Choosing a website builder for your church isn’t like choosing one for a bakery or a portfolio. Churches need sermon embedding, online giving, prayer request forms, service times that don’t require a developer to update, and — for multi-campus congregations — location switching that actually works. Most comparison articles treat churches like any other small business. This one doesn’t.

We went deep on the five platforms churches actually use — Wix, Squarespace, WordPress.org, Sharefaith, and Subsplash — and tested them specifically on the features that matter to ministries. Here’s what we found.

Quick Comparison

1. Sharefaith — Best All-in-One Church Website Builder

Sharefaith has been building church-specific websites for over a decade. It includes hosting, sermon hosting, online giving, a church app, and presentation software — all in one subscription. It’s not the most flexible builder, but for churches that want to stop juggling five vendors, it’s hard to beat.

Church-Specific Features

Sermon Embedding: Native sermon manager with audio and video hosting built in. Upload your sermon, add a title and series, and it’s on your site with a built-in player. Sharefaith also distributes your sermons to podcast platforms (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts) automatically. No separate hosting account, no YouTube embed workarounds.

Online Giving: Integrated directly — no third-party tool needed. Accepts one-time and recurring gifts, allows fund designation (general fund, building fund, missions), and processes ACH and cards. Giving is accessible from your site and the included church app.

Prayer Requests: Built-in prayer request form that submits to a private queue visible to staff and prayer team members. You control who sees what — prayer requests don’t post publicly unless you want them to. This is a feature most general builders simply don’t have.

Service Times Display: Dedicated service times module that’s easy to update and automatically displays in your site header and footer. Add seasonal variations, special services, and campus-specific times without touching code.

Multi-Campus Support: Sharefaith’s multi-site feature lets you create location pages for each campus with their own service times, staff directories, and events, all under one website. Visitors select their campus and see only relevant information.

Pros

• 100+ church-specific templates — designed for ministry, not adapted from business layouts
• All-in-one: website + giving + sermon hosting + church app + presentations
• No technical knowledge required to set up or maintain
• Built-in sermon audio/video hosting with podcast distribution
• Online giving integrated natively (no third-party setup)
• Prayer request form with privacy controls
• Includes a church mobile app (not just a mobile-responsive site)
• Multi-campus support with location switching
• Volunteer-friendly: a non-technical person can update service times, sermons, and events

Cons

• Template customization is limited compared to Wix or WordPress
• Monthly cost is higher than building your own
• Content editor can feel restrictive if you’re used to drag-and-drop freedom
• SEO tools are basic — fine for most churches, but not competitive for large congregations targeting local search aggressively
• Switching away from Sharefaith is difficult (vendor lock-in is real)
• Sermon media storage limits on lower plans
• No blog or content marketing features worth mentioning

Pricing

• Essential: $39/mo — website, hosting, sermon hosting, basic giving
• Complete: $49/mo — adds church app and presentation software
• Premium: $69/mo — adds advanced media library and priority support

All plans include hosting, SSL, and online giving.

Best for: Churches that want everything included and don’t want to manage multiple subscriptions, integrations, or vendors. Especially good for small-to-mid-size churches without dedicated tech staff.

Get Sharefaith →

2. Subsplash — Best for Large and Multi-Campus Churches

Subsplash is built specifically for churches — not as a general website builder with church templates bolted on, but as a ministry platform that happens to include a website. It’s the most expensive option on this list, but for large churches with multiple campuses, it’s also the most purpose-built.

Church-Specific Features

Sermon Embedding: Subsplash’s media player is the best in the business for churches. Sermon audio and video stream directly, with series organization, speaker profiles, and one-tap podcast distribution. It integrates with their church app so your sermon library is consistent across web and mobile. Video quality and playback are noticeably better than any other option here.

Online Giving: Native giving with text-to-give, recurring gifts, fund designation, and donor management built in. Subsplash Giving handles the entire donation experience — the form, processing, receipts, and reporting. It’s one of the few platforms where the giving experience on your site and in your app are identical.

Prayer Requests: Full prayer request system with moderation. People can submit prayers from the website or the app, and your team can organize, respond, and track prayer needs. Supports both public and private prayer submissions.

Service Times Display: Purpose-built service times module that handles multiple services, multiple days, and multiple campuses cleanly. It shows up in navigation, on your homepage, and in your app — all updated from one place.

Multi-Campus Support: This is where Subsplash truly separates from the pack. Their multi-campus system lets you manage all locations from one dashboard, with each campus getting its own page, service times, events, staff, and giving — while sharing sermon content, beliefs, and branding centrally. Visitors select their campus and get a tailored experience. This isn’t a hack or a workaround — it’s designed for it.

Pros

• Purpose-built for churches — every feature exists because a church needed it
• Best sermon/media experience available on a church website
• Native giving with text-to-give, recurring, and donor management
• Multi-campus support is genuinely excellent — not an afterthought
• Church app is included and syncs with the website
• Prayer request system with moderation and privacy controls
• Event registration, small group management, and church directory built in
• Consistent experience across web, app, and TV apps
• White-glove onboarding and support

Cons

• Most expensive option — $199/mo+ with setup fees
• Design flexibility is limited; templates are attractive but not endlessly customizable
• Overkill for small churches that just need a simple site with service times and a giving link
• Onboarding process takes time (1-3 weeks typically)
• You’re locked into their ecosystem more tightly than any other platform
• Not ideal if you want a blog-heavy or content-marketing-driven site
• Pricing isn’t transparent — you’ll likely need to talk to sales

Pricing

Subsplash doesn’t publish flat pricing. Expect roughly:

• Setup fee: $199–$499 (varies)
• Monthly: starting around $199/mo for website + app + giving
• Additional modules and features may increase cost

You’ll need to request a quote. If that sentence bothers you, Subsplash may not be your builder.

Best for: Large churches and multi-campus congregations that want a professional, unified digital presence across web, app, and giving. If you have 500+ attenders and multiple locations, Subsplash is worth the investment.

Get Subsplash →

3. Wix — Best for Design Flexibility on a Budget

Wix gives you the most design freedom of any drag-and-drop website builder. With 40+ church-specific templates and an editor that lets you place elements anywhere on the page, it’s ideal for churches that want a unique look without hiring a designer. But church-specific features require third-party apps, and that’s where things get complicated.

Church-Specific Features

Sermon Embedding: Wix doesn’t have a native sermon manager. You can embed YouTube or Vimeo videos easily, and there’s a “Sermon Manager” app in the Wix App Market ($5-10/mo) that adds basic sermon organization with audio and video uploads. It works, but it’s not as polished as Sharefaith or Subsplash’s native tools. Podcast distribution requires a separate setup.

Online Giving: No built-in giving. You’ll integrate a third-party giving platform — Tithe.ly, Pushpay, Givelify, or PayPal — via embed or link. This works fine functionally, but you’re managing a separate account, separate reporting, and a separate donor experience. Every giving platform has its own fees, forms, and receipt system.

Prayer Requests: Wix has a built-in form builder, so you can create a prayer request form. Submissions go to an email address or can be stored in Wix’s dashboard. But there’s no moderation queue, no way for staff to mark prayers as “prayed for,” no privacy controls beyond a simple public/private toggle. It’s a form, not a ministry tool.

Service Times Display: You can add service times as text on your homepage and in your footer. Wix has no dedicated service times module — you’re manually entering and updating times as regular text or in a table. This works fine for single-campus churches, but gets cumbersome for multi-service or seasonal schedules. If your service times change frequently, prepare to edit text on multiple pages.

Multi-Campus Support: Wix doesn’t have multi-campus functionality. You’d need separate pages for each campus, manually maintained, with no shared content management. For a church with three campuses, that means updating sermon links, events, and announcements in three places every week. It’s doable but tedious.

Pros

• Most flexible drag-and-drop editor available — place anything anywhere
• 40+ church-specific templates with good variety
• Strong SEO tools built into the platform
• Excellent mobile editor for on-the-go updates
• Free plan available (with Wix branding — not suitable for live sites)
• Large app marketplace for adding features
• Easy to get started — most churches can have a site live in a weekend
• Good blogging tools for sermon recaps and announcements

Cons

• Church features (sermons, giving, prayer requests) all require third-party apps
• Each app adds monthly cost ($5-15 each) and complexity
• No native multi-campus support
• No dedicated service times module
• Prayer request “solution” is just a contact form
• Site speed can be slower than WordPress or Squarespace
• Difficult to switch templates after launch
• Giving requires a completely separate platform with its own fees and reporting
• No podcast distribution for sermons without additional setup

Pricing

• Light: $17/mo
• Core: $29/mo
• Business: $36/mo
• Business Elite: $159/mo

Add $5-15/mo per church-specific app (sermon manager, giving embed, etc.). Realistic all-in cost for a church: $35-50/mo.

Best for: Churches that want maximum design freedom and have someone willing to set up and manage third-party integrations. Good for single-campus churches that don’t need multi-site features.

Get Wix →

4. WordPress.org — Best for Full Control and Lowest Long-Term Cost

WordPress powers over 43% of all websites, including thousands of churches. It’s free, open-source, and infinitely extensible — but you’re responsible for hosting, security, and maintenance. For churches with a tech-savvy volunteer, it’s the most powerful and cost-effective option. For churches without one, it’s a liability.

Church-Specific Features

Sermon Embedding: WordPress has the most robust sermon plugin ecosystem of any platform. Sermon Manager (by WP for Church) is the standard — it handles audio, video, PDFs, series organization, speaker profiles, podcast distribution to Apple/Spotify/Google, and sermon search. Sermon Browser is a lighter alternative. Both are free. If you want total control over how sermons are displayed, WordPress is unmatched. You can customize the sermon archive layout, create series pages, add related sermons, and build custom sermon filters — none of which is possible on Wix or Squarespace.

Online Giving: No built-in giving, but WordPress integrates with every major giving platform: GiveWP (a WordPress-native donation plugin), Tithe.ly, Pushpay, Givelify, and Stripe. GiveWP deserves special mention — it’s a full donation management system built specifically for WordPress that handles one-time and recurring gifts, donor databases, receipt emails, and reporting. It’s free at the basic tier and more capable than any other giving integration we tested.

Prayer Requests: PrayBox and Prayer Wall plugins add moderated prayer request systems to WordPress. Visitors submit prayers, staff moderates and organizes them, and you can display answered prayers publicly. It’s more functional than Wix’s form-only approach, though not as polished as Sharefaith or Subsplash’s native tools. For most churches, it’s sufficient.

Service Times Display: WordPress doesn’t have a dedicated service times module, but you can use a Custom Post Type or a widget plugin to create one. With a page builder like Elementor or a church-specific theme, you can create attractive, easy-to-update service times sections. It requires initial setup, but once configured, a volunteer can update times without touching code.

Multi-Campus Support: WordPress handles multi-campus through Multisite (a built-in WordPress feature) or through custom page hierarchies with a location switcher plugin. Multisite lets you run separate subsites for each campus under one WordPress installation — each campus has its own content, but shared themes, plugins, and admin access. It’s the most powerful multi-campus option on this list, but it requires someone who knows WordPress well enough to configure it.

Pros

• Free software — you only pay for hosting ($5-15/mo)
• Largest plugin ecosystem — there’s a plugin for everything
• Best sermon plugin options (Sermon Manager, Sermon Browser)
• GiveWP is the most capable giving plugin available on any platform
• Full ownership of your content and data — no vendor lock-in
• Best SEO capabilities of any platform (Yoast, Rank Math)
• Scales infinitely — from a simple site to a multi-campus web experience
• Thousands of church-specific themes (free and premium, $30-100)
• Most customizable — you can build exactly what you want
• Large community = tons of tutorials, forums, and help

Cons

• Requires setup: hosting, theme, plugins, security, backups
• Learning curve is steeper than Wix, Squarespace, Sharefaith, or Subsplash
• Maintenance is on you (WordPress updates, plugin updates, security patches)
• If your tech volunteer leaves, you may be stuck with a site nobody else can manage
• Without maintenance, WordPress sites can break or get hacked
• Plugin conflicts can cause mysterious problems
• Getting church features working requires plugin configuration and testing
• Hosting quality varies — cheap hosting means slow sites and poor security

Pricing

• WordPress software: Free
• Hosting: $5-15/mo (SiteGround, Cloudways) or $20-45/mo (WP Engine, Kinsta)
• Premium church theme: $30-100 (one-time)
• Key plugins: $0-50/yr each (most essential church plugins are free)
• SSL certificate: Free (Let’s Encrypt) via most hosts

Realistic first-year cost: $100-300. Ongoing: $60-180/year.

Best for: Churches with a tech-savvy volunteer or staff member who wants full control, the most customization, and the lowest long-term cost. Also the best option for multi-campus churches that need Multisite capabilities and have WordPress expertise.

Get WordPress →

5. Squarespace — Best for Beautiful, Simple Church Sites

Squarespace makes every site look professionally designed. Their templates are the most visually polished of any website builder. But Squarespace is built for portfolios, restaurants, and businesses — not churches. If you choose Squarespace, you’re choosing aesthetics over church-specific features.

Church-Specific Features

Sermon Embedding: There’s no sermon manager, no sermon plugin, no sermon anything. You embed YouTube or Vimeo videos manually, one at a time, into individual pages or blog posts. Want a sermon archive with series, speaker, and date filtering? You’ll build it manually using blog categories and tags, and it won’t look or function like a real sermon library. Podcast distribution requires a separate service (like Transistor or Buzzsprout) at $10-20/mo extra.

Online Giving: No built-in giving. You’ll embed a third-party giving form (Tithe.ly, Pushpay, Givebutter) or link to an external giving page. The embedding experience is clean — Squarespace’s code block handles embeds well — but you’re still managing a separate giving platform. Donor data lives in that platform, not in Squarespace.

Prayer Requests: Squarespace has a form builder, so you can create a prayer request form that emails submissions to your staff. That’s it. No moderation, no prayer wall, no way to mark prayers as answered, no privacy controls. It collects text and sends it somewhere. Adequate for the simplest use case. Not adequate for a ministry that wants to track and follow up on prayer needs.

Service Times Display: Manual text on your homepage and footer. Squarespace has no dynamic service times module. You’ll type them in, and when they change, you’ll edit the text. For a single-campus church with one service time, this is fine. For a church with multiple services, seasonal schedules, or multiple campuses, it’s a maintenance headache.

Multi-Campus Support: None. Squarespace doesn’t support multi-site configurations. Each campus would need its own separate Squarespace site with its own subscription, managed independently, with no shared content. This is a dealbreaker for multi-campus churches.

Pros

• Most visually polished templates of any builder — every site looks professional
• Easiest to use — the editing experience is intuitive and fast
• Reliable, fast hosting included
• Strong blogging platform (adaptable for sermon series posts)
• Built-in scheduling, email campaigns, and member areas
• Excellent customer support (live chat, email)
• Good mobile responsiveness out of the box
• No plugin conflicts or maintenance headaches

Cons

• No church-specific features — everything is manual or third-party
• No sermon management, podcast distribution, or sermon archive
• No built-in giving
• Prayer requests are just a form — no ministry tools
• No service times module — manual text only
• No multi-campus support whatsoever
• Limited integrations compared to Wix or WordPress
• Template customization is more restricted than Wix (you can’t move anything anywhere)
• Higher effective cost when you add third-party giving + podcast hosting
• Not designed for churches — you’re adapting business templates

Pricing

• Personal: $16/mo
• Business: $23/mo
• Commerce: $28/mo
• Commerce Advanced: $52/mo

Add $10-20/mo for podcast hosting and $0-50/mo for a giving platform (many are free for the church, but processing fees apply).

Best for: Small, single-campus churches that prioritize visual design and simplicity over church-specific features. Best for churches that already use a separate giving platform and just need a beautiful, easy-to-maintain web presence.

Get Squarespace →

How to Choose the Right Website Builder for Your Church

The right builder depends on your church’s size, technical resources, and what you need your website to actually do. Here’s how to decide.

You Need an All-in-One Solution

If you want one subscription that covers your website, sermon hosting, giving, prayer requests, and a church app — and you don’t want to manage integrations — choose Sharefaith. It’s the most complete church-specific package at a reasonable price. You give up some design flexibility, but you gain simplicity and time.

You’re a Large or Multi-Campus Church

If you have multiple campuses, need a unified web + app experience, and want the best sermon media and giving tools available, choose Subsplash. It’s expensive, but it’s the only platform on this list that was genuinely built for multi-campus ministry. The location-switching, shared sermon library, and consistent app experience are worth the premium for larger churches.

You Have a Tech-Savvy Volunteer

If someone on your team (or a consistent volunteer) knows WordPress, choose WordPress.org. You’ll get the most features, the most customization, and the lowest long-term cost. GiveWP for donations, Sermon Manager for sermons, and a church theme will give you a site that rivals anything the other builders offer — for a fraction of the price. But this only works if someone will maintain it.

You Want It to Look Great With Minimal Effort

If your church is small, single-campus, and you want a beautiful website that a volunteer can update in 15 minutes a week — and you’re okay using separate tools for giving and sermons — choose Squarespace. It’s the easiest builder to use and the hardest to make look bad. Just know that you’re trading church features for aesthetics.

You Want Design Freedom Without Complexity

If you want more design flexibility than Squarespace but don’t want to manage WordPress plugins, choose Wix. You’ll spend time setting up third-party apps for sermons and giving, but the editing experience is the most flexible of any drag-and-drop builder. Best for churches that want a unique look and have someone willing to handle integrations.

Decision Matrix

Our Top Pick

For most small-to-mid-size churches, Sharefaith is the best choice. It has every church-specific feature you need — sermons, giving, prayer requests, service times, multi-campus support — built in, with no integrations to manage. A volunteer can update it without technical knowledge. It’s not the cheapest option, and it’s not the most flexible, but it’s the one that will actually get used consistently because it works without constant maintenance.

For churches with 500+ attenders or multiple campuses, Subsplash is the better pick. Its multi-campus features, media experience, and app integration are genuinely superior, and the price makes sense at that scale.

For churches with a reliable tech volunteer who’s willing to own the site long-term, WordPress.org offers the best value and the most power. But be honest about whether that volunteer will still be around in two years — if they leave and nobody can maintain the site, WordPress becomes a liability, not an asset.

SoftDecide helps churches, nonprofits, and small organizations find the right software. Our comparisons are independently researched. We may earn a commission if you purchase through links on this page — at no extra cost to you.