Comparison

WeShare vs Tap.Giving: 5-Year Cost for Parishes (2026)

WeShare by LPi is a Catholic-friendly online giving platform with software fees that recur month after month. Tap.Giving plates are a one-time NFC hardware purchase that opens whatever URL WeShare (or any other platform) hands you. Here is the side-by-side math for a 200-seat parish.

June 29, 2026

9 min read

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The 30-Second Snapshot

WeShare is the online giving product built by LPi, the same Catholic publisher that prints parish bulletins and parish directories in dioceses across the United States. Public 2026 pricing for WeShare giving lands in the $40 to $100 per month range, plus a setup fee in the $99 to $499 range and processor fees of roughly 2.95 percent plus $0.45 per card transaction. Tap.Giving plates are $3.50 to $4.50 each, one-time, with free shipping and no monthly fees. The plates do not replace WeShare. They are the in-pew hardware layer that gets a parishioner's phone to your WeShare URL in about 8 seconds, which is how NFC giving routinely converts first-time Mass guests at a rate that QR codes never reach.

If you want the cheapest possible parish giving setup, drop WeShare as your processor, pick a lighter platform, and add tap plates. If your parish already relies on LPi for bulletins and directory work, keep WeShare and add plates on top. Either way, the plate cost is fixed and the bill never comes back.

What WeShare and Tap.Giving Actually Are

WeShare by LPi

Online giving SaaS built for Catholic parishes
Bundled with LPi bulletin and directory accounts in many dioceses
Monthly subscription, plus setup and per-transaction fees
Handles donor records, statements, recurring schedules, parish reports

Tap.Giving

NFC tap plates, sold as hardware only
One-time $3.50 to $4.50 per plate, no monthly fees
Opens whatever giving URL you already use
Works with WeShare, ParishSOFT Giving, Pushpay, Subsplash, Donorbox, Givelify, Anedot, Planning Center Giving, Nucleus Giving

The two products do not compete on the same axis. WeShare processes online donations, stores donor records, and produces the year-end tax statements your finance council expects. Tap.Giving plates put a 4-inch chip on each pew and entry table so parishioners can tap to give without scanning a QR code, opening an app, or fishing for envelopes. You can use both at the same time, and most of our Catholic-parish customers do. For a deeper read on the broader Catholic giving stack, see our NFC giving for Catholic parishes guide.

5-Year Cost Comparison for a 200-Seat Parish

LPi does not publish WeShare pricing on a public page, so the numbers below come from quotes parishes have shared and from publicly visible parish-tech reviews. Treat every line as conservative: real quotes can stack higher when WeShare is bundled with the printed bulletin contract or a parish directory renewal. Both columns assume the same online giving volume, so the per-transaction processor fee is a wash and is not double counted.

Line Item	WeShare by LPi	Tap.Giving Plates
Setup / activation	$99 to $499 (commonly $199)	$0
Monthly software fee	$40 to $100 (commonly $70)	$0
Annual software fee	$840	$0
5-year software fees	$4,200	$0
Setup fee, total	$199	$0
Hardware (200 plates)	$0 (no in-pew hardware)	$800 (200 plates at $4.00)
Transaction processor	~2.95% + $0.45 per card	~2.9% + $0.30 (your platform's normal rate)
5-year total (fixed costs)	$4,399	$800
5-year savings with plates	$3,599 in software fees alone. Once you factor in roughly 300 percent in extra in-pew donations that NFC giving routinely produces for parishes, the all-in opportunity gap is closer to $5,200 or more over 5 years.

The point of the table is not that WeShare is wrong for parish giving. It is that recurring software fees compound silently while one-time hardware does not. For the category-wide pattern, see our hidden costs of church giving platforms breakdown and the full Tap.Giving pricing page.

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Feature Side-By-Side

Capability	WeShare by LPi	Tap.Giving
NFC tap to donate hardware	Not in the box	Yes, the whole product
Online giving page	Yes	Uses the page you already have
Donor records and parish statements	Yes	N/A (your platform owns this)
Recurring giving	Yes	Yes, via your giving page
Monthly fee	$40 to $100	$0
Setup fee	$99 to $499	$0
Platform agnostic	No, WeShare only	Yes, works with any giving URL
In-pew participation lift	Depends on the page UX	300 percent plus lift typical

The simplest way to think about it: WeShare owns the back-office of parish giving, and contactless giving hardware owns the in-pew side. Pairing them is normal. For broader context on tap technology for churches as a category, the church giving technology guide walks through the whole stack, and the tap to give platform comparison sets WeShare alongside Pushpay, Tithely, and Subsplash.

Using Tap Plates With Your WeShare URL

If you keep WeShare and add tap plates, the setup is short. Plates do not log into WeShare. They store a single URL. That URL is your existing WeShare giving page.

1. Grab the WeShare giving URL

Sign in to your WeShare admin console, open the parish giving page, and copy the public donation URL. It usually lives at weshareonline.org/your-parish or a custom subdomain LPi configured for your diocese. Open it on a phone and make sure the page loads cleanly and lets a Mass guest give without a forced account. If it does not, fix that first, see why a giving page loses donations.

2. Send the URL plus your parish logo to us

Add a vector logo (.ai, .svg, or vector .pdf) so the parish mark prints sharp at 4-inch diameter, plus the WeShare URL for the chip. The editable proof updates instantly, and manufacturing begins only after artwork approval. Most parishes order 100 to 400 plates; see how many NFC tap plates a church needs for sizing guidance.

3. Mount and announce

Adhesive back for wood pews, pre-drilled holes for screws, or elastic bands for chairs without a flat back. Demonstrate one tap from the ambo on the first Sunday. Our launch playbook has the announcement script we send parishes in week one, plus the chair-mount step-by-step guide.

Once the plates are mounted, every tap opens WeShare's hosted giving page in the giver's phone browser. WeShare processes the donation exactly as it would for an online gift typed into a desktop browser. The plate does not see donor information at any point and the chip is unaware whether anyone tapped it.

When to Pick WeShare Anyway

There are real reasons to stay on WeShare, especially in parishes that already lean on LPi for bulletin and directory work.

Keep WeShare if your parish is already paying LPi for the printed Sunday bulletin, the parish directory, or eNotes, and the bulletin contract is bundled with WeShare as part of the same diocesan agreement. Switching the giving piece alone rarely justifies the migration work, and WeShare's parish-tuned reporting, statement letters, and second-collection support are mature. Add Tap.Giving plates to that existing setup and you get the in-pew participation lift without changing what the finance team uses on Monday morning.

Where WeShare stops being a fit is when a parish is only using it for online donations and pays no attention to the printed bulletin side. At that point you are paying for a bundled platform to do the job a lighter giving page from Donorbox, Anedot, or Planning Center Giving would do for much less per month. Pair the lighter platform with tap plates and the spending pattern flips from "monthly forever" to "one-time, done." Comparable cost arguments show up in our best online giving platforms for churches roundup and the ParishSOFT Giving vs Tap.Giving piece, which covers another common parish migration path.

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FAQ

What is WeShare and who makes it?

WeShare is an online giving platform built by LPi (Liturgical Publications Inc.), a Wisconsin-based company that has served Catholic parishes for decades with bulletin printing, directories, and digital tools. WeShare is bundled with LPi parish accounts in many dioceses and sold as a standalone offering in others. Tap.Giving sells NFC tap plates that work alongside WeShare without replacing it.

How much does WeShare cost in 2026?

LPi does not publish WeShare pricing on a public page. Parishes that have shared their quotes generally land in the $40 to $100 per month range for the giving piece, plus a setup fee in the $99 to $499 range and processor fees of about 2.95 percent plus $0.45 per card transaction. Treat any quote as a negotiated price tied to your diocese and your bundled LPi services.

Can NFC tap plates work with a WeShare giving URL?

Yes. WeShare gives every parish a mobile-friendly giving page URL. Tap.Giving plates encode that URL onto an NFC chip, so a tap opens your existing WeShare giving page in the giver's phone browser. There is no integration, API, or account login required. The donation flows into WeShare exactly as if a parishioner had typed the URL into Safari or Chrome.

Will adding tap plates require switching off WeShare?

No. Tap.Giving is hardware, not a giving platform. Every donor record, recurring schedule, and tax statement stays in WeShare. The plate is a sign post pointing at your WeShare URL. If your parish later decides to move to Pushpay, Subsplash, Donorbox, Givelify, Anedot, Planning Center Giving, ParishSOFT Giving, or Nucleus Giving, plan an export of donor history from WeShare before you cancel anything.

What does a 200-seat parish save by adding plates instead of staying on WeShare alone?

A 200-seat parish pays $800 one-time for 200 plates at $4.00 each. Over five years that is the entire hardware spend. Compared with about $70 per month in WeShare software fees, the plates pay for themselves before the end of year one through in-service participation gains alone. Parishes that launch tap to give routinely see 300 percent or more in additional digital donations from the offertory.

Is WeShare specifically a Catholic platform?

WeShare is operated by LPi, which built its business on Catholic parish bulletins and directories, so the language, reporting, and account templates are tuned for Catholic parishes. Some non-Catholic congregations use WeShare, but the bulk of the customer base is Catholic. Tap.Giving plates are denominationally neutral and work with whatever WeShare page LPi has set up for your parish.

Which parishes should keep WeShare anyway?

Parishes that already use the broader LPi ecosystem (printed bulletins, parish directory, eNotes) for diocesan reporting should keep WeShare and add Tap.Giving plates on top. The plates point at the WeShare URL you already have. Parishes that signed up for WeShare only for online donations and ignore the bulletin side can usually move to a lighter giving platform plus tap plates and cut their giving overhead by half or more.

Guide