Gracely is a relatively new entrant in the church management software space, but it has been turning heads. With a 4.9 rating on Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice, plus a G2 High Performer badge for Spring 2026, this platform clearly resonates with the churches using it.
We signed up for a Pro trial and spent time exploring every corner of the platform. Here is what we found.
TL;DR
Gracely is a clean, modern ChMS that punches above its weight class. The free plan includes unlimited members (a rarity), and the built-in church website builder is a genuine differentiator. However, it lacks WhatsApp integration, offline capabilities, and regional payment options that churches outside North America need. If you are a small to mid-size church in the US looking for an affordable, all-in-one platform, Gracely deserves a serious look.
What Is Gracely?
Gracely is a cloud-based church management platform built by Starttech Ventures. It covers the core needs of church administration: member management, giving and donations, event calendars, communications, forms, and reporting.
What sets Gracely apart from more established competitors like Planning Center or Breeze is its pricing model (unlimited members on every plan, including the free tier) and its built-in church portal, which functions as a simple website builder.
The platform is available on web, iOS, and Android. The mobile app (“My Gracely”) is included on every plan at no extra cost.
Gracely Pricing
One of Gracely’s strongest selling points is its pricing transparency. There are no per-member fees, no hidden costs, and every plan includes unlimited members.
| Plan | Monthly Price | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | Unlimited members, groups, families, event management, attendance tracking, 10 emails/mo, 2 admins |
| Standard | $19/mo | Everything in Free, plus online giving (Stripe), contribution tracking, pledges, batch management, tax statements, follow-ups, church portal, member directory, 500 emails/mo, 10 admins |
| Pro | $49/mo | Everything in Standard, plus accounting system, form builder, child check-in, appointments, paid events, rooms and resources, volunteer scheduling, unlimited emails, multi-campus support, unlimited admins |
Add-ons:
- SMS messaging: $0.02 per message
- Custom domain for your church portal: $19/month (includes free SSL)
Gracely also offers a 30-day free trial of the Pro plan with no credit card required, and a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans. Annual billing saves up to 35%.
How does this compare? At $19/month for giving and communications, Gracely undercuts both Breeze ($89/mo minimum) and Planning Center’s combined modules. The free tier with unlimited members is more generous than most competitors, which typically cap free plans at 50-100 members.
Hands-On: What We Found
We tested Gracely’s Pro trial across every major feature area. Here is our assessment.
Dashboard and Navigation
The dashboard is clean and well-organized. At the top, you get quick-add cards for Members, Families, Groups, and Funds. Below that, widgets for recently added members, upcoming birthdays, and upcoming events give you a snapshot of church activity.
A giving overview section breaks down total, in-person, online, and recurring giving with quick filters by time period. A row of Quick Actions (Add a giving, Send email, Send SMS, Post an announcement, Create form, Invite your team) makes common tasks accessible from anywhere.
The left sidebar is logically organized: Home, People, Finances, Calendar, Communications, Forms, Reports and Metrics, and Portal and Access. Navigation is intuitive and fast. We never felt lost.
People Management
The People section is divided into three sub-sections: People (individual members), Families, and Groups.
Each member profile includes tabs for Profile details, Groups, Giving history, Forms, Attendance, and Notes. You can track contact information, family relationships, and custom fields. The interface is clean with good use of whitespace.
Strengths:
- Unlimited members on every plan (including Free)
- Family relationship management built in
- Custom fields available for tracking church-specific data
- Clean, modern UI that is easy to navigate
What we would improve:
- No bulk import wizard visible during onboarding (CSV import exists but is not prominently featured)
- No merge/duplicate detection that we could find
- Limited member self-service compared to platforms like Planning Center
Giving and Finances
The Giving section lets you record donations, manage funds, and generate giving statements. Online giving requires activating a Stripe integration (available on Standard and Pro plans).
The giving dashboard breaks donations into Total, In-Person, Online, Recurring, Last Donation, and Highest Donation. You can filter by time period.
On the Pro plan, a full accounting system is included with contribution tracking, batch management, pledges, and tax statement generation.
Strengths:
- No processing fees from Gracely (only standard Stripe fees apply)
- Recurring giving support
- Tax statement generation
- Embeddable giving widget for your church website
What we would improve:
- No support for payment methods beyond Stripe (no PayPal, no mobile money, no regional payment gateways)
- No multi-currency support
- Churches in Africa or Latin America will find the giving setup limited to USD-based Stripe processing
Calendar and Events
The calendar is solid. You get Month, Week, and Day views with color-coded events. Multiple calendars can run simultaneously: a Main Calendar, Birthdays, Follow Ups, and Appointments.
The Pro plan adds Rooms and Resources management, which is useful for churches that need to coordinate facility bookings.
Events can be embedded on your church portal using the Calendar Widget.
Strengths:
- Clean calendar UI with multiple view options
- Rooms and resources management (Pro)
- Embeddable calendar widget
- Appointment scheduling built in
What we would improve:
- No event registration or ticketing visible on the Standard plan
- Paid events require the Pro plan ($49/mo)
Communications
Gracely offers three communication channels: Email, SMS, and Announcements.
Email sending is limited by plan: 10 emails/month on Free, 500 on Standard, and unlimited on Pro. SMS is available as a paid add-on at $0.02 per message across all plans.
Announcements can be posted to your church portal and push-notified to members through the mobile app.
Strengths:
- Email scheduling support
- SMS integration available on all plans (as add-on)
- Announcements via portal and mobile app push notifications
- Clean email composer
What we would improve:
- No WhatsApp integration (critical for churches in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia where WhatsApp is the primary communication channel)
- Email limits on the free plan (10/month) are very restrictive
- No email template library that we could see
Forms
The Form Builder on the Pro plan lets you create custom forms for registrations, feedback, surveys, and data collection. Forms can be embedded on your church portal or shared via link.
Responses are tracked and exportable. This is a useful feature for event signups, volunteer applications, and visitor cards.
Church Portal (Website Builder)
This is where Gracely genuinely differentiates itself. The Portal Studio is a drag-and-drop website builder that comes with every plan. Your church gets a hosted portal at yourchurch.gracely.io, and you can connect a custom domain for $19/month.
The portal includes:
- Page Builder: Drag-and-drop sections with real-time preview. Redesigned recently for easier use.
- Theme and Styles: Customize colors, fonts, and layout through a visual editor
- 7 pre-built pages: Ready to customize out of the box
- Navigation and Footer editor: Full control over your site structure
- Gallery: Photo gallery management
- Embeddable Widgets: Giving and Calendar widgets you can place on any page
- Portal Analytics: Coming soon, will track page views and visitor trends
Most church management platforms require you to build your website separately (WordPress, Squarespace, etc.) and then integrate it with your ChMS. Gracely bundles the two together. For a small church that does not want to manage a separate website, this is a significant value add.
What we would improve:
- Limited to one theme (“Canvas”) at the time of our review
- No blog functionality built into the portal
- Custom domain is an additional $19/month, which adds up
Mobile App
The “My Gracely” mobile app is available on iOS and Android at no extra cost. Members can:
- View and update their personal profile
- Give from their phone (including setting up recurring giving)
- View and join events
- Join and view groups
- Submit forms
- Receive announcements
- Explore the member directory
- Stay connected with their church family
The app syncs automatically with the admin dashboard. Gracely provides a launch kit with social media graphics, website banners, and a printable QR code poster to help churches promote the app to their congregation.
Reports and Metrics
A Reports and Metrics section exists in the sidebar, though we were unable to explore it in depth during our trial. Based on the Pro plan feature list, reporting covers member analytics, giving reports, attendance trends, and engagement metrics.
Who Is Gracely Best For?
Ideal for:
- Small to mid-size US churches (under 500 members) looking for an affordable all-in-one solution
- Churches that want a website and ChMS in one platform
- New churches that do not have existing software and want to start fresh
- Budget-conscious churches that need unlimited members without per-member pricing
Not ideal for:
- Large multi-campus churches that need advanced workflow automation
- Churches that need offline access for areas with limited connectivity
- Organizations that need deep integrations with third-party tools (the integration ecosystem is still growing)
Gracely vs. Competitors
| Feature | Gracely (Standard) | Breeze | Planning Center | Tithe.ly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | $19/mo | $89/mo | ~$50/mo (combined) | $49/mo |
| Free Plan | Yes (unlimited members) | No | Yes (limited) | Yes (limited) |
| Member Limit | Unlimited | Unlimited | Varies | 75 (free) |
| Online Giving | Stripe | Stripe | Stripe | Built-in |
| Mobile App | Included | $50/mo add-on | Included | Included |
| Website Builder | Built-in portal | No | No | Church sites ($99/mo) |
| SMS | $0.02/msg add-on | No | No | Included (limited) |
| No | No | No | No | |
| Offline Access | No | No | No | No |
| Multi-Campus | Pro plan ($49) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
What We Noticed (The Honest Bits)
A few things stood out during our testing that are worth mentioning:
The product is genuinely polished. For a relatively young platform, Gracely’s app is clean, fast, and well-designed. The navigation is logical, the empty states guide you through setup, and the overall experience feels thoughtfully crafted.
No free data migration is mentioned in the app. The pricing page advertises “free migration from your previous system,” but we did not see a migration tool or guided process inside the platform. You may need to contact their team directly.
Intercom chat is available everywhere. A live chat widget is present on every page, which is helpful for getting quick answers. Response times during our testing were reasonable.
The onboarding is smooth. A “Welcome to Gracely” guide walks new users through the setup process step by step. Combined with the Quick Actions on the dashboard, getting started takes minutes rather than hours.
International Considerations
Gracely is primarily built for the North American market. If your church is based in the US or Canada, you will find everything you need.
For churches outside North America, there are a few things to keep in mind. Giving is powered by Stripe, so your members will need to use credit or debit cards. The communication tools include email and SMS, but not messaging apps that are popular in some regions. There is no offline mode for areas with limited connectivity.
These are common limitations across most ChMS platforms in this price range, not unique to Gracely.
Our Verdict
Rating: 4.2 / 5
Gracely is a well-executed platform that gets the fundamentals right. The unlimited members on every plan (including free), the built-in church portal, and the aggressive pricing make it a compelling choice for budget-conscious churches.
The core experience is polished. Navigation is intuitive, the dashboard is useful without being overwhelming, and the mobile app covers the basics well. For a platform this young, the level of polish is impressive.
Where Gracely falls short is in its integration ecosystem, which is still growing compared to more established players. Offline access is also not available, and the platform is primarily designed for US-based churches.
Bottom line: If you are a small to mid-size church in North America looking for an affordable, modern ChMS with a built-in website, Gracely is worth your 30-day free trial. The free plan alone, with unlimited members, is genuinely useful for churches just getting started with digital management.
FAQ
Is Gracely really free? Yes. The Free plan includes unlimited members, groups, families, event management, attendance tracking, and basic email (10/month). No credit card required. Online giving and advanced features require the Standard ($19/mo) or Pro ($49/mo) plan.
Does Gracely have a mobile app? Yes. The “My Gracely” app is available on iOS and Android, included on every plan at no extra cost. Members can view profiles, give, join events, submit forms, and receive announcements.
How does Gracely compare to Breeze? Gracely is significantly cheaper ($19/mo vs $89/mo for Breeze) and includes a free tier that Breeze does not offer. Gracely also includes a website builder. However, Breeze has been around longer and has a more mature feature set for mid-size to large churches.
Can I use Gracely outside the US? Gracely works internationally, but it is primarily designed for North American churches. Giving is Stripe-based (credit/debit cards), and communication is via email and SMS.
Does Gracely integrate with Stripe? Yes. Online giving is powered by Stripe. Standard Stripe processing fees apply. Gracely does not add additional transaction fees.