ParishSoft Giving vs Tap.Giving: Parish Cost Compared (2026)

The Short Answer (Read This First)

ParishSoft Giving and Tap.Giving are not the same kind of product. ParishSoft Giving is the online donation module inside a Catholic-focused parish management suite that the diocese licenses for sacramental records, offertory tracking, and contribution statements. Tap.Giving is a passive piece of hardware: a printed disc with an NFC chip the size of a grain of rice, one per seat, no battery, no monthly fee, and no platform of its own.

For a 400-seat parish in 2026, a typical ParishSoft allocation at roughly $150 per parish per month totals around $9,000 over five years in software charges alone, before the configured processor takes its 2.9 percent plus $0.30 from every gift. Tap.Giving plates for the same nave total $1,400 once at $3.50 per plate, with free shipping and no recurring cost. Both can power tap to give, tap to donate, and NFC giving during the offertory, but the price profile is the opposite shape: ParishSoft is a monthly bundle, NFC tap plates are a one-time line item. Most parishes do not have to choose, they keep ParishSoft and add NFC tap plates at every pew.

What ParishSoft Giving Is (and Who Uses It)

ParishSoft started as Catholic parish management software and has grown into a full Family Suite that covers sacramental records, religious education, parish accounting, offertory tracking, and online giving. The Giving module is one feature inside that larger suite. It is now owned by Ministry Brands, the same parent that owns several other church management products.

Dioceses choose ParishSoft when one central office wants every parish on the same records system. The diocese negotiates a master contract and rolls the parishes in, so the choice is rarely a parish-level decision the way a Protestant church would pick Tithely or Pushpay. The pitch is consolidation: baptisms, confirmations, weddings, contribution statements, and online donations all live in the same database. The in-pew offertory experience is incidental to the product. Parishioners click a link, fill out a form, and pay with a card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay through the configured processor.

That last part is what makes NFC tap plates and ParishSoft complementary, not competitive. The plate hands a giver's phone a URL, then steps out of the way. The URL can be your ParishSoft Giving page, your WeShare page, your Pushpay page, your Subsplash, Donorbox, Givelify, Anedot, Planning Center Giving, or Nucleus Giving page. The chip does not care. For a deeper read on how the underlying chip standard works, see how tap to give works for churches and NFC giving for Catholic parishes.

ParishSoft Pricing for Parishes in 2026

ParishSoft does not publish standalone pricing for the Giving module, which is the first thing to notice. Pricing is negotiated at the diocesan level and bundled into the Family Suite contract, then allocated to individual parishes. That makes a head-to-head dollar comparison harder than for a platform like Tithely or Pushpay where the website lists tiers. The numbers below are typical industry ranges as of 2026; confirm what your diocese actually charges with your chancery IT office before signing.

Source: industry-reported diocesan contracts and current Stripe-equivalent rate card as of 2026. Diocesan negotiation, parish size, and bundled module count all move the number. Some dioceses absorb the monthly cost centrally; others pass it through to the parish.

The pattern to notice is the recurring shape of the charge. Whether one parishioner gives or 400 do, the monthly suite charge does not change. There is no hardware in the box, so the in-room offertory experience is whatever the giver chooses to do with the link in the bulletin. That is where NFC tap plates fit. For another close-up of bundled-suite giving stacks, see the Breeze ChMS giving comparison, the Aplos comparison, and the hidden costs of church giving platforms post.

Tap.Giving Plate Pricing for Parishes

Our pricing has one shape: per plate, one time, free shipping. No monthly fee, no setup fee, no transaction fee from us. Every plate ships with adhesive backing, pre-drilled screw holes for permanent mounts on pew backs, and a QR code printed on the front as a fallback for any phone that cannot read NFC.

Promo code WELCOME10 takes 10% off your first order. Free shipping, 2-3 week delivery, no contract. Full tier detail and quantity breaks up to 1,000+ plates are on our pricing page, or you can start an order directly.

5-Year Total Cost: A 400-Seat Parish

Here is the math for a 400-seat Catholic parish running roughly $250,000 a year through its giving page. Column one assumes the diocese uses ParishSoft Family Suite at a $150 per parish per month allocation and the Giving module is the donation page. Column two assumes the parish keeps whatever giving page it already has (ParishSoft or otherwise) and adds 400 Tap.Giving NFC tap plates at every seat. Both columns include processing fees because those exist regardless of hardware.

The point is not that ParishSoft is overpriced. For a diocese that needs sacramental records, religious education tracking, and contribution statements across 50 parishes from one tool, the bundle is reasonable. The point is that the suite charge is buying you records and accounting, not in-pew giving. Adding NFC tap plates does not require leaving ParishSoft and does not add a second monthly bill. NFC tap plates and the ParishSoft Giving page solve different problems.

The lift side of the math is real too. Parishes using NFC tap plates have reported in-Mass donation lifts of 300 percent or more, with 81 percent of attendees willing to give in service when a tap option is available, compared to 24 percent who actually do without one. Tap to give is roughly 42 times more engaging than a printed QR code, and 53 percent of NFC givers are first-time givers. For the detail behind those numbers, see the NFC giving ROI numbers post. For independent context, the ECFA publishes annual data on church giving worth reading before any platform decision.

Feature Comparison

ParishSoft and Tap.Giving live at different layers of the parish church giving technology stack, so this is less a head-to-head chart and more a "what does each one actually do" reference.

For a side-by-side that includes additional contactless giving options, see our tap to give platform comparison and our contactless church collection plate guide. For Ministry Brands as the parent company, see our Ministry Brands comparison.

When to Pick ParishSoft Anyway

Honest carve-out: situations where ParishSoft earns its diocesan bundle fee and is the right call even if you also want tap and give hardware in the room.

• Your diocese already owns the master Family Suite contract, and switching platforms is a chancery decision, not a parish decision.
• You need Catholic-specific sacramental records (baptism, confirmation, marriage, funeral) tied to the same household record as the offertory data.
• You run religious education enrollment, sacrament prep, and offertory tracking and want one source of truth instead of three systems to reconcile.
• The Family Suite cost is centralized at the diocesan level and the per-parish allocation is small enough that adding a separate giving platform on top makes no sense.

Even when ParishSoft is the right back end, the in-room offertory experience still benefits from physical tap tags for churches at every pew. The plate hands the phone the ParishSoft Giving URL, the giver pays in eight seconds, and ParishSoft books the gift like any other web donation. Many Catholic parishes we work with run exactly that stack: ParishSoft for records, NFC tap plates for the offertory. If you want to think through whether the combination fits, walk through how it works, read more on NFC giving for Catholic parishes, then grab a plate quantity that matches your seats.

FAQ: ParishSoft and Tap.Giving Questions