7 Best Text in Church Alternatives in 2024 (Compared)
Posted by Tim Smith in Churches and Religious on January 3, 2024
Text in Church is a communication platform designed for churches. It facilitates communication with members through text messages, allowing for announcements, event reminders, and general information sharing.
Despite its popularity among churches, Text in Church comes with significant drawbacks:
- Text in Church charges $37/month for 500 SMS, which might be steep for non-profits and churches.
- Users may experience occasional logouts, causing them to miss messages and disrupt communication.
- Purchased text credits expire monthly and can’t be carried over, which limits flexibility for users.
In this article, we’ll talk about the 7 best Text in Church alternatives you can try to enhance your SMS communication efforts further while avoiding the issues mentioned above.
Best Text In Church Alternatives
Alternative #1: DialMyCalls
is a mass notification and messaging platform that allows organizations of different sizes to send bulk text messages and automated phone calls to entire contact lists in a few clicks.
What makes DialMyCalls a great Text in Church alternative is its combination of robust features, competitive pricing, responsive customer support team, and ease of use.
DialMyCalls Features
- Mass texting
- Contact management
- Mass notification portal
Mass Texting
DialMyCalls offers a powerful mass texting feature that allows organizations, including churches, to send messages to a large group of recipients simultaneously.
For churches, this feature holds significant benefits. First, it simplifies communication by ensuring that important information reaches all church members promptly. Without this feature, the process would involve manually reaching out to each individual through phone calls or emails, which is time-consuming and less efficient.
So, whether it’s spreading the word about upcoming events, sharing words of encouragement, or mobilizing volunteers for community initiatives, the mass texting services simplify communication for churches and enable them to reach their congregations in a less tiresome way.
Contact Management
The contact management feature empowers organizations, including government entities, schools, and non-profits, with a robust solution for storing, organizing, and managing all their contacts in one centralized location.
DialMyCalls enables users to categorize contacts based on specific criteria. This level of organization facilitates targeted communication, allowing government entities to reach specific departments, schools to connect with distinct faculty members, and non-profits to engage with volunteers.
If you’re tired of relying on disparate systems or spreadsheets to organize your contact list, DialMyCalls offers a centralized hub where you can access, update, and categorize your contacts.
Mass Notification Portal
Another important DialMyCalls functionality is its mass notification portal. That’s a feature developed to cater to the diverse needs of schools, cities, and various other organizations. This unique capability allows entities to build a dedicated portal where individuals can opt-in to receive important alerts and notifications.
What sets this feature apart is the GIS mapping functionality. Imagine having the ability to draw a specific area on a map, and with DialMyCalls, you can do just that. Once the area is defined, the system ensures that alerts are only sent to users within that targeted geographic zone. This becomes incredibly useful for organizations that need to deliver alerts to specific neighborhoods or localized communities.
For example, a school can use this feature to send notifications about school closures or emergencies to parents and staff in the immediate vicinity. Similarly, city governments can use the GIS mapping feature to send localized alerts about public events, traffic updates, or emergencies to residents within specific neighborhoods.
Pricing
In terms of pricing, DialMyCalls offers flexibility without the constraints of a rigid contract. Users have the option to cancel at their convenience. You can either choose:
- Standard Monthly — starting from $6.74/month
- Premium Monthly — starting from $8.99/month
- Pay-as-you-go — starting from $10.00
- Custom Pricing
and get 25 free credits to try out the platform.
Alternative #2: Clearstream
is a messaging platform that provides services such as text messaging, mass texting, live polls, automated workflows, and more. It’s designed to facilitate efficient communication mainly for churches and non-profits.
Clearstream Features
- Text-to-join keywords
- Automated workflows
Text-to-Join Keywords
Clearstream facilitates seamless engagement through its text-to-join keywords, empowering users to effortlessly become part of groups or subscribe to services by simply sending a text message with the specified keyword.
Automated Workflows
Clearstream enhances operational efficiency with its automated workflows. By automating various text marketing tasks like scheduling follow-up texts, the platform minimizes the need for manual intervention.
Pricing
Clearstream has a free plan that gives you 100 credits to test the platform. Its pricing starts from $29/month which comes with 1250 credits for extended usage.
Alternative #3: PastorsLine
is a communication platform designed for churches and ministries to connect with their members and visitors. It provides tools for sending text messages, automated messages, and managing communication workflows.
PastorsLine Features
- Critical alerts
- SMS templates
Critical Alerts
PastorsLine offers critical alerts for churches, providing a means to communicate important information promptly. This feature ensures the timely dissemination of urgent messages to the church community.
SMS Templates
The platform also includes SMS templates that allow users to create standardized text messages for quick communication. This feature simplifies the process of sending common messages.
Pricing
PastorsLine’s paid plans start from $15/month for sending 500 messages.
Alternative #4: Messente
is a communications platform that specializes in global messaging services, including SMS and other mobile messaging solutions. It’s designed to assist financial, logistics, insurance companies, and churches in sending messages to customers and users worldwide.
What makes Messente a reliable Text in Church alternative is that it also provides APIs that developers can integrate into their applications or systems.
Messente Features
- Contact list management
- Automated reminders
Contact List Management
Messente offers contact list management capabilities. This feature enables users to maintain an organized contact database for better communication.
Automated Reminders
Messente provides automated reminders, a useful tool for various applications, including churches. This feature assists in sending timely reminders, enhancing communication efficiency for churches by keeping members informed about events, services, or important dates.
Pricing
Sending 500 messages in the US with Messente costs €10.
Alternative #5: JustCall
is a cloud-based phone system and contact center solution that enables businesses to manage their phone communications. JustCall is developed to help businesses simplify their communication processes, enhance customer support, and maintain a professional image through features like automated SMS campaigns, call forwarding, and toll-free numbers.
JustCall Features
- Automated SMS campaigns
- SMS workflows
Automated SMS Campaigns
Whether it’s reaching out to a specific segment of contacts or sending personalized messages at predefined intervals, the automated SMS campaigns feature ensures effectiveness in engaging with the intended audience.
SMS Workflows
JustCall’s SMS workflow and automation feature enables users to automate the sending of text messages based on various triggers and conditions. For example, you can set up workflows to send SMS messages when a contact completes a survey or responds to a message.
Pricing
JustCall provides 4 plans, beginning at $29/user/ month. These plans include unlimited inbound calling and SMS analytics.
Alternative #6: SimpleTexting
is a platform that provides text messaging services tailored for businesses across different sectors. It enables eCommerce, healthcare, education, real estate organizations, and non-profits, to efficiently engage with their audience through SMS and MMS.
SimpleTexting Features
- Emergency text alert system
- Bulk SMS
Emergency Text Alert System
SimpleTexting’s emergency text alert system is a crucial feature designed for local municipalities, churches, and school administrators. Whether it’s notifying residents about local emergencies, informing congregations of critical announcements, or alerting school communities about urgent situations, this feature ensures rapid dissemination of vital information.
Bulk SMS
With bulk SMS capability, users can send mass text messages easily, making it ideal for marketing campaigns, promotions, and general announcements.
Pricing
The monthly cost for sending 500 messages with SimpleTexting is $29.
Alternative #7: ChurchPlus
is a cloud-based church management platform that helps churches manage various aspects of their operations like church attendance, retaining first-time guests, handling church finances, and overall administration, all in one place.
It stands out as a great Text in Church competitor, offering churches the tools they need to automate communication through SMS and voice functionalities.
ChurchPlus Features
- Automated messages
- Two-way messaging
Automated Messages
With automated messages, the platform enables churches to automate communication processes, allowing for scheduled and timely delivery of messages. This feature is particularly useful for sending regular announcements and event reminders without manual intervention.
Two-Way Messaging
Two-way communication feature facilitates interactive communication between the church and its members. Congregants can respond to messages, ask questions, or seek information via SMS.
Pricing
ChurchPlus has a free plan that allows you to send 100 SMS per month. Its paid plans kick off at $20/month.
What is the Text In Church Alternative?
In the comparison table below, you’ll find scores for four different aspects across all the mentioned solutions, highlighting why DialMyCalls stands out as the best Text in Church alternative.
| Platform | Ease of Use | Customer Support | Other Features | Pricing | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DialMyCalls | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.7 |
| Clearstream | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.6 |
| Messente | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.6 |
| ChurchPlus | 5.0 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.6 |
| SimpleTexting | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.6 |
| PastorsLine | 3.8 | 4.7 | 4.1 | 4.5 | 4.2 |
| JustCall | 4.3 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.3 | 4.2 |
All of the ratings above are from Capterra.com.
Improve Your Church Communications with DialMyCalls
Text in Church users often complain about the relatively high monthly cost for SMS, occasional logouts, and the drawback of purchased text credits expiring without the option to carry them over. But there’s a better option — DialMyCalls.
DialMyCalls is a messaging platform with friendlier prices, no occasional logouts, and the freedom to keep your unused credits month to month, fixing all the issues you might face with Text in Church. And the best part? There’s not a big learning curve for users. Sign up for DialMyCalls today, get 25 free credits, and test the platform yourself.
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