Church Operations Platform
Run the whole church from one connected record.
People, giving, care, events, volunteers, and staff work share one record, so the hospital visit, the first gift, and Sunday's open volunteer spots show up on the same screen.
The reality
Your church runs on duct tape
Your finance director imports giving data into a spreadsheet. Your admin enters the same information into a different tracker. Your pastor checks a third system for attendance. Three versions of the truth — and at least one of them is wrong.
A new family visits on Sunday. Three people say they'll follow up. Monday comes — nobody knows if anyone actually did. That family never comes back. Not because your church didn't care, but because your tools didn't talk to each other.
This isn't a technology problem. It's a ministry problem. Every hour your team spends hunting for information across five apps is an hour they're not spending with people.
Explore by role
See how Forge works for your specific role
Senior/Lead Pastor
Stop guessing how your church is doing. See giving, attendance, and care follow-through on one screen.
Executive Pastor / Ops Director
Track teams, requests, and projects from one workspace.
Church Administrator
Manage people, events, rooms, and reports from one workspace.
Finance Director / Bookkeeper
Close the books without chasing spreadsheets. Giving records, fund tracking, and board-ready reports in one place.
Youth Pastor / Next Gen
Know which students showed up, which parents to contact, and which volunteers are confirmed — before Wednesday night.
Worship / Service Planning Lead
Build your service plan, fill volunteer positions, and flag conflicts — all without a group text thread.
One record connects the whole church
Forge connects the three pillars of church operations into a single platform. When someone gives, serves, registers, or needs care, that activity shows up where the rest of the team works.
People
Every person, household, and interaction lives on one shared record. Your team can see who visited, who is serving, who gave, and who needs follow-up without switching tools.
Giving
Online and offline gifts, fund tracking, contribution history, receipts, and board-ready reports stay connected to the same people your ministry team already knows.
Work
Care requests, facility needs, ministry setup, projects, and staff tasks move through one visible work queue so ownership and next steps stay clear.
Your team stops translating between five disconnected apps and starts leading from one source of truth.
The difference
Church software that actually works
We've seen what happens when churches try to run on tools designed for businesses, or on church tools designed in 2008. Forge is neither.
Works on day one, not day ninety
Sensible defaults mean your team isn't configuring dropdown menus for a month. Open Forge on Monday, run your first check-in by Wednesday. Most church software takes weeks of setup before anyone sees value — we built the opposite.
Nothing falls through the cracks
A visitor fills out a connect card. Forge assigns follow-up to the right person, sets a due date, and shows the pastor if it actually happened. No more 'I thought someone else was handling that' moments.
Financial transparency your board can trust
Every dollar tracked from the moment it's given. Fund allocations, donor receipts, and reports that match — not 'close enough' spreadsheets your finance director has to manually reconcile every month.
Built for your Tuesday, not just your Sunday
Most church software is designed around weekend services. But ministry happens every day — care requests on Wednesday, volunteer coordination on Thursday, staff meetings on Friday. Forge is a daily operating system for your team.
Your team is spending hours on admin every week. Get that time back.
Free during our founding-church beta · Invite-only cohort · Cancel anytime
Member Portal
Your members can self-serve. Your staff can breathe.
Every Forge plan includes a branded member portal where your congregation can give online, register for events, update their info, submit care requests, and download giving statements — all without calling the office.
See the full Member PortalOperational challenges
Common reasons teams review their current setup
Forge is designed for churches that want people, giving, events, and operations managed in a connected system.
Multiple systems for core records
Churches often track people, giving, events, and follow-up in separate places, which increases manual reconciliation.
Operational work outside the main system
Requests, facilities, scheduling, and staff workflows are often handled in separate tools or documents.
Manual reporting
Teams may rely on spreadsheets or duplicated entry to prepare financial and operational reporting.
Disconnected follow-up history
When visits, care requests, volunteer activity, and communication history live in different places, context is harder to maintain.
Core Modules
Ten real workspaces. One platform.
Every module shares the same data, the same interface, and the same login. The result is a product your staff can scan and use every week.
People & Households
so no one is overlooked
Know your congregation deeply — connected profiles, family relationships, and complete engagement history.
Giving & Funds
so generosity is honored
Steward contributions faithfully with clear fund tracking, donor records, and financial reports leadership can trust.
Requests & Care
so care reaches everyone
Capture prayer requests, coordinate pastoral visits, and ensure every person receives the follow-through they deserve.
Ministry & Service Planning
so every Sunday runs smoothly
Plan services, manage worship teams, schedule volunteers, and track who's serving where — with conflict detection built in.
Calendar & Events
so you see who's present and who's missing
Shared calendar with facility scheduling, recurring events, registration, and attendance tracking across every gathering.
Operations & Facilities
so nothing falls through the cracks
Manage care requests, facility maintenance, asset inventory, and projects from a single operations hub.
Communications
so your congregation stays connected
Reach your congregation through email, SMS, automated workflows, and targeted campaigns — all from one message center.
HR & Staff
so you care for those who lead
Manage your staff lifecycle — onboarding checklists, position tracking, certifications, and performance notes.
Reports & Analytics
so leadership sees the full picture
On-demand reports across finance, people, attendance, ministry, and operations — with export and scheduled delivery.
Platform & Intelligence
so your tools work as fast as you do
Solomon AI assistant, global search, quick add, keyboard shortcuts, and accessibility — a modern platform built for 2026.
Pricing
Pricing for churches of different sizes and operating needs.
Each tier is based on feature depth and operating complexity.
Every plan includes unlimited people records, unlimited contributions, and all core modules. Compare that to Planning Center, where People + Giving + Check-Ins + Groups can run $200+/month before you've added a single person.
Plant
Core records, giving, and events for smaller teams
- People & household management
- Online & offline giving
- Basic care requests
- Event check-in
- Email messaging
- Standard reports
- Up to 3 admin users
- Core onboarding support
Harvest
Adds workflow and operational tools for active ministry teams
- Everything in Plant, plus:
- Ministry & volunteer scheduling
- Messaging automation workflows
- Smart audience targeting
- Operations & facilities tracking
- Background checks (MinistrySafe; PMM + Checkr coming)
- Solomon AI assistant
- Unlimited admin users
- Expanded onboarding support
Flourish
Adds multi-site, HR, and advanced reporting for larger teams
- Everything in Harvest, plus:
- Multi-site management
- HR & staff management
- Advanced reporting & dashboards
- Custom workflow automations
- API access & integrations
- Priority support
- Dedicated account manager
Simple pricing structure
Contact the team if you need help choosing the right tier.
Full transparency on pass-through costs
Some features rely on third-party services that charge per use. We pass these through at cost — no markup, no surprises. Here's exactly what to expect.
Online Giving
2.9% + 30¢
per transaction
Stripe's standard processing rate for credit/debit cards. This goes directly to Stripe — we don't add anything on top. Donors can optionally cover fees at checkout.
SMS Messages
~$0.0079
per message (US)
Powered by Twilio at their published rates. Email messaging is unlimited and included in your plan. SMS is only charged when you use it — no minimums.
Included
unlimited on all plans
Email sending is included at no extra cost on every plan. No per-email fees. No send limits. Powered by Mailgun with delivery optimization built in.
Pass-through rates reflect current provider pricing as of March 2026 and may change. We'll always notify you before any rate changes take effect.
Founding Church program
Churches joining during beta may receive early access terms and a more direct feedback loop with the product team.
Invite-only founding-church beta. Cancel anytime.
Free during our founding-church beta · Your data is always exportable · No long-term contracts
Who it's for
Built for churches that are ready to move forward
If you're tired of duct-taping tools together and ready for a system that actually works the way your ministry thinks — Forge is for you.
Growing Churches (50–500 members)
You've outgrown the spreadsheet your admin built three years ago. You need a real system — but not a six-month enterprise implementation. Forge takes under a week to set up and grows with you.
Multi-Staff Teams
When three people enter the same visitor's info into three different tools, nobody trusts the data. Forge gives your whole team one source of truth — with role-based access so everyone sees what they need.
Switching from Planning Center or Breeze
Love Planning Center Services for worship planning, but tired of per-person pricing and module fees? Forge gives you the same worship workflow (CCLI/SongSelect) plus comprehensive church management at half the cost. No per-member fees. No module add-ons.
Budget-Conscious Ministries
Your church grew by 100 people this year. Your software bill shouldn't grow with it. Forge has flat pricing — unlimited people, unlimited donations, unlimited records. Your growth should be celebrated, not penalized.
Church Plants Starting Fresh
No legacy data. No bad habits. Start with a real system from day one instead of building a spreadsheet empire you'll have to tear down later. The Plant tier at $59/month is built for you.
Multi-Site & Multi-Campus
Consolidated reporting across locations. Shared people records. Campus-specific workflows. Your campuses operate independently but your leadership sees the whole picture.
How Forge compares
See what you're actually getting
Most church software makes you buy add-ons for the features you actually need. Forge includes everything in every plan.
We're launching our Founding Church beta — these are the features shipping on day one, built and tested, not promises on a roadmap.
| Feature | Forge | Planning Center | Breeze | Spreadsheets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| People & household management | ||||
| Online & offline giving | Add-on | |||
| Volunteer scheduling | Add-on | |||
| Care request tracking | ||||
| Facility & room booking | ||||
| Staff task management | ||||
| Messaging automation | Add-on | |||
| AI assistant (Solomon) | ||||
| Flat pricing (no per-person fees) | ||||
| Unified data — one source of truth |
The math is simple
A church with 300 people on Planning Center typically pays $150–250/month across People, Giving, Check-Ins, and Groups — and that's before you add Services ($60/mo) for worship planning. Forge Harvest is $149/month for all of it, PLUS native CCLI/SongSelect integration. Unlimited people. No add-ons. No extra worship module fees.
Pricing based on publicly available Planning Center pricing as of 2026. Your actual costs may vary.
COMMON QUESTIONS
The questions you're already asking
Planning Center is a collection of separate apps — and if you want their worship planning tool (Services), that's another $60/month on top of People, Giving, and Check-Ins. Breeze doesn't do worship workflow at all. Forge is a single unified platform where worship planning (CCLI/SongSelect), people, giving, events, and operations all share the same data. You get Planning Center Services-quality worship tools PLUS comprehensive church management at half the price. One login, one truth, one bill.
Implementation timing depends on your data, team availability, and rollout plan. Forge includes onboarding steps to help with setup and imports.
Yes — all three. Forge supports structured imports from common church management platforms and CSV files. Our migration team helps map your data so nothing is lost. Your people records, giving history, and group memberships come with you.
Forge encrypts data at rest and in transit, with role-based access controls and full audit logging. Financial data is isolated with additional safeguards. Review current compliance and security details with the Forge team for your environment.
Forge pricing is tiered by feature depth and organizational complexity rather than by individual record counts.
Start with what matters most and expand over time. Forge is modular — every feature is included in your plan, but you only set up and use what your team needs right now. Nobody's going to make you configure facilities management before you can track giving.
Data export and contract terms should be reviewed with the Forge team during evaluation.
Forge includes onboarding assistance and ongoing support resources. The level of support can vary by plan.
Forge is built for mobile browsers, including common tablet and phone workflows.
We offer priority support on Sundays for Harvest and Flourish plans because we understand that Sunday morning is not the time for 'we'll get back to you Monday.' Our support team is available via live chat and email during weekend service hours. Plant plan churches have access to our comprehensive knowledge base and community support.
Forge is intended for church staff and volunteers. Teams can evaluate the interface and training fit during onboarding.
Solomon is Forge's built-in AI assistant, available on Harvest and above. It helps with things like drafting follow-up emails, surfacing care request trends, and answering natural language questions about your church data ('How many new families joined last quarter?'). It's completely optional — it won't change your data or make decisions for you. Think of it as a smart search bar that understands your church.
If you have vendor continuity questions, review roadmap, export, and contract details directly with the Forge team.
Forge's check-in system supports offline mode — it caches data locally and syncs when your connection returns. For critical Sunday workflows like check-in, we've designed graceful fallbacks so a momentary outage doesn't derail your morning. Your giving kiosks and online forms are also designed to queue transactions and retry automatically.
Free resource
The ChMS Migration Checklist
Thinking about switching from Planning Center, Breeze, or spreadsheets? Get the step-by-step checklist to move your people, giving, and history — without losing data or momentum.
- A pre-migration data audit you can run in an afternoon
- Exactly what to export from Planning Center, Breeze, or spreadsheets
- How to keep giving history and family relationships intact
- A go-live week timeline so nothing slips
Get the checklist
We'll email it right over — no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Review Forge with your team
Apply for founding-church access, review pricing, or talk with the team about your setup.
Free during our founding-church beta · Invite-only cohort · Cancel anytime
Ask the team about implementation, support, and data export details.