's check-in | Yes | YesDonor records, statements | YesCSV |
| Instant Church Directory | $9.99/month or $99.80/year ($14.99 or $154.88 Premium) | None | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Yes | Not listed | YesCSV |
| Pushpay ChMS formerly Church Community Builder | Not published (by quote) | 1, 2 or 3 years | YesIn the church app | Yes | Not listed | PartlyAdvanced tier and up | YesApp announcements | Yes | PartlyCheck-in, Advanced tier and up | Yes | PartlyGiving history in Advanced; online giving separate | Yes |
| Ministry Scheduler Pro scheduling only | $50 to $65/month for 100 volunteers, more for each 100 after | 6 months, then yearly | No | NoSchedule rosters only | PartlyBirthdays only, Plus edition | Yes | PartlyEmail and text to volunteers | PartlyVolunteer sign-in, Plus edition | Not listed | PartlyVolunteer teams | Not listed | PartlySchedules and rosters |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Planning Center's directory and announcements are free too, and it's a great choice if your church will use its paid products for scheduling, check-in, groups or giving. Full church management systems do far more than freely.church: online giving with donor records and statements, accounting, children's check-in with security labels, and mass email and texting. freely.church is for churches that want the everyday life of the congregation (the directory, bulletin and prayer list, serving, attendance, Bible classes and Sunday's contribution) done well, without a subscription.
Prices and features are from each company's own website and help pages, checked October 22, 2026. “Partly” means limited, or extra beyond the base price; “not listed” means we couldn't confirm it there. Please check with them for current details. Product names belong to their owners, and freely.church isn't affiliated with any of them.
Pricing: Planning Center · Breeze · ChurchTrac · Instant Church Directory · Pushpay · Ministry Scheduler Pro
Features: Planning Center · Breeze · ChurchTrac · Instant Church Directory · Pushpay · Ministry Scheduler Pro
Every church can use freely.church at no cost, for as long as it's useful. Running it isn't free: hosting, servers, and active maintenance and development all add up. If you believe it's a service worth paying for, we welcome support of any amount, once or regularly.
And if you're feeling generous, give for another congregation too: one that's small, rural or just getting by, and couldn't pay for software.
Giving never unlocks anything. Churches that give and churches that don't get exactly the same service.
Give once or monthly. Secure checkout by Stripe, and monthly support can be changed or cancelled anytime.
Support freely.church Ask how to giveAn online giving link is on its way. Thank you for thinking of it.
Yes. Every feature, for every church, with no member limits and no trial period. There's nothing to upgrade to.
There isn't one. freely.church has no ads and never sells your information or uses it for advertising. It's supported by people who choose to give because they find it useful.
Only people your church invites and approves. Admins decide who gets in, what members can see (for example, children's contact details stay with their family) and whether members can print or download the directory. Background checks are seen only by admins and anyone they give serving access. An emergency lock hides everything at once. If your admins add your church's own Claude API key, photos sent to add a family are read by Anthropic; nothing else is. Not even freely.church support can open your church's information unless your admins turn on support access to get help, and every visit shows in your recent changes.
Your church does. Export everything at any time to Excel, CSV, contact cards or a complete backup with photos, and delete your church from freely.church whenever you choose.
Yes. Import a spreadsheet (Excel or CSV, including exports from Planning Center, Breeze, ChurchTrac and similar), contact cards from a phone or computer, or contacts straight from an Android phone. You'll see every household before anything is saved, and can leave out any household or person you don't want. A contact who's already in the directory is offered as a merge, so you choose which of their details to update instead of getting a duplicate.
Yes. It runs in the browser on any phone, tablet or computer and can be added to the home screen like an app. On Android that's one tap (with notifications in the same step); on iPhone the app shows the Share, then Add to Home Screen steps.
With their Google account, an email and password, or a sign-in link sent to their email, whichever they prefer. Signing in doesn't open your church to anyone: they still need your church's invitation, or a request to join that an admin approves.
Everything travels over HTTPS, passwords are stored only as strong one-way hashes, and every request is checked against the person's role in your church. When someone's access is removed, the copy of your church's information saved on their phone is wiped the next time it connects.
freely.church focuses on the everyday life of a congregation: knowing and caring for one another, Sunday and the week between. It doesn't process online giving itself (its Giving page points members to your church's own giving service), keep records of who gave or do the church's bookkeeping (it keeps only each Sunday's contribution total), run child check-in or send mass emails and texts. If you need those, the paid services compared above do them well, and freely.church works happily alongside them.
Create your church, import your members and send invitations. It takes an afternoon, and it's free.