Key Takeaway
Most churches looking past Subsplash want one of two things: a cheaper giving stack, or a custom app their staff doesn't have to administer. Tithe.ly wins on low-cost giving, Pushpay on large-church depth, Planning Center on staff workflow and check-in, SecureGive on a focused giving experience. If what you actually want is a custom app and website that a team builds and runs for you, that's the done-for-you model, and it's the one option here where your staff never logs into a dashboard. There's no single best. There's a best for how many campuses you run and how much your team can administer.
Subsplash is the incumbent church app for a reason. It's mature, it's proven, and thousands of churches run on it without thinking twice. But it's also templated, priced by quote, and administered by your staff, and those three facts send a steady stream of churches looking for something else. This is an honest field guide to the real alternatives in 2026, with an eye on the question that gets harder the more campuses you run: what each one is genuinely good at, where each falls short, what it costs per campus, and which church each actually fits. Per-campus math and how much your staff has to administer are the two axes that decide it once you pass a single location, so we lead with those.
We build and run custom church apps for a living, so we have a horse in this race. We've tried to be fair anyway. For most of these you'll find a head-to-head page linked inline if you want the full breakdown.
First, why churches leave Subsplash
Before the alternatives, it helps to name the actual reasons churches start shopping. In our experience it's almost always one of these:
- Cost creep. The base tier looks reasonable, then giving, media, and check-in add up, and the multi-campus quote climbs.
- The templated look. Your app looks like every other Subsplash app with your logo on it, and members can tell.
- Staff administration. Someone on your team has to learn the platform and keep it fed: events, push notifications, the directory, support tickets when an integration breaks.
- Roadmap mismatch. You need a feature this Sunday and you're in line behind thousands of other churches.
Which reason is driving you should decide which alternative you look at first. A church leaving over giving fees wants a different answer than a church leaving over the templated look.
The honest shortlist
1. Tithe.ly. Best for low-cost giving and small churches.
Tithe.ly is the natural first stop for churches whose main complaint is cost. The giving product is genuinely inexpensive, the app builder is approachable, and a small church can get something live without a sales process or an annual contract. If your budget is tight and your needs are giving plus a basic app, Tithe.ly is hard to beat on price.
Where it falls short: the app is template-driven, so you land in the same place you were with Subsplash, just cheaper. Giving fees and add-ons stack on top of the monthly cost, and the deeper you go the more your staff administers. It's a tool, not a team.
Real pricing in 2026: giving is low-cost (transaction fees around 2.9% + $0.30 on cards, lower on ACH), with the app and elevated features layered on top, generally landing churches in the low hundreds per month once you're past the free tier.
If Tithe.ly is on your list, the full Rehost vs Tithe.ly breakdown walks through where a flat lease comes out ahead and where Tithe.ly's DIY model is the right call.
2. Pushpay. Best for large, multi-campus churches.
Pushpay is built for big. Churches of 500+ attendance with serious giving volume get polished giving rails, deep donor analytics, and, paired with Church Community Builder, a full church management system. If you have an operations team that lives in dashboards and your giving volume justifies it, the depth is real and well-earned.
Where it falls short: it's priced like enterprise software. Quotes are custom, terms are annual, and bundles climb with attendance. Smaller churches feel out of place and overpay for depth they won't use. The app is still, fundamentally, a configured template.
Real pricing in 2026: Pushpay doesn't publish rates. Community-reported figures put most churches in the $500 to $1,500/mo range per campus depending on size and bundle.
The Rehost vs Pushpay page covers the quote-vs-flat-lease difference and the contract terms in detail.
3. Planning Center (Church Center). Best for staff workflow and check-in.
Planning Center is the quiet favorite of church operations staff, and for good reason. It's less an app builder than a suite of well-made tools for running a church: service planning, registrations, groups, and a child check-in system that's among the best in the category. The free Church Center app gives members a clean front end to all of it. If your pain is internal coordination, not the public-facing app, Planning Center is excellent.
Where it falls short: the member-facing Church Center app is shared and templated by design. You can't make it look like your church; it looks like Church Center. It's superb back-of-house software and a deliberately generic front door. If a custom, branded member experience matters to you, this isn't it.
Real pricing in 2026: modular and reasonable. Individual products (Registrations, Giving, Check-Ins, Groups) are priced separately, and many churches run a useful stack for a few hundred dollars a month. Giving is competitive.
Planning Center and a done-for-you custom app actually pair well: keep Planning Center for staff workflow, layer a custom member app on top. The Faith plan page explains how that coexistence works.
4. SecureGive. Best for a focused giving experience.
SecureGive does one thing and does it deliberately: church giving, including kiosk and physical giving-station hardware that most software-only platforms skip. For churches that still take a meaningful share of giving in person, or that want a no-frills, reliable giving product without buying a whole app platform, SecureGive is a sensible, focused choice.
Where it falls short: it's a giving tool, not an app-and-website platform. If you need a custom member app, a real website, push notifications, and event sign-ups, SecureGive only solves one slice and you'll be assembling the rest yourself.
Real pricing in 2026: a monthly platform fee plus processing, typically landing churches around $99 to $200/mo before transaction costs, with hardware separate.
See Rehost vs SecureGive for where a single operated stack replaces a giving-only tool plus the four other things you'd otherwise bolt on.
5. Done-for-you custom (Rehost). Best for a real app your staff doesn't administer.
This is the option the other four don't offer, and it's the reason we exist. Instead of buying a platform your staff configures, you lease a custom app, website, and giving stack that a team builds, launches, and runs for you. Your staff never logs into a dashboard or learns a CMS. You send a plain-English message ("add a Christmas Eve service, 7pm, December 24") and it ships. The App Store account is in your church's name, the domain is on your registrar, the code is in your repo, and member data exports whenever you ask.
Where it falls short: reduced self-service. You can't log in and tweak a workflow yourself at 11pm; you ask us and we change it, usually same day. For churches that want to be hands-on administrators, that's the wrong trade. For the (many) churches whose staff is already stretched thin, it's the right one.
Real pricing in 2026: $250/mo per campus, flat and linear. One campus is $250, three is $750, five is $1,250. No separate multi-campus tier, no quote, no setup fee. Giving processor fees go directly to the processor (Stripe, etc.); we don't take a cut.
If the templated look or staff administration is what's driving you off Subsplash, this is the alternative that actually solves it. The Rehost vs Subsplash page is the direct comparison.
Quick comparison
| Option | Best for | Custom app? | Staff administers? | Typical 2026 cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tithe.ly | Low-cost giving, small churches | No (template) | Yes | Low hundreds/mo + fees |
| Pushpay | Large, multi-campus churches | No (template) | Yes | $500–$1,500/mo per campus |
| Planning Center | Staff workflow, check-in | No (shared Church Center) | Yes | A few hundred/mo, modular |
| SecureGive | Focused giving, kiosks | No (giving only) | Yes | ~$99–$200/mo + processing |
| Rehost (done-for-you) | Custom app, no admin burden | Yes | No (team runs it) | $250/mo per campus, flat |
How to pick
Strip away the feature checklists and it comes down to two questions:
- What's actually driving you off Subsplash? If it's giving cost, look at Tithe.ly or SecureGive. If it's staff workflow, look at Planning Center. If it's the templated look or the administration burden, look at done-for-you, because the other four are all still platforms your staff configures.
- How many campuses, today and in 18 months? Per-campus math compounds. A flat $250/campus lease and Pushpay's quote-based bundles diverge fast as you add locations. Solve for marginal cost per campus, not the single-campus sticker.
The honest answer is that there's no universal best. A two-pastor church plant and a seven-campus multisite want genuinely different tools. What we'd push back on is the assumption that the only choice is which platform to administer. For a lot of churches, the better question is whether your staff should be administering a platform at all.
FAQ
What is the best Subsplash alternative for a small church?
For a small church whose main concern is cost, Tithe.ly is usually the best starting point: inexpensive giving, an approachable app builder, and no annual contract. If the small church wants a custom, branded app without becoming a part-time software administrator, a done-for-you lease at $250/mo per campus is the alternative that fits, since it includes the labor the DIY tools push onto your staff.
Is there a Subsplash alternative with a truly custom app?
Among the major platforms, no. Subsplash, Tithe.ly, Pushpay, and Planning Center's Church Center all ship configured templates. The only model that produces a genuinely custom, branded member app is done-for-you custom development, where a team designs and builds the app around your church's specific service flow and ministries. That's what Rehost's Faith plan is.
Which Subsplash alternative is cheapest?
By sticker price for giving alone, Tithe.ly and SecureGive are the lowest. But the cheapest operationally for a church that wants a full app, website, and giving stack is often the flat done-for-you lease, because it absorbs the staff labor that the cheaper tools quietly require. Add up the hours someone on your team spends administering a platform and the math shifts.
Can we move our data and giving history off Subsplash?
Yes. Member data and giving history come out through Subsplash's export tooling, and member identifiers can carry over so your regulars keep their history during a migration. App Store reviews are the one thing that can't transfer. The Rehost vs Subsplash page covers the 30-day migration plan in detail.
Do we have to give up our giving processor to switch?
It depends on the alternative. Pushpay and Subsplash steer you toward their bundled giving and take a cut. SecureGive and Tithe.ly are giving-first by design. A done-for-you lease works with whatever processor you choose (Stripe, Tithe.ly, or a denomination-specific provider) and takes no portion of the transaction; you pay the processor directly.
The bottom line
If you're leaving Subsplash over giving cost, Tithe.ly and SecureGive are your honest answers. If you run a large multisite with a real ops team, Pushpay's depth earns its price. If your pain is internal coordination and check-in, Planning Center is excellent and pairs well with a custom front end. And if what you actually want is a custom app and website your staff doesn't have to run, that's the done-for-you model, and it's the one option on this list where nobody at your church learns a dashboard. If you want to put your specific situation (campus count, member count, giving volume) against the math, book a 30-minute call and we'll tell you which fits, even when it isn't us.