My #1 Pick
PCO is my go-to for Churches that are using Planning Center as their ChMS. Sidenote, PCO is my favorite ChMS. I love all their modules and I appreciate their a-la-carte approach so you only have to purchase what you need.
- Beautiful dashboard and reporting to keep a pulse on generosity.
- Talks to PCO people to let you create workflows around Giving (like sending a letter to a first time giver).
- Pricing based on the number of donations.
- Ties into Stripe as their payment processor (we love stripe).
- Easiest solution I've used to send giving statements.
- Can now batch process checks! A must for ANY church.
- Offers a dedicated giving page or embeddable forms to put into your giving page.
I have used Bluefire both in churches and in my personal ministry for nearly 6 years. It is a powerful giving and event registration platform. It is my number one pick for ministries and nonprofits.
- Secure embeddable form or button for your giving page.
- Highly customizable giving forms, fields and look. Even lets you customize the HTML to tweak the look with CSS.
- Solid event registration platform.
- Easy to use dashboard. Plus, great reporting structure and integrates with your favorite ChMS.
- Check processing! A big must that is missing from the majority of most major church giving platforms.
- $ Monthly charge. Just processing fees.
Other Solutions
Bluefire and PCO are definitely my most recommended Giving solutions. But I want to offer a few more as well. My top recommendation would be for tithe.ly. Besides that, I recommend a few Church Mngt Systems.
I also recommend a few giving solutions to stay away from. There's not reason to pay exorbitant fees a month just for a giving platform. There's also zero reason a non-profit should be using PayPal to handle donations when there are full service solutions built with a church's needs in mind.