Givelify vs Tap.Giving: App vs NFC Plates (2026)

Givelify and Tap.Giving Do Different Jobs

Most pastors who put these two side by side are not actually choosing between them. They are trying to figure out where each one fits. Givelify is a giving platform built around a mobile app and a hosted web page. A donor downloads Givelify, searches for the church by name, picks an amount, and gives. The church sees the gift in the Givelify dashboard. Givelify processes the donation, handles receipts, and stores the donor record.

Tap.Giving sells the hardware that puts a giving moment inside the service. Specifically, NFC tap plates that mount on chair backs or pew backs. Someone taps a phone, the phone opens your existing giving page (the Givelify page, a Tithely link, a Planning Center URL, whatever you already use), and the gift completes in about eight seconds. We are not a payment processor. We sell the hardware. The church keeps Givelify or any other platform underneath.

So the question is not really “Givelify or plates.” The question is whether the gap between the 60% of churchgoers who say they would give digitally and the roughly 24% who actually do is worth closing. Givelify answers part of that gap by removing the “mail a check” barrier. Plates answer the rest of it by moving the giving moment into the room where the sermon is happening.

The two work together. The plate can encode your Givelify URL or, for guests, a faster web giving page that skips the app install. We dig into the in-service trigger problem in NFC tap-to-give plates and faster in-service giving and in the QR codes vs NFC comparison, where NFC has been measured at around 42 times the engagement of QR codes.

What Givelify Actually Costs in 2026

Givelify is genuinely free up front. There is no monthly platform fee, no setup fee, and no annual contract. The way Givelify makes money is the processing fee on every gift, which is 2.9% plus $0.30. That is the same headline rate Stripe charges anyone, and it is the same rate Tithely, Pushpay, and most other platforms pass through. So Givelify is not cheaper because it has a special rate. It is cheaper because the platform layer is zero.

The flip side of free is that Givelify owns the donor experience. A first-time guest who hears “give through Givelify” from the stage has to remember the app name, install it, search for the church, and finish the gift on their own time. A meaningful percentage do not. That is the friction NFC tap plates are designed to remove. The processing economics of contactless giving through plates are identical (you still pay 2.9% plus $0.30 to whatever processor sits underneath), but the participation is not.

If you want a side-by-side of Givelify against the SaaS platforms with monthly fees, see Tithely vs Tap.Giving and Pushpay vs Tap.Giving. Givelify is the cheapest platform layer of the three by a wide margin.

5-Year Cost: Givelify Alone vs Givelify Plus Plates

Because Givelify has no platform fee, this is not a “save thousands by switching” comparison. It is a “what does adding hardware cost, and what does it buy you” comparison. The scenario: a 200-seat church receiving roughly $234,000 a year in giving, on Givelify already. We hold processing fees equal on both columns because both routes go through 2.9% plus $0.30 underneath.

The math the table does not capture: a participation lift of even 10% on a $234k base is more than $23,000 in additional annual giving. Churches that have rolled out NFC giving report donation increases of 300% or more in the moments where plates are actually used, and first-time-giver rates around 53%. The $800 one-time hardware cost pays for itself many times over if the lift is even a fraction of what we see in the field. See NFC giving ROI by the numbers for the unit math.

A 100-seat church running the same scenario spends $450 once on plates. A 400-seat church spends $1,400. Plate pricing drops as quantity climbs, which is why the per-seat cost falls from $4.50 (100 to 199 plates) to $4.00 (200 to 399) to $3.50 (400 and up). See our pricing page for the full quantity table.

Feature Matrix: App vs Plate

The honest side-by-side. Givelify and Tap.Giving plates are complementary, not opposed, but it helps to see where each one carries the load. Pastors comparing church giving technology often discover they want both, not either-or.

Givelify owns the post-service experience: the app that donors can return to from their couch, the recurring schedule, the year-end statement. Plates own the in-service moment: the prompt during the offering, the guest who sees a plate on the chair and taps. They are designed for different parts of the giving journey. For the broader case on why hardware in the room matters for participation, see ways to increase in-service giving.

When Givelify Alone Is the Right Call

The honest carve-out. Givelify without plates is enough for some churches, and we will say so. Stick with Givelify alone if all of the following are true:

• Your in-service giving is already healthy and not the metric you are trying to lift.
• Your donor base skews older and prefers to give from home with planning, not in the moment.
• Your church does not have a regular in-person service rhythm (online-first, multi-site without a physical hub, etc.).
• You are early in a church plant with no hardware budget at all.

For church plants on a tight start-up budget, our cheapest-setup guide for small churches is a better starting point than a hardware purchase. See NFC giving for small churches and NFC giving explained for the basics before you decide.

When to Add Tap.Giving Plates to Givelify

Add NFC tap plates on top of Givelify if any of these match. Most churches we talk to recognize themselves in two or three.

• In-service giving has dropped since the offering tray went away during COVID and online giving has not closed the gap.
• You have a steady flow of first-time guests who do not have your Givelify name memorized.
• You announce giving from the stage every week and watch most people sit motionless during the prompt.
• You want a digital giving for churches answer that does not require a guest to install anything.
• You are happy with Givelify and want to keep it, not replace it.

Two practical notes on running plates with Givelify. First, the plate can encode either your Givelify page or a faster mobile-web giving URL. We usually suggest the web URL for first-time guests because it skips the app install step, then pointing returning givers back to the Givelify app for recurring schedules. Second, the plates work with whatever you use, so if you ever move off Givelify later (to Tithely, Anedot, Planning Center, something else) the plates do not have to be replaced. We re-encode them.

For the wider context on hardware-first vs platform-first thinking, see how tap to give works for churches and NFC tap plates and church growth. According to a Barna Group study, generosity habits are deeply tied to the worship moment itself, which is why putting the giving prompt back in the service tends to move the number more than tuning the platform underneath.

FAQ: Givelify vs Tap.Giving