Tithely vs Pushpay in 2026: An Honest Comparison for Churches

What is the real difference between Tithely and Pushpay?

Tithely sells software you can buy yourself. Pushpay sells a scoped system with a salesperson attached. Both statements are compliments if they match how your church buys.

Tithely is built around self-service. Its giving product starts free, every tier price is on the public pricing page, and a treasurer can read the whole cost structure on a Tuesday night without talking to anyone. The paid tiers add church management software, a custom app, and a custom website on top.

Pushpay is built around a configured bundle. Its pricing page lists three product lines, Giving, ChMS, and ChurchStaq, each in Core, Advanced, and Complete, plus ParishStaq for Catholic parishes. What you pay depends on which tier and which combination you land on, and that number arrives from a demo rather than from the website.

Neither model is a trick. Tiered enterprise software is priced by scope across most of the industry. But the practical effect on a church board is real: with Tithely you can build a budget line before the first conversation, and with Pushpay you cannot.

What does Tithely cost in 2026?

Tithely publishes both its subscription tiers and its US processing rates. Everything below is taken from get.tithe.ly/pricing on August 2, 2026. Plans change, so check the live page before you sign.

The platform fees on every gift matter more than the plan price. Tithely's published US rates are 2.9% + $0.30 per card transaction, 3.5% + $0.30 on American Express, and 1% + $0.30 on bank transfers. Those come off the top of every donation whether you are on the free tier or the $119 plan.

Two other published items belong in a budget. Premium Onboarding is a one-time $599 (included at the Enterprise tier), and Tithely offers a "Cover the Fees" option that lets givers absorb the processing fee. Tithely says churches typically see around 60% of donors choose it, which is the company's own figure rather than an independent measurement, so treat it as a directional planning number and not a guarantee.

For a deeper breakdown of the fee side, see our Tithely pricing and fees write-up for 2026.

What does Pushpay cost in 2026?

Pushpay does not publish subscription prices or processing rates. We checked pushpay.com/pricing on August 2, 2026: it lays out the plan tiers in detail and then says, "Already know what you need? Get a free, no obligation demo for answers and pricing options." Pushpay's own article about processing fees does not publish a rate either. You will find estimates for Pushpay pricing on third-party review sites. We are leaving them out on purpose, because we cannot verify them against a Pushpay source, and a number your board relies on should come from your own written quote.

The contract term is the line to read first. A 3 year agreement turns whatever monthly figure you are quoted into a 36 month commitment, so the honest comparison is total cost over the term rather than cost per month.

The unlimited-users detail is worth noticing too. Churches with large volunteer teams sometimes get squeezed by per-seat pricing elsewhere, and Pushpay states plainly that it does not do that.

Side by side: what each company publishes

This table only contains facts each vendor states on its own site as of August 2, 2026. Where a company does not publish something, the cell says so rather than guessing.

Read the "not publicly listed" rows as missing information rather than as bad news. Every giving platform charges to move money. Pushpay simply puts that conversation in the demo instead of on the page.

What a $250,000 giving year costs on Tithely's published rates

Take a church receiving $250,000 a year in digital gifts across 2,500 transactions, an average gift of $100. Here is the arithmetic on Tithely's published US rates. You can rerun it with your own totals in about a minute.

The gap between the top row and the second row is $4,750 a year, and no subscription decision on either platform is likely to be that large. Add All-Access at $119 a month ($1,428 a year) and the all-card church is at roughly $9,428 while the all-bank-transfer church is at roughly $4,678.

That is the number to carry into a Pushpay demo. Ask for the card rate and the bank transfer rate as two separate figures, then run the same three rows. Whichever platform you choose, the payment method mix your recurring givers use will move more money than the plan you sit on.

One caution on the arithmetic: per-gift flat fees punish small gifts hardest. At an average gift of $25 instead of $100, the same $250,000 arrives in 10,000 transactions and the $0.30 line alone becomes $3,000. If your church runs on many small gifts, weight the flat fee heavily in your comparison.

Where Tithely is the stronger choice

Tithely is the better fit when the church needs to move without a procurement process.

• You can start at zero. Free Giving is $0 a month with unlimited donations, recurring giving, Apple Pay and Google Pay, tax statements, and a QuickBooks integration. A 90-seat church can be receiving gifts this Sunday without a budget approval.
• The board can see the whole cost before the call. Every tier price and every US processing rate is on the public page. That is unusual in church software and it shortens the decision considerably.
• No long-term commitment on the giving tier. Tithely states "No monthly fees or contracts - EVER" on Free Giving, so a church that wants to try it for a quarter can.
• Bundling is cheap if you need the extras. If you already want a church app, a website, and church management software, All-Access at $119 a month is one line item instead of four vendors.

The honest trade-off: self-service means the support relationship is lighter until you reach the Enterprise tier, and a large multi-campus church with complicated fund accounting may outgrow the reporting.

Where Pushpay is the stronger choice

Pushpay is the better fit when the church is large enough that integration and analytics matter more than the sticker price.

• One system across giving, people, and insight. ChurchStaq combines Giving and ChMS with an engagement dashboard, giving trends, year-over-year giving, and engagement stages. For a church trying to connect attendance patterns to generosity, that is a real capability and not a marketing line.
• Multi-site is a first-class feature. The Complete tiers add per-campus giving experiences, per-campus branding, per-campus designations, and multiple bank accounts. Churches running three campuses through one general fund know why that matters.
• Catholic parishes get a dedicated build. ParishStaq includes sacrament tracking and per-parish designations rather than a generic template.
• Physical and offline gifts are handled. Published check scanning and remote deposit from $0.29 per check, plus stock and crypto giving in the Core tier, cover the gifts that never touch a phone.
• No per-seat squeeze. Unlimited users and administrators is stated on the pricing page.

The honest trade-off: you cannot budget for it before you talk to someone, and the 1, 2, or 3 year terms mean the decision is harder to reverse than a month-to-month plan.

Which one should your church pick?

Nobody can answer this from attendance alone, but these four descriptions cover most churches that ask.

For the wider field beyond these two, our church giving technology guide walks through how the categories fit together.

Five questions to ask before you sign either agreement

I have sat on the church side of these calls. These five questions surface almost every surprise before it lands in a budget.

1. What is the bank transfer rate, stated separately from the card rate? This is the single biggest lever in the whole comparison and it is easy to skip past in a demo.
2. What is the total cost over the full contract term, not the monthly figure? Multiply it out in the meeting and read it back.
3. What happens to our recurring donors if we leave? Ask specifically whether recurring gift schedules can be exported and whether donors must re-enter payment details. This is the real cost of switching platforms.
4. Which of the features in the demo are in the tier we are actually buying? Both companies tier their features. Get the tier name written into the agreement next to the feature list.
5. Who covers the processing fee by default, and can we change it? Fee-cover toggles help the budget but change what a first-time giver sees. Make the default a decision rather than a discovery.

The plate in the pew is a separate decision

One thing this comparison does not settle is how someone gives during the service. Whichever platform you choose, a guest still has to get to your giving page, and typing a URL or focusing a camera on a QR code is where a lot of giving moments quietly end.

That part is hardware, not software. An NFC plate stores a web address, so a phone held near it opens whatever page you point it at, including a Tithely giving link or a Pushpay giving page. It does not touch the money and it does not replace your platform.

We sell the plates. You keep the platform you already chose. Tap.Giving does not process payments and does not compete with Tithely or Pushpay, so whichever way the comparison above lands, the plates work with it.

Tap.Giving plates are $3.50 to $4.50 each depending on quantity, one time, with free shipping, no monthly fees, and a 100-plate minimum. That is $4.50 each for 100 to 199 plates, $4.00 for 200 to 399, and $3.50 for 400 or more. The plates are custom 4-inch printed with your church's own artwork, delivery is typically 2-3 weeks from artwork approval, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. First orders get 10% off for 14 days from first contact.

See pricing or design a plate if that is useful. If it is not, the platform comparison above stands on its own, and choosing Tithely or Pushpay well matters far more to your budget than what you mount on the chair backs.

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