Any organization, including churches and ministries, need a web presence. While email communication, mobile apps, and social media are certainly important, having a website remains the gold standard for outreach. The church technology industry offers many options for building a website in the faith-based market – whether you decide to build one on your own or hire a third party, here’s a list of The 6 Best Church Web Design Companies to build your website.
1. WordPress
The tried and tested WordPress.org is the most popular website builder in the world and is ideal for creating self-hosted church websites. Once you have secured your domain name and a web hosting service, you can get started building your website on WordPress (WP).
Advantages of using WP include its hundreds of free or paid church templates and layouts/themes, its many plugins to cover any feature your website needs, like the Sermon Manager plugin, a donation and fundraising plugin, photo galleries, contact forms, and more, unlimited user accounts and its extensive support community. If you’re willing to handle updates, backups, and security yourself, WordPress is the ideal free website builder for you.
Pricing: WordPress is free, however, you need to pay for a domain name and web hosting, which typically starts at around $10 per month combined.
2. Clover Sites
Clover Sites specializes in building websites for ministries and offers an easy-to-use content management system as well as numerous templates to choose from. Customers simply pick a site design and customize their theme by choosing features, images, and pre-designed files available for an additional $20 per month. In addition, clover Sites provides photo editing, forms, and events, plus integrated giving through Clover Give.
Their fully responsive websites are extremely reliable and include support, SEO optimization, section editing, unlimited storage, automatic updates, traffic, pages, and media. If you want to avoid the headache of having to completely build your website from scratch, Clover Sites is your go-to church web design company.
Pricing: A one-time setup fee of $1,000 plus $29 maintenance per month.
3. Faithlife Sites
Faithlife Sites offers an entirely free church website and a premium version starting at $19.99 per month. Its set of features includes file storage, sermon archive with Faithlife Sermons, custom domain name, HTML widget, Faithlife Giving, Site Security, Sermon publishing direct from Faithlife Proclaim, digital bulletins, stock photo, and content library, pre-built popular church pages, directions via text message, built-in map and much more.
The company offers to keep church websites up-to-date automatically and provides support 365 days a year. Additionally, congregations can easily be reached through live streams, podcasts, events calendars, and email newsletters.
Pricing: Free option available; a more advanced version starts at $19.99 per month.
4. Ekklesia 360
If you’re looking for a simple website content management system specifically for churches, Ekklesia 360 may be the right fit for you. The company offers core features for ministry, including sermon management, giving, event and RSVP tools, social media management, and more. In the Ministry Brands suite of church tools, Ekklesia 360 offers turnkey and custom website options.
The company promises beautiful-looking websites and ones that drive ministry results like attracting, engaging, and developing a church community. So far, over 8,500 churches trust and use Ekklesia 360’s church website solutions.
Pricing: $500 for onboarding, training, and setup plus monthly subscription plans ranging from $65 – 185/month for hosting and support.
5. Digital Church Platform
Digital Church Platform is a new industry player that boasts dual front-end editors – a live editor to conveniently make swift edits or the advanced editor for more extensive updates. The platform offers free trials without a credit card and demo sites for preview and testing out all the features. Some of their features include embedding events management, forms, and connection cards.
Ministries opting for Digital Church Platform can build their own content library, including video, podcast, and file downloads. The sites are built on WordPress, so there are endless customization possibilities.
Pricing: Monthly plans range from $16-$49. Annual plans start at $144 per year.
5. FaithNetwork
FaithNetwork offers beautifully custom-designed websites uniquely suited to each church. While they do not provide templates, their costs are affordable. Their websites are fully responsive, mobile-friendly and include social media integration, sermons, comprehensive media management of podcasts, file sharing, prayer wall, site analysis, unlimited storage, and third-party integrations.
They also offer many other church technology solutions such as online giving, church apps, text-to-give, and live streaming. In addition, faith Network’s expert team takes care of site maintenance and page features, so you have nothing to worry about.
Pricing: $1700 one-time fee, $30/month for hosting
6. Squarespace
One of the most popular website builders that offers everything in one platform is Squarespace. It’s effortless to set up, provides several relevant templates, and allows access to multiple users. In addition, Squarespace comes with all the features necessary to build a fully integrated, fully responsive church website that can be accessed from any device and even allows for donation collections under the business plan.
If you’re unsure whether you want to use Squarespace, you can take a free trial without having to enter your credit card details.
Pricing: The Personal Plan is $12/month (if paid annually), and the Business Plan is $18/month (also billed annually).
If the idea of building a website for your ministry overwhelms you, this list may serve as a convenient starting point. Regardless of your budget and requirements, there are numerous companies that can help you reach out to your congregation more easily and improve your web presence.