Subsplash vs Pushpay: a head-to-head comparison for 2026
By Sankalp Jonna · Last reviewed April 2026
If you're shopping for church management software in 2026, you'll narrow it to two tools fast — and odds are this is one of those moments. Subsplash and Pushpay both target mid-to-large churches with sales-led pricing and bundled product suites, but their centers of gravity are very different.
The meaningful difference: Subsplash is an app-and-media company that grew into ChMS and giving. Pushpay is a giving company that grew into apps and ChMS. The Subsplash app is the best-in-category branded mobile experience for sermons and live streaming. The Pushpay donor experience is the best-in-category giving flow.
If your digital strategy centers on a media-first branded app — sermons, live stream, content distribution — Subsplash is built for you. If your digital strategy centers on giving and donor management, Pushpay is built for you. They overlap heavily in the middle, but the right answer almost always reveals itself in that first question: app-first or giving-first.
TL;DR
- Your weekend strategy centers on a polished branded app for sermons, live stream, and media distribution.
- You want bundled live streaming and media hosting that replaces a separate Resi or Vimeo OTT contract.
- You're a teaching-heavy church where sermon discovery and on-demand playback matter as much as in-person attendance.
- You're willing to live with a weaker ChMS module in exchange for the best app and media experience in the category.
- Your digital reach is national or distributed, not just centered on your physical campus.
- Your top priority is donor experience and giving conversion — text-to-give, digital wallet, recurring gift management.
- You need a CSM relationship and the deepest reporting on donor retention and lapsed-giver cohorts.
- You want a tighter ChMS pairing via Church Community Builder rather than Subsplash's bolted-on database module.
- You're processing seven figures of giving annually and need a vendor whose product is built around that workflow.
- Your church's brand presence is centered on Sunday morning rather than on a media empire.
Side-by-side
| Feature | Subsplash | Pushpay (with Church Community Builder) |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 8.0 / 10 | 8.2 / 10 |
| Starting price | Custom pricing | Custom pricing |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Transaction fees | Around 2.6-2.9% + $0.30 on Subsplash Giving | Tiered, generally ~2.5-3.0% + $0.30; lower for high-volume churches |
| Best for size | mid, large, multi-site | mid, large, multi-site |
| Branded app quality | Best-in-category; native feel, polished sermon player, fast launch | Excellent; particularly strong on giving flows and donor portal |
| Live streaming | Bundled in; replaces separate Resi or Vimeo OTT contract | Available via Resi partnership; usually a separate contract |
| Giving flow polish | Solid; text-to-give and in-app giving work well | Best-in-category; conversion on first-time digital gifts is the standard |
| ChMS module | Weakest part of the suite; feels bolted on | Church Community Builder; more mature but UI is dated |
| Volunteer scheduling | Essentially absent; churches keep Planning Center alongside | Basic in CCB; many Pushpay churches still run Planning Center |
| Reporting on giving | Functional; weaker on retention cohorts | Deep cohort analysis, lapsed-giver alerts, pledge tracking |
| Website builder | Included in Subsplash One bundle | Not included; assumes you use a separate website vendor |
| Contract terms | Multi-year contracts standard; renewal pricing tends to climb | Annual or multi-year, often with auto-renewal |
| Best-fit church type | Media-driven, teaching-heavy, distributed audience | Giving-driven, in-person-centered, multi-campus |
Setup & onboarding
Both are sales-led with structured implementation. Subsplash's onboarding is heavy on the app side — your CSM walks you through app store submission, branding configuration, and content migration, which removes a real burden if you've never shipped a mobile app before. Expect 4-8 weeks before your branded app is live on the iOS and Android stores.
Pushpay's onboarding is heavy on the giving side — donor migration, recurring gift conversion, and giving form deployment. Implementation timelines are similar (4-8 weeks), and the CSM relationship that starts during onboarding tends to be the most enduring touchpoint. Neither is fast, and neither is cheap to leave once you're in. The honest read: choose based on which onboarding emphasis matches your priority, because that emphasis tells you what the vendor will optimize for going forward.
Core features
Subsplash's app and media product is the best in the category. The branded app feels native, sermon and live stream playback are polished, and the bundled media hosting saves real money versus paying separately for OTT. For churches whose digital strategy is media-heavy — distributed audience, on-demand sermons, app-as-the-front-door — nothing else competes.
Pushpay's giving and donor management is the best in the category. Text-to-give converts unusually well, digital wallet flows are two taps, and the reporting on retention cohorts and lapsed givers is genuinely first-class. CCB pairs natively for ChMS, though CCB itself is a generation behind Planning Center in UI.
The ChMS comparison is unflattering for both. Subsplash's database module feels bolted on. CCB is mature but dated. Many churches running either platform still pay Planning Center separately for Services and the modern People experience — a real cost that often gets ignored in the initial pricing comparison.
Pricing breakdown
Both are quote-based and start in the hundreds of dollars per month. Real-world pricing for a typical mid-large customer:
Subsplash Engage (app + media) typically runs $200-400/month. Engage + Giving adds another tier, and Subsplash One (app + giving + ChMS + website + streaming) often lands $500-900/month. Multi-year contracts are standard and renewal bumps are real.
Pushpay's giving platform alone typically runs $300-1,000+/month, plus the branded app, plus CCB if bundled — call it $1,000-2,500/month for a comparable mid-large customer. Transaction fees on Pushpay tend to be 0.5-1% higher than Subsplash on equivalent volume.
The honest read: Subsplash One is often cheaper than the Pushpay-CCB equivalent for similar feature breadth, especially for media-heavy churches that would otherwise pay separately for live streaming. Pushpay wins on giving polish; Subsplash wins on bundled-cost-per-feature.
Support & community
Both vendors do CSM-led support well. Subsplash's CSMs are particularly strong on the app and media side — they handle app store maintenance, submission to Apple and Google, and configuration changes that would otherwise require a developer.
Pushpay's CSMs are particularly strong on giving operations — recurring gift management, capital campaign setup, and donor data hygiene. The depth of churches running on Pushpay means there's a large peer community and consultant pool, similar to but somewhat smaller than Planning Center's.
For escalations and Sunday morning issues, both vendors are responsive. The differentiator is what your CSM will know best — your app or your giving — and that maps cleanly to the underlying product center of gravity.
Mobile experience
Subsplash wins decisively on member-facing mobile. The branded app is the only one in the category that consistently feels like a real native product, with launch times, sermon player polish, and overall UX that match consumer media apps.
Pushpay's app is excellent but more giving-focused. The donor experience inside it is the best in the category, but the sermon and content side is a tier below Subsplash. For a member who opens the app primarily to watch sermons or live stream, Subsplash is the better experience. For a member who opens the app primarily to give, Pushpay is.
For staff-facing mobile, both lag Planning Center's modular admin experience. Neither is a tool you'd choose because the staff app is great.
Verdict
Choose based on your digital center of gravity. If your church is media-driven — sermons matter, the app is the front door, live streaming is core to your reach — Subsplash is the better choice and it isn't close. The branded app is the best in the category, the bundled live streaming saves real money, and the rest of the suite is competent enough to work as a primary platform.
If your church is giving-driven — capital campaigns, donor retention, recurring gifts as the primary revenue engine — Pushpay is the better choice. The donor experience converts higher, the reporting is genuinely first-class on retention metrics, and the CSM relationship pays for itself at scale. The honest secondary recommendation: most churches that choose either of these still end up paying Planning Center separately for Services and a modern ChMS, and you should factor that into the total cost.