Most organizations should start on a plan. The Community plan is $299 a month and covers groups, giving, events and ticketing, check-in and kids safety, volunteers, courses and messages, on one record per person. A custom build is the step up, for when you need something a plan doesn’t do. This post shows how to price both honestly.
Start with the tools you pay for now
Most organizations run on several tools at once: a people database, groups, check-in, giving, events, volunteers, email, forms. One platform replaces the set, so the set is what it should be compared with. We walked through a church’s set in you’re paying for nine platforms.
Count each of these, each year:
- Every subscription, at the vendor’s published price for your size.
- Any platform fee charged on your revenue: a share of memberships, a per-ticket fee. Card processing you pay whatever platform you use.
- Staff time spent moving data between tools, at what that time costs you.
- A price rise, only if you have evidence for one. Your own renewal history is the best evidence.
The tools, against one plan
Here is that count for an organization of about 1,000 people in four sectors, on the most common tool for each job at its published price for that size. Only the jobs a plan covers are counted: people, groups, events, memberships, check-in, giving, donor records, volunteers and courses. An organization that size with every person active would be on the Complete plan, at $599 a month, or $5,990 a year billed yearly.
| Example | Tools a year | Staff time a year | Complete plan a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Church | $5,244 | $12,480 | $5,990 |
| Nonprofit | $15,468 | $12,480 | $5,990 |
| Association | $12,012 | $12,480 | $5,990 |
| University | $12,648 | $12,480 | $5,990 |
An estimate, not a quote. Tool prices as published on each vendor’s pricing page, checked September 2026. Staff time is 8 hours a week at $30 an hour. Plans count active people only, so many organizations this size fit a smaller plan. Plans run from $0 to $599 a month on the pricing page.
Staff time matters most. The hours spent reconciling separate tools are a real cost that no invoice shows, so count yours honestly rather than taking our 8.
When a custom build makes sense
A plan covers the day-to-day running of most churches, nonprofits, associations and alumni networks. These are the moments a build is worth it:
- You need your own iPhone and Android app, built around what your people do every day.
- You run a program, a process or a way of gathering that no platform supports.
- You have systems you must keep, and they need to work with everything else.
- Your board needs the platform hosted in your organization’s own accounts, with the code handed over.
If none of those is true for you, a plan is the right answer. It’s cheaper, it’s running this month, and you can add a custom build later if you need one.
What a custom build costs
Count all three lines, every year. Leaving any of them out makes a build look cheaper than it is.
- The build, once. $28,000–$38,000 for a web platform, $45,000–$65,000 with giving, check-in and volunteers, $75,000–$110,000 with your own iPhone and Android apps.
- Hosting, every month. $200–$800 a month at cost, depending on size.
- Support, every year. $4,800–$18,000 a year for updates, security and support, depending on scope. Work beyond your plan’s hours is $125 an hour, and anything over 4 hours gets a fixed quote first.
Put those next to what a plan costs over the same years. A build usually costs more. It’s worth it when it does something your organization needs and no plan does, and that’s the case to weigh, in plain terms, beside the numbers.
Making the case to your board
If someone else holds the budget, bring them the method and your own figures. Show what you pay each year now, what a plan would cost, and what a build would cost with hosting and support counted. Then be ready for these.
“Why not stay on a plan?”
Usually you should. A plan is running this month, and it covers groups, giving, events, check-in, volunteers and messages. A custom build is worth it only when you need something a plan doesn’t do.
“We don’t have the budget this year.”
A build is a capital project, paid once, and many technology and capacity-building grants are set up to fund exactly that. Ask your finance team how your organization treats it.
“Who looks after it after launch?”
We do, unless you’d rather take it over. A support plan covers updates, security and support, at $4,800–$18,000 a year depending on scope, and anything we built wrong is fixed free for 90 days after launch. If your organization wants to run it itself, a full handover of the code and accounts can be part of the agreement.
“We’re not a technical organization.”
You don’t need to be. Your team runs the same things it runs today: people, events, giving and messages. The technical work sits with us, or with your own developer if you take it over.
- What you pay now, per year, for every tool, from your actual invoices.
- An honest count of staff hours spent between those tools each week.
- What the plan that fits your size would cost, from the pricing page.
- The specific thing a plan can’t do, and what doing it would change.
- A short statement of what member data you hold, where it lives, and how you’d get it out.
Use your own numbers. Any comparison that tells you your answer before it asks your figures is selling something.
Run yours
The calculator uses the same published prices. Pick your kind of organization, change every row to what you actually pay, and set the hours your team really spends. If you need something no plan does, bring your numbers to a strategy call and we’ll tell you straight whether a plan covers it or a build makes sense.