Church texting services compared, with 2026 prices

A church texting service sends one text to many people at once from the church’s own phone number, and it collects the replies in one inbox the staff can read. Most of them also let people join a list by texting a keyword, such as texting GRACE to the church’s number. This page compares what seven services charge, and every price was read off the company’s own pricing page on October 12, 2026.

This is the whole job, as a member sees it. One text from the church number, and the replies land in one inbox.

Cedar Hill nursery team: you are on this Sunday at 10:30, room 2. Reply YES to confirm or NO and we will find a sub.

Two terms that set the price

Services charge by the credit, and one credit usually buys one text of up to 160 characters sent to one person. A longer text, an emoji or a picture uses more than one credit, so read each company’s rule before you count. A picture message is called an MMS, and it costs two or three credits at most of these services.

The comparison below prices a church that texts 250 people four times a month, which comes to about 1,000 texts.

Prices at about 1,000 texts a month

Here is what that church pays at each, before taxes.

• Clearstream: $35 a month, or about $29 paid yearly with its 16% discount.
• Text In Church: $35 a month on Core. Plus is $45 and Suite is $60 for the same number of credits, with more features.
• SimpleTexting: $49 for the plan, $10 for the number and about $2.50 in carrier fees, which is about $61.50. SimpleTexting takes 15% off monthly plans for churches.
• EZ Texting: $25 for 500 credits, $20 for 500 more at 4 cents, and the $5 telecom fee, which is $50, plus carrier fees billed by use.
• Flocknote: $58 a month for a church of 201 to 400 members, and standard texts are unlimited. A standard text is under 160 characters with no picture, and anything longer is a SuperText, sold by the credit at prices the page does not print.
• Breeze: the 250 texts come with the $72 church management subscription, and 750 more cost $20 by the pricing page. Breeze’s own help article gives a different price, 1.9 cents a text once Unlimited Texting is on, so ask which one applies.
• ChurchTrac: four blocks of 250 credits cost $28 a month, on top of the church management subscription.

Pushpay says its church communications product sends group texts “with no fees or limits,” and it publishes no price, so it is not in the table.

Every church number has to be registered

US phone carriers require any organization that texts from software to register first. For a local ten-digit number the registration is called A2P 10DLC, which stands for application-to-person texting over a ten-digit long code. Twilio, the company behind many of these services, says it “blocks messages to U.S. numbers when you send from a +1 10DLC number that is not associated with an approved A2P 10DLC Campaign.” Every service above has to register your church before your texts go out.

Ask each company who files the registration and what it charges.

• Clearstream says it registers numbers “at no additional cost.”
• Text In Church lists “Priority 10DLC Registration” on every plan.
• EZ Texting includes “carrier registration at no extra cost.”
• SimpleTexting charges $4 once for carrier registration, plus $4 to activate the number.

Registration asks for the church’s legal name and its EIN, the federal tax number on the church’s IRS paperwork, typed exactly as the IRS has them. Twilio says most rejected registrations fail because the name or address does not match the tax record. Allow two to three weeks before the first text.

Texting through Twilio

A church can also open its own account at Twilio and pay Twilio’s prices. A segment is one piece of up to 160 characters, so a short text is one segment. Each segment costs $0.0083, and the carriers add between $0.0035 and $0.005 a segment. A local number costs $1.15 a month. Registration costs $4.50 once for the church and $15 once for the campaign, which is the registration of what the church will send and to whom, and a low-volume campaign costs $1.50 a month.

At 1,000 texts a month that comes to about $15 a month, after $19.50 once. Twilio provides no screens for writing and sending texts to a congregation, so a church needs software on top of it.

Free Church Texting is software from our partner for this, and it is being rebuilt. It runs on your church’s own Twilio account, so your church pays Twilio for its texts and pays Free Church Texting nothing, and it walks you through the registration step by step. The message screen is below, and the weekly email at the foot of this page will tell you when the rebuilt version opens.

Free tool you can try here

Text your members for free

Type a message and see how it reads on a member’s phone. Free Church Texting, software from our partner, sends it from one shared inbox.

Who gets it Nursery volunteersYouth groupEveryoneChoir

Your message Cedar Hill nursery team: you are on this Sunday at 10:30, room 2. Reply YES to confirm or NO and we will find a sub. 0 of 160 characters

C Nursery volunteers
Cedar Hill, shared inbox

Cedar Hill nursery team: you are on this Sunday at 10:30, room 2. Reply YES to confirm or NO and we will find a sub.

Count us in!

We will be 10 minutes late.

Open Free Church Texting

The software is free. A church opens its own Twilio account and pays Twilio’s rates directly, and nothing is added.

Church Posting partners with Free Church Texting and recommends it. They share owners.

How to choose

1. Look at what you already pay for. Breeze includes 250 texts a month, and Flocknote includes standard texts on every plan, so a church already on one of them may need nothing more.
2. Count your texts by multiplying the people on your list by the texts you send each month, and add a third more for weeks with a cancellation or a funeral.
3. Ask each service in writing who files the registration, what it costs, and how long it took for the last church they signed up.
4. Send a test text and answer it from your own phone, and check that the reply reaches a shared inbox two staff members can see.
5. Find out how you leave. You should be able to export your contacts and the record of who agreed to receive texts, and take your number with you.

The rules in short

Text only people who have asked for texts, and keep a record of when and how each person asked. When someone replies STOP, stop texting them. Federal rules give a sender no more than ten business days to honor that request, and most services stop at once. Send group texts during the day, and keep fundraising and event promotions out of a list people joined for service reminders.

Our guide to church texting rules and carrier registration covers the consent rules in full.