PewPrep vs Pushpay
PewPrep vs Pushpay: Which Is Right for Your Church in 2026?
Strong at large-church giving; enterprise pricing; over-engineered for most.
Pushpay is one of the most established giving platforms in the church space, and they've built a deep enterprise product that works well at the megachurch tier (2,000+). Their giving experience is polished, their reporting is comprehensive, and large churches who can absorb their pricing genuinely get value. The honest catch: Pushpay's pricing model and contract structure are optimized for churches doing $1M+/yr in giving, with sales cycles measured in months and multi-year contracts. For the 95% of churches under 1,000 members, Pushpay is overkill — you pay for an enterprise sales motion you don't need, on contract terms that don't fit. PewPrep delivers comparable giving capability with a self-serve, month-to-month model that scales from a 50-person plant to a 5,000-member church.
Pushpay
Enterprise contract — typically $300-1,000+/mo + per-transaction
Custom quote
Side-by-side comparison
Every row vetted against the most recent Pushpay pricing and product docs.
| Feature | PewPrep | Pushpay |
|---|---|---|
| Giving | ||
| Online + text + recurring | Yes | Yes |
| Per-transaction rate | 2.2% + 30¢ | Negotiated, typically 2.5-2.9% |
| Tax-year statements | Auto | Auto |
| Fund designation + tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Donor app | PWA | Native |
| Operations | ||
| ChMS / member database | Yes | ChurchStaq bundle |
| Service planning | Yes | Resi (separate product) |
| Kids check-in | Pro+ | Add-on |
| Email/SMS communications | Built in | Add-on |
| AI | ||
| AI bulletin + content | Yes | No |
| AI sermon companion | Yes | No |
| Pricing model | ||
| Transparent published pricing | Yes | No |
| Month-to-month | Yes | Annual+ contracts typical |
| Self-serve signup | Yes | Sales-led only |
Why churches choose PewPrep
- Transparent pricing, no sales call, no multi-year contract.
- Lower per-transaction giving rate than typical Pushpay terms.
- AI-written communications layer Pushpay doesn't have.
- One platform: giving + ChMS + comms + service planning, no add-on stack.
- Scales down for smaller churches without losing capability.
When Pushpay might be the better choice
Honest take. We'd rather lose the deal than win it under false pretenses.
- You're a 2,000+ member church with a dedicated comms + finance team that can absorb the enterprise contract overhead.
- You're already deep in the Pushpay+ChurchStaq stack with multi-year commitment and switching cost outweighs benefit.
- Your church does $1M+/yr in giving and a 0.3% rate difference is worth the contract complexity.
Switching from Pushpay to PewPrep
Pushpay migration is API-based for ChMS data and CSV-based for historical giving. Recurring donors require a card-on-file confirmation email to maintain their gift on PewPrep (Stripe-to-Stripe portability handles most). Allow 60 days for full transition on a 1,000+ member church.
Questions, answered
- Why is Pushpay's pricing not published?
- Enterprise SaaS commonly uses sales-led pricing because they can negotiate per customer based on church size. The tradeoff: customers feel locked into a 30-60 minute discovery call before knowing what they'll pay. PewPrep publishes pricing because we want pastors making decisions on their own time.
- We're a megachurch. Is PewPrep actually built for us?
- Yes — PewPrep Enterprise ($299/mo per campus, network discounts available) supports multi-campus, SSO/SAML, 2FA enforcement, IP allowlisting, API access, and a dedicated success manager. We have churches up to 5,000 members on Pro tier without issue.
- What about ChurchStaq, Pushpay's bundled ChMS offering?
- ChurchStaq adds Church Community Builder (their acquired ChMS). PewPrep's integrated ChMS approach is comparable in capability and includes the AI content layer that Pushpay/CCB don't have.
- Can we negotiate custom terms with PewPrep?
- For Enterprise tier with 5+ campuses or network/denomination contracts, yes — we have a custom contract path. For single-church customers, our published tier pricing is what you pay. Most churches don't need a custom deal.
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No credit card. Cancel anytime. Compare it to Pushpay in your actual workflow, not a sales demo.